Who would you vote for 2?

The_Goose

What is the point in all fairness!!!
Every 7 years this country gets to rich so we need to elect some one to spend it for us???
Waht excactly is the function of the president??? To fly to other countys to.....build brigdes......promote the irish people!!!
How about fixing the ****ing problems in our own damn country first!!!
14 year olds raping, scum running the streets, the joke of the gardai, the laugh of a justice system were most offenders get reduced sentences because there s no room for them!!! And of course our lovely bribe invested govenment who seem to be convinced that if the ignore a problem for long enough it will go away! so back to my main rant! The president, does ireland really need one!! Bertie goes on enough hols to promote us!!!My vote would be to srap the irish presidency, the only reason we have one is because some one else did it first!!! Plus it would save 7,000,000 a year on holidays which could pay for much needed hospital beds, gardai etc!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :mad:

jor el

Yea but if they get rid of the president (and don't meen by offing her or holding some kind of milatary coo) then the rest of the government will never be in the country. Though that could be a good thing I suppose as they can't rob/cheat/lie if their not here.
But to answer your question, no, we don't need a president as I don't think she/he actually does much. Maybe she does do a lot and is worth 7million a year, but the fact that nobody seems to know what that is speaks for itself. Perhaps a few hundred thousand should be spent on a PR campaign? :eek:

neGev

The Irish president is more a figure-head than anything else, although perhaps her overseas work contributes more to Ireland and its economy than you might think

sceptre

The_Goose wrote:

Waht excactly is the function of the president???

It's laid out in the constitution. Flying, bridge-building, promotion, hand-shaking and grinning are optional extras.

sprinkles

I can see it now, Mary out in her wellies, building a bridge accross the river Danube. Why would we get rid of that?

Canis Lupus

jor el wrote:

Yea but if they get rid of the president (and don't meen by offing her or holding some kind of milatary coo) then the rest of the government will never be in the country. Though that could be a good thing I suppose as they can't rob/cheat/lie if their not here.
But to answer your question, no, we don't need a president as I don't think she/he actually does much. Maybe she does do a lot and is worth 7million a year, but the fact that nobody seems to know what that is speaks for itself. Perhaps a few hundred thousand should be spent on a PR campaign? :eek:

true true... u only ever hear of the president when the elections are around and thats it... for the next 7 years u see he/she pop up every now and then to lay a wreath at some function or other and then thats it

ARGINITE

neGev The Irish president is more a figure-head than anything else, although perhaps her overseas work contributes more to Ireland and its economy than you might think

I agree with neGev and i would vote if their is an election.

Flukey

Yes, the President does do a lot of good for the country that you don't always see. As to never seeing the President, I saw her yesterday and have on many occasions, not just near elections and while typing this reply I just saw her on the news, doing some good too. The President is apolitical don't forget. At least we elect our head of state, unlike Britain and as we saw in 2000, America.

As to wastes of money, well close down all the museums as they say. We always get this line about things costing too much and that they are taking money away from the health and other services, which is rubbish. Money is not being taken away from the health service. Each government department gets its allocation of money. If it is not spent on one thing, it will be spent on something else within the department's control. People talk about the money spent on the Spire for example. If the Spire had not been built the money would have been spent on another project within the department's control and would not have gone to the health service, which has its own allocation. There is a lot of badly spent money in the different departments and the health service itself. Each department has a fixed allocation each year and none is being taken away from another if it is badly spent. It is only badly spending its own money.

We also get the line that we should sort out the health service before anything else, which is also a stupid argument. All areas need addressing. You cannot just focus on one single problem and not do anything else to address other problems until that one is sorted, especially as a lot of those thing can be dealt with at the same time. If we took that approach the country would be in a far worse state than it is. That is how government works. They all get their allocation of money - the heath service getting a lot more than the other areas - and that money is used to deal with things with the areas that that department works with. If a particular department wastes a huge amount of its money, not one single cent is been taken away from the health service or any other department.

The problem with the health service is not a lack of money, but the way it is being run. It is in the health service that the biggest wastes of money happen, not in other departments. Money has been poured into it in recent years, more than trebling in the past 7 years, and it has made no difference because it is badly managed. If it was well managed you could have a far better service with a lot less money. So the health service does not need any more money, it just needs to be run professionally. I am no fan of hers, but I think Mary Harney might actually shake it up a bit.

AngryBadger

Flukey wrote:

They all get their allocation of money - the heath service getting a lot more than the other areas - and that money is used to deal with things with the areas that that department works with..

I can't argue with that in principle, but is there a weighting system to how departments are prioritised for funding? If a department screws around with their funding are they penalised the following year?

These are relevant questions, and it's fair to say that not a single
department in this country is doing what their meant to be doing. The transport system is a complete farce, the medical system the same, education is in dire straits, and let's not get started on the gardai. I had another point to make on the back of this statement, but i've forgotten it....ah well

Flukey

All that is true. All departments waste money. They all have to make their pitch in advance of the budget, which is what would be happening at this time of year. I don't know exactly how they do it, but certain departments are bigger spenders than others naturally. My point still holds true that if money is spent by a department it is coming out of their own budget. There are independent reviews of how things are spent by the Comptroller and Auditor General and others, so these wastes are highlighted.

There is always more that could be done, but it is no easy job running a country. Departments always try and spend all their money by the end of the year, to ensure they can get more funding the following year. This is a universal ploy, in companies and the like. If you don't spend it all, they give you less the following year, so you try and spend it all. This often means going on a splurge towards the end of the year. Some of the wastes come then, though not all.