Is Tellytubby right..?

Cork

Flukey wrote:

All true, but she hasn't been punished! People win cases and still have to pay legal bills, so that is not a punishment and I have already said her expulsion from FF is not a punishment.

There ware TDs in the Dail who had Ansbacker accounts from (if memory serves me right) from 2 political partys.

I think they lost the party whip & I think they later settled with the revenue.

I think that is a metter for the DPP, the revenue, the dail ethics committee and the courts to sanction.

Cork

vorbis wrote:

thats a bit of a technical answer tbh. If she's facing financial ruin, then thats punishment in a way. Are you looking for flogging or something?

I surpose - looking for a head constantly is a bit on a national pass time.

I read some journalists and I wonder how they sleep at night as they are so out raged about everything.

But, If he who has not sinned cast the first stone - as a nation we'd probably be forming a line with our stones.

Refusing to pay refuse charges on a point of "principle", not decalring credit union dividend, tax fraud, vat fraud, doing nixers etc are wrong.

The NIB report will probably go to the DPP and the DPP will then decide.

bonkey

Cork wrote:

The IMF were knocking on this countrys door in the early 90's. This country was a basket case. After the Fg/Labour government of 1982-1987 had failed to control government spending.

Yes, but the IMF policies of the early 90s have subsequently proven to have been far less than ideal.

In fact, if one looks at nations who the IMF was looking to chastise in the 90s for not following its model - like Ireland - and then compares it to nations who toed the IMF line, one will see a clear trend where not doing what the IMF insisted often led to a far better economy as a result. Indeed, if you only look at the iMF policy in terms of the specific area of government spending which you raise....you'll see that the model the FG/Labour government followed fits very closely with that of the other IMF-ignoring nations who also had strong economies in the 90s.

In defence of the current government somewhat, I do also feel obliged to point out that while they are due much criticism, critics should remember that the Irish economy has actually fared better than most in this current slowdown/recession phase. Growth in Ireland is currently second-best in the EU I believe, and if memory serves has consistently been highly ranked. Global economic trends are not the fault of our current government, and while they have been far from perfect, our economy has at least been maintained in a better condition than most of our peers in recent years.

Whether or not this will prove to be the best course in the long-run is a question no-one has the answer to.

They are the first government to look at the health area strategically and not on an electoral basis.

That doesn't excuse the fact that having looked at it, they proceeded to throw good money after bad to little effect.

Throwing money at health won't improve it.

Pity its taken FF 7 years and countless millions to realise this....which is what the criticism is about, Cork, in case you've missed it. Its amazing you're offering the criticism as a defence against itself. I mean....how does that work, exactly?

Not only that, but any noises we hear about improvement still carry the "warning label" that we'll need to spend even more before things get better.

I don't. But She was elected & as a democrat, it is up to her electorate to make up their minds on Beverly Flynn.

But given that the electorate only get to have a say come the next election, you seem to be saying that once elected, no member of the Dail should be removed from office for any reason. Instead, they should keep their seat and we should accept that the public would vote them out of office come the next election.

I don't think I even need to give an example of how ridiculous an idea that is, do I?

Its also funny considering that you can't seem to post in any thread in this forum without deriding Sinn Fein and complaining what they are allowed get away with and that something should be done about it, one would imagine that you'd actually be applying the same logic to them and accepting that as long as the public votes for them there is SFA we can or should do.

Sauce for the goose, Cork.

jc

Cork

bonkey wrote:

But given that the electorate only get to have a say come the next election, you seem to be saying that once elected, no member of the Dail should be removed from office for any reason. Instead, they should keep their seat and we should accept that the public would vote them out of office come the next election.
jc

But the NIB story broke well before the last general election. I know that the high court appeal andthe NIB were more recent.

But, I admit that when an electorate votes for sombody - there is little that can be done. Resigning Dail seats is rare.

When an electorate votes - It is very hard to debase their choice. It is democracy and I surpose mandates have to be respected.

Michael Lowry got elected as an independent twice.

star gazer

originally posted by CorkBut the NIB story broke well before the last general election. I know that the high court appeal andthe NIB were more recent.

Does that mean you think bertie was wrong to endorse her candidacy before the last election?

oscarBravo

potlatch wrote:

Higgins broke the law. But Higgins' 'crime' was political in nature, clearly motivated by the common good. There is some justification in what he, and many others, did. This was a relatively low-order example of conscientious objection.

Couple of things: Higgins' crime was contempt of court. If you don't consider that a serious crime, there's not much point having a judicial system. Also, you seem to be suggesting that it's OK to subjectively judge the seriousness of an offence when deciding whether it should result in the loss of a Dáil seat. Surely I'm not alone in thinking this is a bad idea?

gandalf

Contempt of court is one thing but contempt of the whole country as FF have engaged in is a far more serious matter imho

ionapaul

What are the odds BCF will be returned after the next general election as the poll-topper in her constituency, a la Lowry in the last two elections! What we love here in Ireland is the 'cute hoor', criminal or no.
The older I get the more I despair of my fellow men. I honestly believe most people in a democracy vote in the party their parents voted for, the dynasties they admire, without examining the issues or policies of one politician over the other. What was it that Homer said...'Democracy doesn't work'!
Once upon a time in a land far far away policiations resigned when such scandal emerged...but now the brass neck has replaced any sense of shame or dignity.

Cork

oscarBravo wrote:

Couple of things: Higgins' crime was contempt of court. If you don't consider that a serious crime, there's not much point having a judicial system. Also, you seem to be suggesting that it's OK to subjectively judge the seriousness of an offence when deciding whether it should result in the loss of a Dáil seat. Surely I'm not alone in thinking this is a bad idea?

