Cowen interview on Morning Irleand

Coveneys biggest problem was using twitter. As someone else mentioned, politicians need to grow up. Same with Dan Boyle.

Having said that, I was in London yesterday meeting people from a large financial institution and they were telling me about it. I only heard it when I got home last night. It was really unprofessional. I have no problem with people staying up till 3am and having a few drinks but I wouldn't do it if I knew I was presenting something or meeting someone the next morning and I am not leader of this Country. The interview was planned. Cowan knew he had to do it. He is not 18 anymore. He should be able to tell the boys that he has to take it easy because he has an early appointment talking to half a million people.
 
Blown out of all proportion. Cowen still gave decent answers (by politician standards) to what he was asked. It wasn't as if he slurred his way through the interview, like many would have you believe.

Must have been a slow news day.

Anyone remember all the shenanigans Berlusconi has got up to over the last decade? Cowen is like an altar boy compared to him.
 
Whilst I wouldn't begrudge Cowan or anyone else a drink and a bit of craic, the reality is that life is often about perception. The international perception of Ireland as a nation is that our finances are in meltdown due to our inability to deal with the banking crisis and hence interest rates for Irish Govt borrowing is rising as we're deemed to be in danger of being the next Greece. On top of that, there is now potentially the perception that whilst all of that is going on, our leader is a drunk. It doesn't matter whether it's true or not, it's what it is perceived to be.

Coveney was right to highlight the poor quality of Cowans' performance, not just yesterday, but in most speeches and interviews. Frannkly, sober, hungover or drunk, Cowan is poor at getting things across. Coveney was wrong to allege Cowan was drunk or hungover without having full facts.

I'm just waiting now for St Enda to come out and say he'll take the pledge for when he is elected Taoiseach. !!
 
RMCF said:
Blown out of all proportion. Cowen still gave decent answers (by politician standards) to what he was asked. It wasn't as if he slurred his way through the interview, like many would have you believe.

Must have been a slow news day.

Anyone remember all the shenanigans Berlusconi has got up to over the last decade? Cowen is like an altar boy compared to him.
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I agree he didn't sound drunk but he did sound like he was after a big night out. Nothing wrong with that. We have all been there. Difference is how many of us stay in the bar singing and drinking till 3.30-4am knowing we had a radio interview at 8.30am?
 
You can't say for definite that he WAS drunk. You don't know how many pints he had, or were you there beside him at the bar??
 
PaddyW said:
You can't say for definite that he WAS drunk. You don't know how many pints he had, or were you there beside him at the bar??
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As MpSox has said tho Paddy, whether he was or not is irrelevant, it's all about perception and the story is out now and the damage done. Blaming Coveney is just FF trying to dodge the issue as it wasn't he who published the story in hundreds of articles worldwide, there were many more than he listening in to the interview.
I think it's a bit of a non story personally but once again it points to Cowen being completely clueless when it comes to judgement.
 
While Coveney should have shut up and let the journos run the story, that was more a lack of cuteness rather than any campaign to hang Cowan out to dry - he was doing a quite brilliant job of that himself.

Agree though that its damaging to the country to have it put up in lights, the first 4 pages of the Indo (metro) jammed with it. Cowan seems to now be a magnet for negativity and I'm starting to form the view that it would benefit the country if he stepped down as Taoiseach (before the inevitable loss of power anyway in the election).

Politics being as it is it'll probably take the election for him to step aside.

Time for the press to stop wallowing in misery and calamity, are they on a mission to make sure we never recover economically???
 
Mpsox said:
I'm just waiting now for St Enda to come out and say he'll take the pledge for when he is elected Taoiseach. !!
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:p haha

I agree that this story is overshadowing the bigger issues and taking the spotlight away from the real problems in our country. I also agree that he should be allowed a drink and a night off and time to relax etc. But I think that if you know you're getting up the next morning for a radio interview to talk about the state of the nation you would have a bit more sense about you, you know thousands of people will be listening and you're likely to get a grilling, you want to have your wits about you and your mind working at it's best to cope with the questions thrown at you.

And if he was still drinking at 3.30 am then the alcohol would still be in his system at 8.30 am, any garda can tell you that and any person who has ever been breathalysed can tell you that.

But I think enough has been said on the matter and it's now time to get back to the real issues and take this off the frontpage of newspapers all over the world.
 
I think the whole sorry episode shows up that in this time of major crisis we shouldn't have our politicians having little snipes at each other the way they do in normal times.

We are on the edge and if anything need a national Gov, and all our politicians should be burying differences until we get ourselves out of this mess.

Acting like school boys does no side any favours. Or any of us.
 
Has anyone actually made any really damning claims: e.g. smell of drink, bloodshot eyes etc?

I certainly haven't heard anything like this.

Bad decision from Cowan but not a huge deal IMO.

Non-story, likely to be pounced on with glee by the English tabloids though. I shudder to think how the mail will report it.
 
Caveat said:
Non-story, likely to be pounced on with glee by the English tabloids though. I shudder to think how the mail will report it.
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Just back from the shops. The array of newspaper headlines is deeply embarrassing (or should be :rolleyes:) for the BIFFO. One photo of him holding (or Photoshopped) a pint of Carlsberg appears on 2 different papers, each using a headline along the lines of the 'Probably ..' slogan.
 
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Just on a tangent to this, does anyone else think it was a complete waste of RTE's resources to send Cathal Mac Coille (and presumably at least 2 other people ie producer and/or sound person) to Galway the night before, pay for them to go down put them up in a hotel all for a 10 minute interview that could have been done on the phone?

They already had David Davin-Power and his crew down there as well.
 
According to a tweet I saw this morning ..

.. the only member of the Cabinet who thought that Brian Cowen's performance was worthy of an apology was .. Brian Cowen :eek: !

It may be a while before Mary Hanafin is asked to go out again and defend the indefensible.
 
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