RTE debate between leaders of the smaller parties

brianthebard

daveirl wrote:

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Yeah I agree, its probably why he had so much anger against the greens, they probably have the biggest swing vote pull at the minute.

daveirl

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yomchi

Rock Climber wrote:

Lol at mcdowell asking whether it was the northern though.
In fairness too,No one on the average industrial wage could afford a mortgage on one house in Ireland today never mind two.
It was fair comment in reply to Adams protesting that he and mcguinness only take the average industrial wage.

His home in Belfast is a rented council house, therefore he has one mortgage in Ireland. Don't forget the man is also an author of many best sellers or should we deprive him of makiing a few quid for himself here as well. Typically Irish, begrudge a man a few bob and a suit.

nesf

RalphCifaretto wrote:

I don't see why people are surprised by how well McDoweel handled himself. The bloke is a barrister, it is quite obvious he can carry himself in a debate.

I think that's his biggest flaw at times. He's given speeches that while were logical, intricate and sensible they were never going to appeal to the average man on the street. He does play to his audience but I'm convinced that he could never play to the general audience even if he wanted to.

chump

Jon wrote:

His home in Belfast is a rented council house, therefore he has one mortgage in Ireland. Don't forget the man is also an author of many best sellers or should we deprive him of makiing a few quid for himself here as well. Typically Irish, begrudge a man a few bob and a suit.

You've missed the point altogether.
The man was suggesting that he is the everyman on the average industrial wage. I've no problem with people earning a few quid - but he seems to.

AlanOB

Trouble there's no need to resort to personal insults. My point is not that it would be in the interest of a left leaning government to destroy business confidence, it is that they would do so nonetheless with their high spend, suction politics to drive their misguided search for so-called "social justice".

Their priority is to "afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted" as Rabbite himself says, rather than nurture a society where hard work, enterprise and intelligence is sufficiently rewarded. A society with such incentives to reach for the stars is the one we have now and is the only way to achieve a prosperous enterprising nation. As McDowell says "some measure of inequality is necessary for a thriving country" and this is true.

Without the people who achieve and reach the heights that they are encouraged to reach in this country we would have no budget surplus with which to go about tackling the various issues that need to be looked at.

daveirl

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Rock Climber

Rofl @ the collective farms comment above.

Jon I just made a fair comment , thats all.Adams was owned on the industrial wage point.

Pride Fighter

PD's are going to be wiped out. They will lose all their seats as they are nothing but a pack of tossers

Rock Climber

chump wrote:

You've missed the point altogether.
The man was suggesting that he is the everyman on the average industrial wage. I've no problem with people earning a few quid - but he seems to.

Exactly.

daveirl

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nesf

daveirl wrote:

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I think it's more correct to say that for the left and right inequality mean two very different things. For the right it means that some people will always earn more than other people simply because of skill, effort etc. For the left the word means poverty, "unfairness" and other stuff. They are very different meanings.

I think most reasonable people would agree that under the right's definition some inequality is ok/good and too much is bad and under the left's it's simply something that we don't want.

E92

Pat Rabbitte- The best by a mile. The one liner on Paris Hilton and Michael Mc Dowell was hillariuous.

Trevor Sargent - A person who may be a senior Minister very soon should be able to do better than have notes written on his hand and then wave them about on the air

Gerry Adams - Apart from being typically Sinn Fein in not answering a single question, he started mentioning a FG policy(suicide), and can anyone who supports Sinn Fein explain to me why none of their proposals are costed? It would be nice to know where the money for all their plans is going to come from. Gerry Adams's performance is indicative of someone who spends most of his time not living in Ireland, he doesnt seem to be au fait with the goings on in the Republic. He wasnt as convincing as he was on other times I've seen him on air.


Michael Mc Dowell - Ah sure the poor aul creater. All ganging up on poor Michael. Talked a fair bit of BS, imagine that FG are a left wing party? I regard FG as a Centre/slighly right of Centre party. Mind you, full credit for him asking questions about SF and their Overall,there were some very good fireworks in it, but it was very clear past, it was very obvious to me that Adams was out of his comfort zone.

It was very clear to me that apart from Pat Rabbitte and to a lesser extent Mc Dowell that they were not very skilled when talking about things outside what they say they stand for eg the Greens didnt get to mention about Climate Change, SF didnt really get to talk about the National Question, when Mc Dowell wasnt talking about the econbomy and to a lessor extent Justice, he didnt seem to know a lot either.

yomchi

Adams was sh1te, no doubt. I feel very disappointed with his performance. He needs a kick up the jacksie

Jonny Arson

daveirl wrote:

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When Sargent did speak tonight he nailed McDowell on everything. McDowell's performance tonight was based on inaccurate statements, ranting and raving and throwing zings and not about issues. He only came out well because he held his own in 3 on 1 dogfight and not a true political debate. I don't see any votes coming his way after tonight.

ateam

Pride Fighter wrote:

PD's are going to be wiped out. They will lose all their seats as they are nothing but a pack of tossers

You obviously are not up to date with the local constituencies where they're guaranteed to win at least 2 seats. McDowell sounded impressive. Sergeant didn't really have much of a say and that will probably work out to the party's advantage.

