Mary Coughlan - Tanaiste

[Cliff Barnes]

Has there ever been a more useless "foot in mouth" Minister in this state ?

Totally destroyed in todays letters in the Irish Times.

Totally out of her depth in a time when great leadership and vision is required.

[jd26]

She should never have been appointed. But then, she should have been sacked when she went for the meeting with Dell executives to see what could be salvaged from the Limerick situation and started staring at them.

TD is probably out of her depth; Junior minister definitely is; But somehow she has a cabinet post and a senior one at that.

If Cowen wants to regain credibility as a leader, he needs a reshuffle where he clears out the deadwood - Sweary Mary, Martin Cullen, Willie O'Dea, Mary Harney, Brendan Smith, Éamon Ó Cuív, Mary Hanafin and maybe Noel Dempsey - and replaces them with a new more focussed and better skilled group.

[Cliff Barnes]

She should never have been appointed. But then, she should have been sacked when she went for the meeting with Dell executives to see what could be salvaged from the Limerick situation and started staring at them.

TD is probably out of her depth; Junior minister definitely is; But somehow she has a cabinet post and a senior one at that.

If Cowen wants to regain credibility as a leader, he needs a reshuffle where he clears out the deadwood - Sweary Mary, Martin Cullen, Willie O'Dea, Mary Harney, Brendan Smith, Éamon Ó Cuív, Mary Hanafin and maybe Noel Dempsey - and replaces them with a new more focussed and better skilled group.

How many of that group of wastrels are only there due to geographical reasons to attract the vote to F.F. ?

She is very very poor and I am amazed how she is still there but looking at that list there is a major re-shuffle required for this "rabbit stuck in the headlights" Government.

[Beaty]

How many of that group of wastrels are only there due to geographical reasons to attract the vote to F.F. ?

She is very very poor and I am amazed how she is still there but looking at that list there is a major re-shuffle required for this "rabbit stuck in the headlights" Government.

Cowens's drinking butty, that is all.

Looks like one of those brooms with a fabric horses head we used to play on as kids.

S

[jd26]

How many of that group of wastrels are only there due to geographical reasons to attract the vote to F.F. ?

Other than Mary Hanafin, they're all there for geographical reasons - which tells you all you need to know about their party colleagues in the area. I might have been unfair in putting Hanafin in. She hasn't been good at her current job, but she wasn't too bad as Minister for Education (although she did have a tendency to throw all the funding at special needs education at primary level) or as Minister for Children.

Some other things that list of shame have in common.

Four of the eight were the children or grandchildren of politicians

Three of the eight were TDs before their 30th birthday. In fact, I'm not sure that Harney or Coughlan has ever had a proper job. Harney was appointed a senator just 6 months after leaving Trinity. Coughlan inherited her father's seat when she was just 21 only months after finishing undergraduate studies at UCD.

[Actin The Sham]

Other than Mary Hanafin, they're all there for geographical reasons - which tells you all you need to know about their party colleagues in the area. I might have been unfair in putting Hanafin in. She hasn't been good at her current job, but she wasn't too bad as Minister for Education (although she did have a tendency to throw all the funding at special needs education at primary level) or as Minister for Children.

Some other things that list of shame have in common.

Four of the eight were the children or grandchildren of politicians

Three of the eight were TDs before their 30th birthday. In fact, I'm not sure that Harney or Coughlan has ever had a proper job. Harney was appointed a senator just 6 months after leaving Trinity. Coughlan inherited her father's seat when she was just 21 only months after finishing undergraduate studies at UCD.


How do you mean "started staring at the Dell executives?"

Is that all she did? She has no idea what she is doing. She was going on about competitiveness again last night after the element six closure and I got the impression that she has accepted that if we have 500,000 on the dole the price of labour will fall.

She should be sacked straight away, she is out of her depth.

I'm not being smart here now, but I'd put Eamonn Ryan in there.

[jd26]

How do you mean "started staring at the Dell executives?"

Sorry.

That should have read "swearing"

Hence, her new nickname of Sweary Mary

[Actin The Sham]

Sorry.

That should have read "swearing"

Hence, her new nickname of Sweary Mary

Oh Jesus.

That makes it even worse. What the hell did she say? I'd love to know.


With Pfizer buying Wyeth and Merck buying Schering Plough, there will be a lot more negotiations with large US multinationals coming down the track, and she should be kept far away from them.


I can see Wyeth laying off hundreds in Newbridge and Schering Plough laying off people in Swords.

[vanzandt]

Has there ever been a more useless "foot in mouth" Minister in this state ?

Totally destroyed in todays letters in the Irish Times.

Totally out of her depth in a time when great leadership and vision is required.

Says it all,if it was another country she would be jailed for the demise of the state,these bastards will not be satisfied until they strip everyones dignity away.

[Actin The Sham]

This just in:

Pfizer plan to cut 19,000 off its global workforce
on 23/07/2009 15:13:02


Drugmaker Pfizer has raised its earnings forecast and said profit fell less than analysts expected. Drugmaker Pfizer has raised its earnings forecast and said profit fell less than analysts expected.

The company said job cuts offset falling revenue from the Lipitor cholesterol drug and the Norvasc blood pressure medicine.

Net income for the world's biggest drugmaker dropped 19% from a year earlier to $2.26bn (€1.55bn), or 34 cents a share, the New York-based company said last night.

Profit excluding some items was 48 cents a share, beating by 1 cent the average estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Pfizer employs about 2,000 people in Ireland. Pfizer has been in Ireland since 1969 and employs more than 2,000 people at six pharmaceutical plants and three financial services and support centres. It is best known for its plant at Ringaskiddy in Co. Cork, which makes the ingredient for erectile dysfunction drug Viagra.

It has other plants in Loughbeg and Little Island in Cork and Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin.

Revenue fell 9.4% to $11bn (€7.7bn), hurt by generic competition to Norvasc and Lipitor, the world's best-selling drug.

Pfizer has cut more than 14,000 jobs since 2007. It plans to eliminate another 19,000 following the planned acquisition of rival drugmaker Wyeth. "They've done a wonderful job at cost management and this is just a preview for when they consolidate Wyeth," said Tony Butler, an analyst with Barclays Capital in New York.

Chief executive Jeffrey Kindler is cutting jobs and reorganising research as Pfizer braces to lose patent protection in 2011 on Lipitor, which accounted for about a quarter of the company's 2008 revenue.

Sales of Lipitor fell 10% in the quarter. Demand for the cholesterol drug has been falling since 2006 when generic copies came on the market.

Norvasc sales fell 17% to $518 (€363m) on generic competition.


***


If I was a betting man I'd be saying Sayonara Wyeth Newbridge right now. There is no money in making anadin.

They might keep on the new extension, but reckon on around 800 job losses there within the next twelve months. They'll probably announce it around end of September start of October.