fianna fail & mismanagement of economy

banaman

ISAW wrote:

Please explain to me haow one can spend E1000,000,000 on expenses. AFAIK the Dail costs about 17 million a year - thats over fifty years spending or a fifty times increase o spend such a surplus.

Obviously I was not implying that all the surplus would be spent on Td's salaries and expenses. the point I was attempting to make was that in a country that regularly comes at or near the bottom of the OECD tables for equality and EU tables on Health Services is it acceptable for our political representatives to spend our money in the way that they do? From my post you can take it that I do not think it acceptable.
For some of my reasons see the link below:-
http://www.irishexaminer.com/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=opinion-qqqm=opinion-qqqa=general-qqqid=7782-qqqx=1.asp

banaman

Can you show evidence of this? I believe you have confused it with when she said that larger wage increases for nurses "ain't gonna happen". I think the PDs have firmly committed themselves to smaller class sizes.
You may be right. My apologies. I may have got the wrong Mary H the qoute may be from Mary Hanafin. However the point remains despite much publicised claims of committment and government concern. There has been no delivery.
See link below:-
http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2005/05/03/story645158260.asp

I believe the same is true in the case of the schools building programme, A&E conditions, infrastructure, etc. The politicians talk the talk but nothing much changes. Perhaps the old graffitti saying "if voting changed anything it would be illegal" may contain some truth?

Lemming

With regards Dunne's recent property purchase, the general consensus from the building industry would appear to be that he was insane to pay the price he did (or so the media would have us believe by recent article quotations)

So ... either he has a loop-hole tucked away somewhere that few people know about or else he's lost the plot. Or has somebody's ear (and given that this is Ireland .. probably somebody's account number too *)



* Note: this is called "humour" in case any builders, speculators, or politician-@rse-lickers get their panties in a twist]

ISAW

Glenbhoy wrote:

That was not suggested by me at all -

here is what yu stated again

... is there something that Mr Dunne, the taoiseach's good friend knows about the possibility of getting planning permission for 32 storey high apartment blocks (apparently that's the height needed to make his project financially viable) that we don't??

Now what did you mean by the above comment?

It's was an attempt at humour, obviously not found amusing by many of you.

Funny or not what did you mean by it?

A good tabloid journo would never leave that out!!

and you are a tabloid journalist are you? And what makes a "good" tabliod journalist?

Honestly lads, read my posts - where did i allege or claim anything about corruption - if that's what you took from it that's your perogative, but there is no allegation.

what did you mean by the above comment that dunne somehow knows he is getting planning permission and linking that with Dunne being a personal friend of the Taoiseach? How is that a joke? How is it funny?

ISAW

banaman wrote:

Obviously I was not implying that all the surplus would be spent on Td's salaries and expenses. the point I was attempting to make was that in a country that regularly comes at or near the bottom of the OECD tables for equality and EU tables on Health Services

Really? I suppose you will support that comment and now give me a reference to the last three in a series and show where Ireland is at or near the bottom? I note you didnt refer to OECD tables on education, Gdp per Capita, Purchasing Power Parity, economic growth, Rate of construction, inflation, Unemployment, and the other usual ways of rating a countries economic performance.

Is it acceptable for our political representatives to spend our money in the way that they do?

Our political representatives dont do that! Soenm political repreasetatives i.e. the cabinet have an ability to spend minor amounts of State money. the vast majority is handled by the civil and public service. of the one or two per cent of the money that cabinet can play with almost all of it is controlled by the Minister of Finance (also advised by more civil servants) . It is unusual for a Minister (like charlie Haughey for example when he defied T K Whittaker and introduced free travel) to move against the officials.

I accept that things like the particular electronic voting system adopted are a waste of 40 odd million. But even this waste isnt anywhere near the planning of the economy!

From my post you can take it that I do not think it acceptable.
For some of my reasons see the link below:-
http://www.irishexaminer.com/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=opinion-qqqm=opinion-qqqa=general-qqqid=7782-qqqx=1.asp[/QUOTE]

the reasons that TDs get the pay they do is because they are linked to civil service pay grades I have gone over this before I just started at A and looked up Agriculture. forestry inspectors, economists, principla officers etc. etc. there is one Minister and two junior ministers and say maybe their secretaries. As opposed to dozens of civil servants on the same money!

Now they do not have to be in the Dail all thge time that is true. But civil servants clock off at five. TD are on call at all times. Of course they can neglect to do their job - and then they will lose their seat! Take a typical party TD . Say Fianna Fail. They have about twenty something cummans per constituency in Dublin (maybe a hundred in some rural areas). They also have the constituency body and a national body and several "working groups" and a youth section. Now the TD may not be on all of them but is likely to be on some of them. But he certainly will have to get to the constituency stuff. Say he gets around to a third of the cumann and to the constituency meeting. thats eight week nights a month taken up.

