St Patricks Day 2012

St Patricks Day 2012, a set on Flickr.

My photos from the Dublin St Patricks Day Parade. 85 might seem like a lot but it took me hours to cut it down to this many from over 1100 :-)

Sean, leave it

I have to wonder what Sean Gallagher thinks he's going to achieve by calling for a public inquiry into the tweet that was read out during the Frontline Presidential Debate? Ok it was wrong and his campaign was completely derailed by it but what good will an inquiry do him now?

In the aftermath of the election it's become clear that the tweet was a fake and that Gallagher was hard done by. The BAI found in his favour and he could easily claim it proved his innocence. If the election was run now he might do better but he still wouldn't win, in the end many people were put off by the whole Fianna Fail connection not just the question of wether or not he'd picked up a donation for the party. That said if he did decide to run for the Dail then he might actually have a shot at it. A high profile, intelligent candidate he'd get enough former Fianna Fail voters on his side to get a quota from somewhere.

So why keep the issue in the headlines now? What would a public inquiry achieve except to provide employment for some of the Mahon Tribunal lawyers about to be released from the teet of that golden calf? It will also draw attention to his involvement in Fianna Fail, the logical defence for RTE on the tweet issue is to explain that it was an easy mistake to make given Gallaghers involvement in Fianna Fail and then follow it up with more examples of Gallaghers party activities. Innocent or not if the media keeps showing us pictures of him with the likes of Ahern and Cowen or at party events eventually the public will begin to see him as just another Fianna Fail failure and he'll scare away those who would vote for him as a man different from the others.

Maybe it's time for someone in his campaign team to take him out for coffee and say "Sean, leave it, you can fight the battle at the next election".