RalphCifaretto

AlanOB wrote:

Trouble there's no need to resort to personal insults. My point is not that it would be in the interest of a left leaning government to destroy business confidence, it is that they would do so nonetheless with their high spend, suction politics to drive their misguided search for so-called "social justice".

Their priority is to "afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted" as Rabbite himself says, rather than nurture a society where hard work, enterprise and intelligence is sufficiently rewarded. A society with such incentives to reach for the stars is the one we have now and is the only way to achieve a prosperous enterprising nation. As McDowell says "some measure of inequality is necessary for a thriving country" and this is true.

Without the people who achieve and reach the heights that they are encouraged to reach in this country we would have no budget surplus with which to go about tackling the various issues that need to be looked at.

It is precisely that uncompromising capitalism that has our society in the state it is in today. Rapid uncontrolled urbanisation, infrastructural crisis, decimated health system, unaffordable housing, continued crippling poverty despite growth, the list could be endless.

I'm all for progress, balanced progress. Unbridled monetarism cannot provide that, and the future will prove this.

daveirl

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Pride Fighter

Anybody remember the pedophile crisis of last year. PD incompetency saw paedo's released. PD= pedophile defenders. They help the rich, they help develpoers, paedos, jailbirds, corrupt taoiseach and ruin this nation. Only tossers vote for them.

nesf

Jonny Arson wrote:

When Sargent did speak tonight he nailed McDowell on everything.

You must have been watching a different program, he spent most of his time childishly interrupting McDowell and making himself look like a fool. He got a few good points in at the end when he calmed down a bit but really he failed to nail down McDowell. Rabbitte on the other hand caught him did manage to do it.

StandnDeliver

McDowell let himself down,he was insulting,and well and he didnt give any new points or any ideas about the health system,education that would make me want to vote for him.
Rabbitte did well,though he looked to smug.he put across some good points,was calm and collected
Sargante did ok,put across some good points,though his opening speech was weak.
Gerry Adams did poorly.

in general people who wouldnt know about partys got a view of what each party stood on most key issues

Valentia

AlanOB wrote:

He underlined brilliantly that the alternative government is a centre-left option that is not pro-enterprise, is not pro business and holds ideological unrealistic views on life that are antithetic to the prosperity that we have enjoyed in this country over the last decade.

Would you care to give a specific example of how he "underlined" this please?

96% of the population are wrong? Not liking the PD's I mean. LOL

nesf

Pride Fighter wrote:

Anybody remember the pedophile crisis of last year. PD incompetency saw paedo's released. PD= pedophile defenders. They help the rich, they help develpoers, paedos, jailbirds, corrupt taoiseach and ruin this nation. Only tossers vote for them.

How on earth is there being a loophole in law the PD's fault? Oh, and please learn to spell your posts are painful to read (sorry, but I must live up to the title "tosser" after all...).

Badabing

I think 3 things happened tonight, Sargent wont be the greens leader for very long, Rabbite wont be finance minister and taniste, and Gerry Adams wont do southern debates again.

ateam

The big question is whether Rabbitte's performance will take votes away from it's socialist rival...Sinn Fein. McDowell ensured increased transfers from Fianna Fail voters tonight.

Morgans

I didnt think McDowell did well tonight. Harney would have been better in tempting swing voters. Only good thing he does is stick it to Sinn Fein like no one else. Then again, whether, as Minister of Justice, with privileged and possibly confidential information, do this is open to debate. I like it.

Adams was awful. Rabbitte was best, McDowell, beligerant and more than ever I think the Greens are going to be the success story of this election. I'd love em, only that I dont believe the global warming scaremongering....

McDowell far too interesting in personal attacks to gain swing votes, IMO.

Jonny Arson

daveirl wrote:

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Yeah I can see may voters rushing to change their vote from the Greens because the poor cash raping banks in this country are going to have an extra little tax to pay over 5 years on their obscene profits........

Pride Fighter

nesf wrote:

How on earth is there being a loophole in law the PD's fault? Oh, and please learn to spell your posts are painful to read (sorry, but I must live up to the title "tosser" after all...).

Spelling is irrelevant you are doing what McDowell was doing tonight focusing on pointless detail while ducking and missing the point

daveirl

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Colonel Sanders

chump wrote:

You've missed the point altogether.
The man was suggesting that he is the everyman on the average industrial wage. I've no problem with people earning a few quid - but he seems to.

i agree and the irony of it is that Gerry Adams seems to begrudge people earning more than the average. Maybe a low blow from McDowell but effective.

Thought the which bank, the northern one? comment was a gem!!