Having a no bin changes campaign seems to be acceptable to some.

contempt of the whole country as FF have engaged in is a far more serious matter imho

Name one government in the history of the state that has done a better job with the economy?

The Fg/Lab High Tax Government of the 70's?
The FG/Lab High Emigration and Tax government of the 80's?

arcadegame2004

Well she was elected in 2002 in spite of the fact that all of these allegations were still swirling around her back then. Remember too that Michael Lowry was re-elected in spite of the Tribunal findings about him. If Bev resigned her seat she would probably win it again, such is the peculiar mindset of the electorate in some parts of the country.

Flukey

Cork, FF can't take all the credit for the Celtic Tiger economy. There are factors in that that go well back before it, like Donogh O'Malley's introduction of free second-level education in the 1960's. There are factors beyond these shores too. The Celtic Tiger was well up and coming when FF took power in 1997. It is always the case. Anything good that happens is down to what the government is doing and anything bad that is happening is down to what an opposition's government did before them. No one party or government can take the credit or blame for most things that are happening. The economy was growing long before the current government started its first term and that was down to what a lot of governments have done. Equally things like the state of the health services is down to what successive governments, not any one of them has done. The current government can take some, but not all the credit for what the economy is currently like.

DadaKopf

Cork wrote:

The Fg/Lab High Tax Government of the 70's?
The FG/Lab High Emigration and Tax government of the 80's?

No, actually, timing had a lot to do with it. Our economic success, judged in terms of convergence with the European core countries, is down to a number of long-term decisions that were made over a space of 30 years, all of which dovetailed in the mid-1990s.

This paper clearly illustrates that Irish economic growth was due mainly to a number of concurrent "beneficial shocks", which had been in place for some time:

• The earliest explanation is investment in education from the 1960s; Ireland was the worst of all OECD countries, but improved to the point of being only slightly below the OECD mean by 1996
• Joining the EEC, however, had the most profound effect on the economy and, thus, the transformation in the 1990s is attributable to external conditions and constraints placed on Ireland from the 1970s, which became increasingly internalised. Joining the EU had, itself, a major influence on the following long-term policies in the 1980s
• The transition in Ireland from the largest agricultural exporter in Europe (as % of GDP) to an exporter of intermediate and high manufactured goods to Europe was very important; joining the EEC had the effect of reducing our dependency on agricultural exports to the UK with low value-added, but the Common Agricultural Policy negatively affected growth
• A reduction in public share of gross capital formation from 30-40% in the 1950s to 15% around the 1990s contributed to the reduction of macroeconomic instablity
• A move away in the 1980s from a Thatcherite policy of weak trade unionism to the mainland European "corporatist welfare" model; this enabled the state to reduce public expenditure and to lower taxes by ensuring that state employees' wages would not decline and, across the board, investment and incomes in the private sector would improve
• Reductions in public expenditure included the breaking up and privatization of public enterprises that were considered anti-competitive; particularly important in this regard was airline deregulation (and reduced taxes) which had the effect of reducing ticket prices by 50% overnight, encouraging tourism and improving business linkages and foreign direct investment
• The IDA, of course, was the first of its kind and had, for decades been working to attract FDI, which EEC membership enhanced greatly
• Most crucially of all was the doubling of EU structural adjustment funds in 1989, which filled much needed investment gaps and, particularly in th area of road infrastructure, succeeded in producing 0.5% of total GDP growth in the early 1990s.

So, in most respects, many of reasons for Irish growth either stem from policies that were implemented decades ago or previous governments in the late 1980s and early 1990s, or they stem from things that happened to us.

As is the case across Europe and the world in general, national governments have become managers who try to tame the turbulence of market forces rather than effective policymakers. As such, most of the work this government has done has been to slash public expenditure to attract investment (and capital outflows are huge), but at what longer-term costs?

For an assessment of the social impact of more recent Irish policies, take a look at Macroeconomic success and social vulnerability: lessons for Latin America from the Celtic Tiger.

oscarBravo

Cork wrote:

Having a no bin changes campaign seems to be acceptable to some.

It's perfectly acceptable to me - people should be allowed to have any campaign they want. But that's not what he was jailed for, and that's my point.

Mighty_Mouse

I think that evading tax is wrong and giving advice to evade tax is wrong. But Beverly Cooper was an employee of this bank. Should all ex employees of the bank face similar sanction?

Personally I wouldn’t have a problem if Bev came out at the time and said: "I'm sorry. I was 23 years old just starting out. I was under pressure from my employers and should of taken a different decision at the time". To me that’s acceptable.

What’s not acceptable is point blank refusing to acknowledge that she has done anything. The air of "can't touch me, I'm a Flynn" about her was grotesquely sickening.

But to have the balls (neck!) to drag Charlie Bird through the civil courts for FIVE years in order to intimidate him into settling was just wrong. For those five years she knew she was lying but yet persecuted him for telling the truth. The woman deserves everything she gets and I suppose the sleazy Flynn family deserve each other. The apple certainly didnt fall far from the tree there!

ionapaul

Mighty_Mouse wrote:

The woman deserves everything she gets and I suppose the sleazy Flynn family deserve each other. The apple certainly didnt fall far from the tree there!

Not a truer word written! Her father is definitely worse than Bev, if that is possible. Now that I think of it he is much worse - remember how he complained at the difficulties in keeping three houses at once?! I really feel your pain there Pee, would hate to have the responsibility of owning three different homes. Sure wasn't he was justified in taking the bribes, the country just didn't pay him a decent enough salary to keep him in the manner he became accustomed to!
And if he ran for the Dail tomorrow in Mayo, he would top the poll I'm sure...