Why join FF?

Macy

I must have missed FF being in (at least) joint control of Dublin City Council and the Government up to 2004, to implement this master plan for the East Docks.

Lots of Buses BK? When are the Government going to sanction all these buses? Or will they all come with Privatisation? Just like happened in the UK, where their bus service has never been so good....

10 years of boom, money and time to solve the issues, it's time for a change. If the other crowd don't solve it, they should go to. I've no doubt the plans of the alternative will come out in due time, like when an election is called (they'd be stupid to release then this far out), but I fail to see how that changes the failures of the current Government?

IronMan

IronMan wrote:

You should join Fianna Fail, because your Daddy brain-washed you into it as a young fella.

Suspiciously enough though, FG and Labour vote has remained pretty much the same election after election. Is that not a sign of people sticking to the old routines when voting for FG and Labbour rather than look at policy, or do all those floating voters out there analyse the parties and it's ENTIRELY coincidental that FG always get 20-25% of them, Labour 10-15% of them etc. etc.

But still, I appreciate that for you it's easier to use one of the oldest cheapest shots no matter how threadbare it is rather than think of something new, original and rational.

ISAW

Macy wrote:

I must have missed FF being in (at least) joint control of Dublin City Council and the Government up to 2004, to implement this master plan for the East Docks.

As I stated it was
1.a PD plan
2. which surfaced in the last two years.

The current count is:

* Fianna Fáil 12
* Fine Gael 10
* Labour 15
* Sinn Féin 10
* Greens 1
* Progressive Democrats 1
* Non-Party 3

That puts FF+PD at half a MAJORITY thirteen votes short AND FG+LAB at two votes short of a majority. Mind you I dont know if FF and the PDs had a pact on the council. It would be interesting of FF won three more searts off Lab and had to chose between Lab FG or SF as a partner.

So how come all the vaunted changes haven't come about? What "new agenda" have FG Lab brought to the council? what sweeping changes have taken place? what new accountability measures have been introduced?

Lots of Buses BK? When are the Government going to sanction all these buses? Or will they all come with Privatisation? Just like happened in the UK, where their bus service has never been so good....

I thin they will be sanctioned when they are requested. I also thing privatisation will come in. The Airport private busses have done a great job. frankly I dont see why they are not increased and the metro to the Airport dumped.

10 years of boom, money and time to solve the issues, it's time for a change. If the other crowd don't solve it, they should go to.

First of all the issues have changed over the last 20 years. Then it was problems with supplying jobs, emmigration, lack of money to spend and cutbacks. Now it is problems with not being able to fill jobs, immigration, problems with how all the money is being spent and running over budget.

I've no doubt the plans of the alternative will come out in due time, like when an election is called (they'd be stupid to release then this far out), but I fail to see how that changes the failures of the current Government?

But if you think that an alternative can be presented then why cant they present it? Please dont say "because FF might implement it". If that is the case then FF are capable of doing what the opposition claim they are not doing. If FG propose something the people want and FF implement it then FF deserve to be in government. How can FG /Lab say they dont want to reveal all their cards unless they think FF can do what FG Lab want to do? How can they at the same time complain that "it isnt policy that matters it is how it is implemented" ?

fly_agaric

ISAW wrote:

The excuse was that Dublin Bus didnt ask for more busses.

Really? I thought I had read something somewhere (very vague;)) about Dublin Bus not agreeing to the previous transport ministers' plan to offer routes to private companies being the reason for a freeze on extra busses.
Was that not true?

bk

Macy wrote:

Lots of Buses BK? When are the Government going to sanction all these buses? Or will they all come with Privatisation? Just like happened in the UK, where their bus service has never been so good....

From what I heard Dublin Bus are getting new buses to replace existing buses, but not new buses for new routes. The reason being the government want to introduce private bus services on certain routes and they aren't going to play ball with DB until DB agrees.

Personally I've no problem with this, the private buses to the airport work really well and I can understand the governments concerns over too much power being with DB when you look at the carry on of the overpaid train drivers with their strike last week.

I think the government wants to create some competition between DB and private operators, in the same way that it has already successfully done between the RPA and Irish Rail.

Macy wrote:

10 years of boom, money and time to solve the issues, it's time for a change. If the other crowd don't solve it, they should go to. I've no doubt the plans of the alternative will come out in due time, like when an election is called (they'd be stupid to release then this far out), but I fail to see how that changes the failures of the current Government?

But most of the problems we have now are due to the vast improvements in the economy and they have sneaked up on us over the last 10 years, in fact more like the last 5 years in particular.

The only solution to these sort of problems are massive public transport development, but that takes time. Back 10 years ago it didn't look like we needed projects like the Metro, Luas extensions and Dart extensions. Hell the M50 upgrade that has been recently started was originally projected to be needed in 20 years from now!!!

Now it is obvious that we need these projects and I agree they should really have been started in the last 2 years, but no one was predicting the changes to Ireland 10 years ago. Also I think the government wanted to wait until the Luas was up and running to find out peoples reactions to public transport before going ahead with the much bigger projects and there were good reasons to wait.