History
Young Fine Gael was formed in 1977 as part of the internal reforms to Fine Gael instigated by Garret FitzGerald, who had become leader of the party that same year. They grew rapidly with over 100 local branches of YFG being formed by 1978. During the 1980s they pursued a fairly liberal agenda, supporting the repeal of Ireland's homosexuality laws; a ban on the state funding on single-sex schools; and greater family planning options. Nowadays there is a broad range of political viewpoints held by members, ranging from centrist and social-democratic to the more conservative.
At its most recent national conference, it carried motions supporting the Fine Gael position on making Irish optional in the Leaving Cert, to allow gay couples to adopt, to introduce a cap on welfare payments at the average industrial wage, and for a complete renegotiation of the promissory note requiring the state to pay the debts of Anglo-Irish bondholders.
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)