Oh dear. When I was a member of Young Fine Gael I always vowed that any comment that I would ever make about them in public would be respectful and supportive. Particularly given the help that they have given me in the past. I’m therefore particularly struck by how they’ll react to my description of one of their policy proposal as ‘mad’ in today’s Irish Times.
I can’t complain though. I was on the Sam Smyth show yesterday morning and I was asked whether I thought a proposal to pay children’s benefits in vouchers was a good idea. I stressed that YFG did play such an important role in coming up with new policy ideas and that I was once a member of it myself. I did however use the word ‘mad’ as the whole proposal implies such a basic distrust of how child benefit is used. I went on to praise another one of their policy proposals in relation to stopping or reducing social welfare payments to families involved in antisocial behaviour.
This support understandably wasn’t reported on.
Still, when I was a member of YFG we always relished any scraps between ourselves and members of the parliamentary party so I suspect they won’t be too unhappy at all.