re councillors millions

donegalboy

Anyone see the story about certain councillors owning property worth millions of euro. What are your views on this. Should these councillors be allowed to sit on the council with such vested interests at heart?

smashey

Why not? A well known family from Bundoran are well represented on the Council and they aren't exactly short of a few euro. If everything is declared and above board, I don't see the problem.

muffler

donegalboy wrote:

Anyone see the story about certain councillors owning property worth millions of euro. What are your views on this. Should these councillors be allowed to sit on the council with such vested interests at heart?

Can I ask you why you mentioned the name of the paper and what you expect to achieve with this thread

deman

Well said Muffler. I smell Spam myself

nanook

muffler wrote:

Can I ask you why you mentioned the name of the paper and what you expect to achieve with this thread

i agree with muffler on this, something does not smell right here.

Paddy20

Councillor's are elected by the people to represent them. I can not see how being wealthy should effect thier right to stand for 'Public office' .

P.:cool:

0lordy

Well, I don't know about the OP's agenda, but I agree with the sentiment.

I've no problem with councillors being wealthy. I do have a problem with conflict of interest. For example (no names mentioned), when a councillor is seen discussing the layout of a new road with the road engineer, when said councillor owns land in the vicinity, this reeks of conflict of interest.

muffler

This thread is topical enough and should generate a wee bit of debate. I am going to edit the title and the OP's initial post as I suspect there is spamming involved here.

Donegalboy is red carded until I find out what is going on here.

nanook

I have to agree with everyone here, politicians, TD, ministers etc.. does not make a difference what background you have, if you have millions to your name the fair play to you.

Unfortunatly we come from a background of begrudgery and sniping at other people for doing well. So what if a politician owns propertys, and is claiming all the relevant tax benifits for them, you find people will start to shout when they do not claim the same entitlements.

Civilian_Target

There is a certain truth to it - I sounds like a fairly common occurrance that the council allegedly pays way over the odds for land along the route of a new road (and the land is usually owned by some well connected fellow in Donegal) - applys even more so if the EU's paying (because screwing the German taxpayer is twice as much fun as screwing the Irish taxpayer).

Paddy20

Try living in Baghdad; :eek:

P. :cool:

il gatto

Alot of the wealth accumlated by councillors and other polititions is not necessarily through corruption or dodgy planning decisions. Just being involved with the right people often leads to plush job offers, offers of shares in new business' and an endless supply of pandering business people. Often there's no catch. It's just an échelon of society which is incestuous and closed. Every town in Ireland is run by a few families often with one member a politition or in the circle of friends of one. It's very much a them and us scenario.
I've worked in the past for a local politition who had no qualms about standing there with his business partner discussing how nobody works for any less than 30k year, and denegrating people behind their backs as nobodies because they earned little more than minimum wage. That's their own business, but they would say this standing beside employees who they were paying peanuts to. It's like we weren't there, and if we were, who gave a damn?
It's an unfortunate fact that most polititions are not there solely to serve their communities. Some are just there to get what they can from the job. Yes. There are many councillors who have given great service to their communities, but if you took away the perks and oppurtunities that comes with the job, you wouldn't find most of those people within an ass' roar of a council chamber.

Civilian_Target

If you're comparing Donegal to Badhdad I think you're certainly validating a point Paddy

I'm with Il Gatto - it's very much the air of the "old boys" club that's prevalent in England may have developed with many politicians in Ireland - the old FF boys, one might imagine, have become particularly complacent given their virtually unchallenged (and probably soon to continue) governance over the last decade.

It sad that we elect such narrow-minded people that value citizens by their income - that's a job for the CSO

(Nice sig BTW Paddy!)

Paddy20

Civilian_Target wrote:

If you're comparing Donegal to Badhdad I think you're certainly validating a point Paddy

I'm with Il Gatto - it's very much the air of the "old boys" club that's prevalent in England may have developed with many politicians in Ireland - the old FF boys, one might imagine, have become particularly complacent given their virtually unchallenged (and probably soon to continue) governance over the last decade.

It sad that we elect such narrow-minded people that value citizens by their income - that's a job for the CSO

(Nice sig BTW Paddy!)

Gee thanks CT,

Nice to get the odd complment, now and then

P. :cool:

donegalman1

The question of who you know not what you know was prevailant over the years, Many, not all, are now reaping the benefits. Maybe a new mini Celtic Tiger, we hadn't the means or the knowledge to be in on. Where did that mysterious filling station go, the one that was kerbed out for years before the polestar roundabout happened to land on.

Question is, is it going to be the case for another generation?

Do some research on the Neil Blaney Road in Letterkenny and you'll see what I mean.... Its all in the public domain.

What you will find in the coming months and years is things will slow down and the knowledge economy that was knowing where a road was gonna be will quell and the construction industry will slow for that reason.