Goodbye McCreevy -Hurray!!!!

Georgiana

Just wanted to say that!

nahdoic

You don't miss the water till the well runs dry

Captain Trips

I thought he was very good; we've had low taxes and ridden out the "economic doom" of the post-dot-com with nothing but a tiny blip in employment.

Overall he's done an excellent job (it would have been easy to hike taxes in 03 or 02 which he didn't do) and I hope to christ someone with his skill comes in and we don't go back to 70% income tax days of 20 years ago.

BigEejit

Indeed ...he wasnt as bad as some of the ones we've had down through the years .... his big failure was not to release money for the new hospital wings lying idle all over the shop .... they should have seen that one coming:rolleyes: ...
well that and the perks for the horsey people in his local area

robbie1876

Do we know when he goes?

aidan_walsh

Originally posted by Georgiana
Just wanted to say that!

Nothing like a nicely reasoned argument to back up a point...

I'm tending to agree more with Captain Trips and BigEejit... At least he was trained in the field that he had been assaigned (unlike Harney and the rumours that she'll be jumping ship to Transport)... Just be interesting to see who his successor will be...

yankinlk

looking like brian cowen - other than being famous for big lips ... will he be any good?

Pataman

Pity to see him go. I dont think there are many other politicians who can stick up the two fingers at europe and be proven to be correct. I hope whoever is his successor, and he will be a hard act to follow, doesnt undo all the good by handing out money left, right and centre. Remember all the politicians who told him to borrow, he stuck to him guns and now we have a surplus without the extra heartache of maintaining the extra interest.

Victor

Originally posted by Captain Trips
Overall he's done an excellent job (it would have been easy to hike taxes in 03 or 02 which he didn't do) and I hope to christ someone with his skill comes in and we don't go back to 70% income tax days of 20 years ago.

Erm, I vaguely recollect VAT being increased, among others

Pataman

Originally posted by Victor
Erm, I vaguely recollect VAT being increased, among others

Vat wasnt increased. It was reduced to 20% to give the public some benefit. Greedy retailers didnt pass on the decrease and it was put back up to 21%

Sleepy

To be fair, I can't stand FF but McCreevy was a pretty capable Finance Minister. One of that rare breed of politicians that actually understand economics and how to manipulate the finances to get the desired effect (even if I didn't always agree with the desired effects of FF policy). He did his job well.

ReefBreak

Originally posted by Georgiana
Just wanted to say that!

He was by far the best Finance Minister this country has ever seen. Look at the facts surrounding our country's economy while he was in power - they speak for themselves.

ArphaRima

He was by far the best Finance Minister this country has ever seen

Agreed. We pay far less tax (as a percentage of gdp) than every other western european country.

The balancing act he played was superb. Now he has basically been thrown out because TD's were being refused spending sprees for easy votes by him.
Wait for the catastrophe.

Cork

Originally posted by fluffer

The balancing act he played was superb. Now he has basically been thrown out because TD's were being refused spending sprees for easy votes by him.
Wait for the catastrophe.

He stood firm aganist throwing money at problems and he took the long term view with gards to the naional development plan and pension reserve fund.

AntiRip

Originally posted by fluffer
Agreed. We pay far less tax (as a percentage of gdp) than every other western european country.

The balancing act he played was superb. Now he has basically been thrown out because TD's were being refused spending sprees for easy votes by him.
Wait for the catastrophe.

Agreed also. I can't understand why someone would make a statement like that. Obviously he can't remember past 1999. Whenever he had the money he gave it back to us, and when things got tight he held back. He didn't borrow,borrow,borrow like other would have done. Also don't forget that under alot of pressure he kept on the SSIA. He was the best finance minister we've had in a long long time.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Georgiana

The ability to stick to ones guns and take tight control of the public purse is all very well at one level and I don't disagree with everything he did. However he failed to consider the effect of his decisions on individuals and has an arrogance of style which is most offensive. In my own case I am struggling to care for two sick elderly parents who live far away from me and desperately need the home help service - a service which has been restricted. How can that be a good decision.??? There are numerous other examples of such decisions affecting the most vulnerable. In addition, I know of children in schools which are in an appaling condition in this supposedly wealthy state.

Thirdly, McCreevy's decentralistion decision was a purely political one and incredibly offensive to motivated hard working civil servants like myself. The decentralisation decision McCreevy tired to railroad on us is unworkable in its current form as other Fianna Fail politicians are acknowledging today, including the Taoiseach's brother. In my many years as a civil servant I have never experienced such an offensive decison by Government in relation to its long serving loyal employees who have been treated by McCreevy as nameless faceless commodities to be transported out, all over the gaff, just to please voters. Remember that civil servants are not allowed to join a political party. But we can be used as political pawns it seems. We are all deemed as one, nameless, faceless, interchagable and movable at will. Not a shred of consultation took place with those most affected. Every civil servant recognises the nonsensical nature of the approach which McCreevy refused to climb down on. It is another instance where the vulnerable will suffer as the whole sorry procedure will be incredible stressful for some at an individual level as it has to involve major personal change. In my own case I do a specialised job which is to be moved and like all my colleagues, I have no knowledge of my fate if I refuse to move with it. This is what is being called a voluntary programme.