Ther are also the residents associations "emergency halting site is being set up" or "anti drugs" type meetings. Or it could be a local disaster e.g. flooding or a big factory closing or a fire. There a re community fora, neighbourhoosd watch, sports centres and clubs, old peoples groups, local bodies like colleges, schools, co operatives , etc.

TDs get invited to all of these. Say they concentrate on the "essential party stuff" eight meetings. Add in another twenty odd nights of party fundraisers dinners, quiz nights, race nights etc. about two more a month. Now you are up to half the weeknights in the month (okay the dinners are usually on weekends buty oubs give you free rooms to have things mid week also). also all this is done outside of summer so the ten nights a month seems okay.

At this point i have only covered party stuff and not all the crises, and other organisation and not the national party ( there are also the likes of 1916 commemerations, ) hAnd there are oth3r organisations the TD might be a member of say Amnesty International for example have a march or a talk with some international speaker. The TD has to go to that!

then there are the Clinics. Most TD usually hold thies on non Dail days a monday for example and probably also on a weekend . Usually say from morning to lunchtime. theres at least one of the "two days off a week" taken up! Now aks yourself whether the civil servants who get paid the same as that TD but clock off at five on Friday and you dont see them till monday put in the same time? Also the civil servant is there for life.

Maybe public representatives are overpaid. I would be quite happy to suggest that they take a pay cut - as long as all the relatd civil service grades ALSO take that cut.

Glenbhoy

ISAW, I firstly apologise for having offended you, if i'd known ff'ers were so sensitive I probably would'nt have made the comments in the first place. I know that things are'nt going well for ye at the moment, but really you should'nt take it out on a poor prospective voter.
If you perhaps read your last post, which attempted to dissect an earlier post of mine (now, i mean, actually read it this time), then you could quite easily answer every question you posed. The key is in semantics, don't be trying to read things into posts that aren't there, just follow the actual language.
Anyway, I have no wish to engage any further on this matter, save to reitterate, i am staggered by your sensitivity (to the extent that i'm starting to think you are actually one of the named parties).
You really should work on that blind loyalty though, that can get people into trouble (and i'm not going to quote the various historical references of such).
Finally, you can read whatever you like into a bit of harmless banter on a not very popular bulletin board, I don't care and refuse to respond on that topic again. If you'd like to engage on the dangers your beloveds have imposed on this economy through their inaction on the housing crisis, I'll happily respond.

ISAW

Glenbhoy wrote:

ISAW, I firstly apologise for having offended you, if i'd known ff'ers were so sensitive I probably would'nt have made the comments in the first place. I know that things are'nt going well for ye at the moment, but really you should'nt take it out on a poor prospective voter.

I am not offended nor have I been. No act of contrition is necessary.

You really should work on that blind loyalty though, that can get people into trouble (and i'm not going to quote the various historical references of such).

what blind loyalty? I was not making a party point nor supporting any party. i was only making that point for all public represeatatives no matter what the party as referred to in the Examiner article reference you supplied.

[edit - banaman supplied. sorry ]

Ireland actually is in my opinion well served by its public reps. Take another example. the MEP. Media constantly criticise them as fat cats but Irish MEPs fare far far better than their British Counterparts and are highly regarded Europe. Pat Cox for example is an independent from a countrywith 13 Euro seats in a parliament of 732. Yet he became President of the parliament! A non party guy!

Finally, you can read whatever you like into a bit of harmless banter on a not very popular bulletin board, I don't care and refuse to respond on that topic again. If you'd like to engage on the dangers your beloveds have imposed on this economy through their inaction on the housing crisis, I'll happily respond.

Again you cant attack one particular policy of the government you dont like and then apply this to all representatives in all parties (and independents for that matter).
As regards housing.
Ireland is building more houses than Britian for God's sake! Okay Ill admit demand is greater than supply but both the demand and the prices are as a result of economic success! construction is currently booming!

And I dont say I love all public reps but I do respect what they put into the job. the tired old "90 days holidays" could be applied to public servants also. Do you really believe that public reps go off abroad for the whole Summer and forget about their voters when the House isnt sitting?

Glenbhoy

Glenbhoy wrote:

ff'ers were so sensitive
you should'nt take it out on a poor prospective voter
i am staggered by your sensitivity
blind loyalty
your beloveds

Gotta be the most transparent climb down here!!

Anyway, so you chanced it on about linking Bertie to planning corruption, when pulled up on it you initially went on about semantics, then kinda diluted that whole line by suggesting that anyone who questioned you on your information must be straight outta FF HQ, or that you were doing it becasue that's what the tabloids do...

What you are clearly saying is 'you know that link I made between Bertie Ahern and a specific planning application, well I want to do a u-turn please'.

I can see why you want to drop to topic though. Watching you try to backtrack and explain it away, while changing tack and attack at the same time, is kinda enjoyable.