SHORTLY after last year’s general election, a former high-ranking Progressive Democrat coldly assessed the party’s future and realised it had none.

I THINK the impending demise of the PDs is to be welcomed.

SEMI-detached PD TD Noel Grealish was given a blunt ultimatum by despairing party colleagues last night: quit if you’re quitting.

THOUGH maybe not quiet as daunting as being made a Wehrmacht field marshal deep in the cold steppes of Stalin’s Soviet Union in, say, 1943, assuming leadership of the Progressive Democrats bring its own challenges.

THE new leader of the Progressive Democrats, Senator Ciarán Cannon, has given himself just 14 months to restore the party’s fortunes.

OUTGOING Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has declared the failure to build a national stadium his biggest regret in politics and blamed “small-minded people” for opposing the project.

GREEN and PD leaders are letting Bertie Ahern tell a “tissue of lies” about what went on at his St Luke’s “money factory”, Fine Gael last night claimed.

FINE GAEL leader Enda Kenny last night branded the Greens and PDs “passive accomplices in a great deception” over the controversy concerning the Taoiseach’s financial affairs.

WISE old political commentators who made their names by predicting the outcome of elections and other momentous events used to have a saying when things went wrong.

THE Progressive Democrats meet again today to discuss the leadership of the party and how to live within their budget following the disastrous general election.

AN internal committee of the Progressive Democrats has recommended changing the party rules to allow senators and councillors to become leader.

MICHAEL McDowell left Mary Harney “holding the baby” by resigning as PD leader the night he lost his seat in the general election, Liz O’Donnell has said.

DEFEATED Green Party leadership contender Patricia McKenna came sixth in a ballot of Green Party councillors on who should obtain a Seanad nomination, it emerged yesterday.

Two full ministries for the Greens would be in line with previous Fianna Fáil-led coalitions.

TÁNAISTE Michael McDowell yesterday pledged to tackle the problem of evicted council tenants being moved into other neighbourhoods with the help of State subsidies and then causing further trouble.

THE strained relations between Fianna Fáil (FF) and the Progressive Demo-crats (PDs) took another turn for the worse yesterday, when the FF director of elections in Limerick East put out a newspaper advertisement dismissing the role of the junior government partner.

TÁNAISTE Michael McDowell last night insisted it was not hypocritical to claim to back eco-friendly bio-fuels while still being driven around in a gas guzzling Mercedes.

IN recent weeks, Fianna Fáil luminaries from Seamus Brennan to Brian Cowen have scolded the opposition for making wide-ranging commitments on tax reform and public services, accusing them of engaging in ‘auction politics’.

RENOWNED musician and composer Frank McNamara was yesterday unveiled as a Progressive Democrats election candidate in Dublin South Central.

WAVE your flags for Ireland, for the maiden speech of your leader, for Pat watching us at home.

IN the spring of 2002, Michael McDowell climbed a ladder to hang posters in his constituency as that year’s general election drew ever closer.

THE Progressive Democrats are staying in Government for the time being, despite the damaging revelations about Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

TÁNAISTE Michael McDowell finally broke his silence on Bertie Ahern’s payment crisis last night with near unequivocal support of the Taoiseach’s position.

BY his continued silence on the issue, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is exacerbating the situation whereby rumour and innuendo surround the question of money he received privately more than a decade ago when he was Minister for Finance.

IT’S said that the best way of getting a story out is to tell a politician a secret.

PAUL KINSELLA (Irish Examiner letters, August 15) inaccurately reflects the Progressive Democrats’ attitude to public transport with his incorrect reference to what he claims is Mary Harney’s “ideological block” on new buses.

THE opposition clearly enjoyed the sight of the PDs’ inner turmoil yesterday, taking the opportunity to poke fun at both Mary Harney and Michael McDowell.

WHETHER he is banning minors from pubs, changing the drinking laws, deporting Nigerian students, or smearing a Fine Gael spokesman as Dr Goebbels, Justice Michael McDowell is never far from controversy.

I READ recently that a report from the ERSI has indicated that 8% of the population, or approximately 300,000 people, including many children, are living in consistent poverty.

THE state of our electoral register is in the first instance a serious indictment of local government administration in this country.

THE general election is about a year away. However, we have already witnessed the first round of auction politics in the shape of the PDs’ tax proposals.

PD Transport spokesman Senator Tom Morrissey (Irish Examiner letters, August 23) offers yet another piece of evasion in his response to my letter pointing out how that party’s policy on Dublin bus transport was ideologically driven (Irish Examiner letters, August 15).

Minister for Finance Brian Cowen was compared to cartoon character Homer Simpson today as he delivered his Budget in the Dáil.

LABOUR leader Pat Rabbitte has ruled out going into government with the PDs after the next election, saying Mary Harney’s party was “up to their eyes in the same waste and broken promises as Fianna Fáil.”

CHILDMINDERS should be allowed care for up to five children in their own homes and be guaranteed €8,000 a year in tax relief, the Progressive Democrats said yesterday.

THE Coalition partners may be heading for their second row of the year, this time over the Groceries Order, which bans below-invoice cost selling.

ON the night after polling day in the 2002 general election, Bertie Ahern gave the traditional ‘victor’s interview’ to Brian Farrell in RTÉ’s election studio.

IT is unfair of Paul O’Brien to label the PDs as “right-wing fundamentalists” and “for big business” in his coverage of the party’s annual conference (Irish Examiner, April 11).

THE Progressive Democrats will outline their bid to win 12 Dáil seats in the next general election campaign at the party’s annual conference in Cork this weekend.

FORMER Aer Rianta chairman Noel Hanlon will personally foot a €36,000 bill for exclusive watches he gave to fellow directors of the now disbanded airport authority.

IN the aftermath of the local and European elections, it seems that the electorate didn’t believe Justice Minister Michael McDowell’s unsubstantiated allegations against Sinn Féin.

MEET Patricia O’Neill — the PDs’ secret weapon in the election campaign.

BERTIE AHERN will attempt to gloss over the embarrassing scrapping of his pet project stadium as the Cabinet back the redevelopment of Lansdowne Road.