Chief Rat says: 'I'm staying' as all other Rats beat a hasty retreat

PD's pretend they have options other than Harney

Mary Harney is to remain on as leader of the Progressive Democrats.

The Minister for Health has been acting leader since former Tánaiste Michael McDowell lost his seat in the General Election, and resigned from politics.

She said this was only a temporary measure as she did not want the job permanently, but at a PD parliamentary party meeting last night, she agreed to formally take over the position.

It now seems that the leadership contest planned for the Autumn will not take place.

Harney's reluctance is understandable now that people are beginning to wise up to the real nature of the PD"s Raison d'être. Not long ago, eyebrows were raised when Ex-Junior Minister of State, Tom Parlon (booted out of office by the Laois-Offaly voters, despite his christening of the area as 'Parlon Country') decided to accept a job with the Builders pressure/lobby-group, The Construction Industry Federation.

As part of his role in the last government, the former Laois-Offaly TD oversaw the Office of Public Works, which gives out lucrative contracts to construction firms.

Why this should come as a surprise to anyone totally astounds me:

In the free-market world of job employment, business ethics has become a privatised matter. By this material standard, Mr Parlon, who was reportedly head-hunted by the captains of brick and mortar, has followed this principle of mammon.

Ah, the principle of mammon, a phrase I think PD members and politicos have tattooed on the inside of their eyelids to constantly remind them of which God they serve.

Throughout their brief history the PD's have been at pains to remind us at every opportunity that they are in favour of private enterprise because it offers best value-for-money, so it is interesting that Parlon's first task in his new €250,000-a-year-post will be to attack the Gov'ts plans for obtaining value-for-money from the members of Construction Industry Federation (CIF):

The country's biggest builders' lobby group is confident that former Minister of State Tom Parlon will head up a legal challenge to a Government policy he once supported.

The 53-year-old, who has taken up a €250,000-a-year-post as head of the Construction Industry Federation (CIF), will oversee its legal action against the new system of awarding fixed price state contracts.

A spokesman for the CIF confirmed that he would be responsible for following through the decision to challenge the move in the European Court of Justice.

"I'm sure Tom, given his background, will be a more than capable leader," its head of public affairs Martin Whelan said.

Last February, the government introduced the fixed price contracts for public building contracts in a bid to halt massive cost over-runs in such developments.


Mr Parlon, who was then Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works (OPW), described them as a "key reform" and said they would lead to "greater price certainty".

Hypocrisy, thy name is Progressive Democrat Tom Parlon

PS:
While searching for images to use in this post, I found this:



which gave me a good laugh