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I think this now needs its own thread or perhaps to be merged with the old one.
I can confirm that Lee is the candidate - the source is a member of the Fine Gael front bench who is a close personal friend of mine out there in the real world. As some posters will also know, I am a member of the party, also.
It was confirmed to me at 9.30 this evening at a social gathering I attended with said friend in Dublin.
The background is as follows..
George was approached by Richard Bruton and Phil Hogan in 2007 about standing on a three person ticket in Dublin South - at the time there was still uncertainty about whether or not Alan Shatter would return to politics.
George was involved in the party in the 1980's while a student at UCD and is personally known to many senior figures outside of his current day job.
He decided in 2007 that his work was not yet done with RTE and he declined the invitation. One also suspects that he may have felt getting three TD's elected might have been difficult in the climate of the day when many of his accurate predictions had yet to come to pass.
He agreed some months back to stand now, hence the reason why Enda Kenny was so keen to move the by election writ despite some people wondering could they take the seat given Labour's strong candidate in that area.
The reason the RTE press office denied it is that they don't know. Obviously, if George had resigned before now, they themselves would have run the story on their news.
What will happen tomorrow is as follows, one hour before the press conference to announce his candidacy, George will serve notice of his intention to stand to his employers. That will obviously disbar him from appearing on television or radio as a journalist with immediate effect.
The campaign will then begin in Dublin South and RTE will have to find a temporary economics editor (hopefully to become full time).
I am 100 per cent certain on this. If I am wrong, I promise never to post here again which I think is fair enough.
If a mod wishes to PM me, I should be online for the next hour or so as I have some correspondence to complete.
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Originally Posted by PetevonPete
