I arrived late at City West this evening, as is my wont, but still caught most of the plenary session where Cowen defended the policy of local election candidates being selected by HQ. In fact, he managed to come down equally on both sides of that argument, saying he had “no problem” with the motion objecting to the new selection process.
Earlier, Batt O’Keeffe had a sit down with Ógra about college fees. I’m told he gave off the impression that the debate on their reintroduction is closed: they’re back. The only thing left to be decided is how to implement them: loans, graduate tax…
FF operatives were a little non-plussed by the kerfuffle on Wednesday. Speaking to a party official earlier, he said all advance notices of the event that he saw clearly mentioned it was a Fianna Fáil gig. He was also keen to stress that the party took the iniative in inviting bloggers to a talk by Obama’s New Media guy, when they could have just confined it to pol corrs.
I’m also told the website’s invitation to the public to submit question to Cowen online has received 400 submissions since it went live on Wednesday. It’s not clear how many came from FF members.
And stuff you’ll read in the papers tomorrow:
- FF are to draft a proposal to join a pan-European grouping of liberals and centrists in the European Parliament, as the Union for Europe of the Nations is becoming a little uncomfortable with the Austrian far right Freedom Party trying to get in.
- Cowen wants tighter controls on funding for parties and campaign groups in advance of the second Lisbon referendum. Latest poll looks positive for the Treaty.
More from City West in the morning. (BTW, this place is only massive and security is crazy.)
[...] Fianna Fáil’s total screwup last week over Joe Rospar which had them state this He was also keen to stress that the party took the iniative in inviting bloggers to a talk by [...]