Did Dan Boyle lie about NAMA to the Green Special Convention in October?

[OceanFrog]

Very interesting post on Arthur Doohan's blog re what Dan Boyle said about NAMA at the Green Special Convention last month.

From Doohan's Blog 4th Nov 2009 ... "Dan Boyle has admitted that he didn’t know that the biggest financial gamble in the States history wasn’t actually a ‘money bill’ and therefore not actually a Government-dissolving piece of legislation.

This occurred on his F’book page this weekend and comes a few days after he swore blind to the contrary, in front of 600 GP members in an extended ‘civics lecture’ of a speech, at the Special Convention.

He spent some time elaborating the technical grounds on which a Govt might collapse. One of these is the rejection of a ‘finance bill’. In fact, under the Constitution and the Dail’s standing orders, there is no such thing as a ‘finance bill’; these things are correctly called ‘money bill’s’. But our Dan is clearly not one letting the facts get in the way of a good ‘yarn’.

He explicitly said that NAMA fell into this category while telling those who had just voted on a ‘new’ Programme for Government’ that if they didn’t back NAMA that the Govt. would fall.

When told of his error, his rejoinder was that it doesn’t matter as a rejection would have the same ‘political’ impact."


So this unelected, verbose, windbag tell a bare faced lie to the delegates at the Special Convention about possibly the most piece of leglislation in the history of the State?

Did he bully them into voting for NAMA with the threat that the Govt would fall if they rejected it?

Or was he being as honest as possible ... he just got bit "confused"?

[Malbekh]

I think you're giving Mr Boyle too much credit, nobody else does.

[Digout]

Who listens to this windbag anyway? Sure we were promised a levy on the banks also, FF stuffed the Greens pretty quickly on that one. Sure the Green convention was stuffed with the new Greens, who were put in by FF to get special votes passed.

[DerekOwens]

Very interesting post on Arthur Doohan's blog re what Dan Boyle said about NAMA at the Green Special Convention last month.

From Doohan's Blog 4th Nov 2009 ... "Dan Boyle has admitted that he didn’t know that the biggest financial gamble in the States history wasn’t actually a ‘money bill’ and therefore not actually a Government-dissolving piece of legislation.

This occurred on his F’book page this weekend and comes a few days after he swore blind to the contrary, in front of 600 GP members in an extended ‘civics lecture’ of a speech, at the Special Convention.

He spent some time elaborating the technical grounds on which a Govt might collapse. One of these is the rejection of a ‘finance bill’. In fact, under the Constitution and the Dail’s standing orders, there is no such thing as a ‘finance bill’; these things are correctly called ‘money bill’s’. But our Dan is clearly not one letting the facts get in the way of a good ‘yarn’.

He explicitly said that NAMA fell into this category while telling those who had just voted on a ‘new’ Programme for Government’ that if they didn’t back NAMA that the Govt. would fall.

When told of his error, his rejoinder was that it doesn’t matter as a rejection would have the same ‘political’ impact."


So this unelected, verbose, windbag tell a bare faced lie to the delegates at the Special Convention about possibly the most piece of leglislation in the history of the State?

Did he bully them into voting for NAMA with the threat that the Govt would fall if they rejected it?

Or was he being as honest as possible ... he just got bit "confused"?

I think he was confused, and I also think this is splitting hairs. The Government would have fallen if NAMA hadn't gone through.

[OceanFrog]

I think he was confused, and I also think this is splitting hairs. The Government would have fallen if NAMA hadn't gone through.

One man's "hair splitting" is another man's bare faced lie ...

[OceanFrog]

I think you're giving Mr Boyle too much credit, nobody else does.

I was being sarcastic there Mal ...

[Digout]

Its further evidence we need this administration gone ASAP. As soon as they are gone, its the last we will hear from Boyle in public life. The cheek of him going on the telly or radio, he's a failed politician.

[Digout]

from his twitter

If we're lucky not a penny of taxpayers money will be wasted. For a ten year period failure is less not more likely.

Its all down to luck now....what a muppet. He's talking about 10 years, has he not seen that prices for houses are dropping by 1.1% a month at the moment?

[Earnest]

I think he was confused, and I also think this is splitting hairs. The Government would have fallen if NAMA hadn't gone through.

Whether Dan Boyle was confused or not is irrelevant. John Gormley had already said publicly that if the Convention voted against NAMA the government would fall.

[OceanFrog]

Whether Dan Boyle was confused or not is irrelevant. John Gormley had already said publicly that if the Convention voted against NAMA the government would fall.

You may have misunderstood the OP there earnest. We are talking about whether or not Boyle deliberately lied to the Convention.

Dan Boyle has admitted that he didn’t know that NAMA wasn’t actually a ‘money bill’ and therefore not actually a Government-dissolving piece of legislation. At the Convention in front of 600 GP members he swore blind to the exact contrary. Boyle spent some time elaborating the technical grounds on which a Govt might collapse. One of these is the rejection of a ‘finance bill’. In fact, under the Constitution and the Dail’s standing orders, there is no such thing as a ‘finance bill’; these things are correctly called ‘money bill’s’.

Clearly, what Boyle said was not even remotely accurate. The question is did he deliberately lie to Convention?