I thank God McCreevy has been removed.

RainyDay

My oh my, aren't we all looking back through rose-tinted (or possibly FF green tinted) glasses when remembering McCreevy's career. Perhaps there were two Chazza McCreevy's out there. The one I remember wasn't a hero who created the Celtic Tiger. Chazza had little real input into economic policy, since Ruari Quinn negotiated Ireland's entry into the Stability & Growth Pact which set out the broad economic parameters. Chazza hasn't even been able to control interest rates since we entered the EMU - we have the guys in the Bundesbank to thank for that. And let's not give FF too much credit for our recent economic growth - it was Richard Bruton/Ruari Quinn/Pat Rabitte who brought in the 12.5% corporation tax rate that spurred on so much economic development in the latter half of the 90's & beyond. Chazza inherited a booming economy - he didn't create it.

The real 'achievements' of the Chazza (who is undoubtedly a clever & talented man) that I knew were;

- the ‘dirty dozen’ cuts that ended disability and dental benefit for the unemployed as well as cutting assistance for electricity and gas bills in his first ministry at Social Welfare.
- pooh-poohing Charlie Bird/George Lee's initial reports of tax evasion at NIB as 'going off half-cocked and making ridiculous and outlandish allegations'. This week's report tells us how far of the mark he was. So is he really that dumb, or did he have some reasons for trying to cover up tax evasion?
- granting money to Agri Ministry Joe Walsh (who had bypassed normal project evaluation procedures) to fund developments at Punchestown which co-incidentally was in his own constituency
- Lying to Michael Noonan in the run up to the 2002 elections in telling him that 'no cutbacks are planned' when papers produced later from Finance & other depts clearly show that they were well aware that they had blown the budgets in order to buy the election result and many many cutbacks would be necessary.

Do I need to continue? The man who took the high moral ground in the Haughey ere has demonstrated the morality of a slug in his later decisions. Clearly his major problem with Haughey what simply that Haughey was in power and McCreevy wasn't.

To paraphrase Phoenix, the only real problem with sending Chazza to Europe is the language problem, but hopefully it's not too late for him to develop a good grasp of English soon.

shoegirl

ReefBreak wrote:

He was by far the best Finance Minister this country has ever seen. Look at the facts surrounding our country's economy while he was in power - they speak for themselves.

I'd strongly dispute this. During his reign there has been a huge transfer of wealth towards the better off, and tax cuts have largely been replaced by sleath taxes which are flat rate and so hurt those on lower incomes. A large percentage of the population has gained up to 50%, but a significant minority on below average incomes have seen their real incomes lose value as high inflation has accompanied pay freezes, pay cuts, large job losses and pay devaluation in the heavily grant-aided multinational sector in particular, whilst huge transfers of wealth to the public sector mean that many jobs created are low pay compared to averages.

I myself have seen my salary erode in value by about 20%, as inflation superceeded my meagre wage rises, leaving me with a net loss. Sole traders and small businesses have largely been wiped out by franchising and as a result the entire middle trade in these professions have been wiped out by huge distributors and central billing.

The big danger also is that there is a continuing spiral of job losses in non key industries, while the replacement industries are often unsuitable for many laid off workers. The collapse in pensions for some defined contribution pensions saw some people huge amounts of their retirement wealth. Poor investment in education is denying opportunities for people to enhance their job prospects as quality ongoing training is difficult to access, especially for below average paid workers. Also some sectors have totally slumped, with falling wages a reality in some areas.

The biggest problem now is the continuing cycle of redundancies, especially in rural areas with few alternatives. Also the soaring property wealth created has transferred wealth from the 20-40 age group into the 50+ age groups, something which will have terrible repercussions in the future as some of the price increases are not sustainable. McCreevy has created a dangerously unstable property market based on spiralling prices and tax deals which may not last in the long term.

The other area of serious concern is education - decaying schools and rotten buildings did not even exist in my days in school in the much more hairshirty 1980s. Yet the failure to invest has a huge impact on the future of this country. This will be a lasting monument to McCreevy. Likewise the poor effect on the 2nd and 3rd level sectors - the very sectors that are supposed to be training the "skilled labour" for incoming new industries.

The biggest problem with McCreevy is the failure to push more wealth to the worse off - only in the last budget was there any improvement for the poor (albeit at the expense of the worse off than average, but not the poorest poor). Just look at the number of low income people losing medical cards in an environment where a doctors visit is the equivalent of a 6 hours pay for a person on the minimum wage. The inequality is dangerous and we risk creating a disenfranchised underclass that will plague social services for years.