John Gormley

Well done to all who organised the Blogging the Election conference on Saturday. I was unable to attend because of a couple of other commitments. I did manage to catch the proceedings on the web and in this morning’s Irish Times (subscription required) – and it looked interesting. The fact that I could not attend highlights the real difficulty for politicians when it comes to blogging - time poverty. It just isn’t easy to grab a few moments in the day to compose your thoughts. Another problem is that much of what is really interesting in Leinster House ie the gossip, the rumours etc are simply unprintable. A TD could write a very entertaining blog if were done anonymously.

Ciarán Cuffe did a good piece in the Times on Saturday, but he probably overstates the effectiveness of blogging as a communications tool. Browsing the web is still a relatively exclusive pursuit. In my experience, many voters still use the Internet for e-mail and that’s about it. All of that may change, especially as if broadband speeds increase and there’s more broadband penetration. The less high-tech approach of knocking on doors, looking the voter in the eye, communicating your message, is still the most effective.

It looks like the PDs and FF will patch things up. Michael Mc, I’m afraid, has cried wolf too many times now. He’ll probably try to salvage a shred of credibility by getting some form of new ethics legislation passed. You can see my thoughts on this in the press release I did this morning.

Technorati tag: irishblogcon

Statement by John Gormley TD, Green Party Chairman

“It is welcome that, at long last, the debate on Bertiegate is now beginning to address the inadequacy of Irish ethics legislation. However, the legislative changes being sought by the Tánaiste amount to nothing more than window dressing. It confirms that his discussions with the Taoiseach are really focusing on how best they can ’spin’ their way out of this crisis. (more…)