We heart corruption

skelliser

Well, I for one welcome our new overlords.

poor old mcdowell,
auf wiedersehn Michael. I liked his vocal anti-shinner stance but there's very little you can say for the guy besides that.
i also liked his remark " the left, the far left and the leftovers!" brilliant!
its all panning out as i said it would, a ff/labour coalition

i voted labour

TerrorFirmer

I didn't have to postal vote, and I'm a student - why? Because College term ended - it's ended for me, my cousin, my friends, my girlfriend - they all finished college before this election, and they are in a variety of courses, in varying years. All were able to vote, and did so.

So stop trying to incite that there are these endless potential student votes that were wasted - Alot of us students could vote. And I voted FF, incidentally. If they weren't bothered to take the few minutes to vote or read up on postal voting....please stop with the postal voting bashing - if you wanted to vote so badly, you'd have looked into it, instead of standing by and whining about it. Simple as. There really is no excuse, you can pull as many hilariously deluded conspiracy theories out of the air as you want.

Funny how a lot of those whinging about us having to settle in for another term of incompetency either couldn't be bothered with postal voting or couldn't figure it out. As you keep on saying yourselves - you get what you deserve.

Nuttzz

sioda wrote:

Its called democracy but its not. Democracy imho allows ALL persons entitled to vote but in this case they were not. Holding an election on thursday in a major college exam week marginalises a large number of the electorate who must stay in college to do their exams.

balls, the polls were open from 730am to 1030pm there is plenty of time to spend 5 minutes to vote and if people are living away from where they normally vote they can always reregister, typical empty student argument, I had to work 11 hours on thursday, i still voted........

PCros

HavoK wrote:

I didn't have to postal vote, and I'm a student - why? Because College term ended - it's ended for me, my cousin, my friends, my girlfriend - they all finished college before this election, and they are in a variety of courses, in varying years. All were able to vote, and did so.

So stop trying to incite that there are these endless potential student votes that were wasted - Alot of us students could vote. And I voted FF, incidentally. If they weren't bothered to take the few minutes to vote or read up on postal voting....please stop with the postal voting bashing - if you wanted to vote so badly, you'd have looked into it, instead of standing by and whining about it. Simple as. There really is no excuse, you can pull as many hilariously deluded conspiracy theories out of the air as you want.

Funny how a lot of those whinging about us having to settle in for another term of incompetency either couldn't be bothered with postal voting or couldn't figure it out. As you keep on saying yourselves - you get what you deserve.

I second that, well said.

sioda

Nuttzz wrote:

balls, the polls were open from 730am to 1030pm there is plenty of time to spend 5 minutes to vote and if people are living away from where they normally vote they can always reregister, typical empty student argument, I had to work 11 hours on thursday, i still voted........

Right lets get this sorted out. I was a student and felt very disenfranchised because of this and other Thursday election dates.

This is not an empty arguement it is a deliberate use of a day to take a good proportion of voters out of the game

As for postal vote if you do manage to register who trusts the postal service in this country anyway

So some have finished college many more haven't

DaBreno

HavoK wrote:

So stop trying to incite that there are these endless potential student votes that were wasted - Alot of us students could vote.

And I voted FF, incidentally.

I never would have guessed....

skelliser

i worked in an post and the argument that it is corrupt and that it cant be trusted is rubbish to be honest.
true, it may be pretty slow and kinda unreliable but i can tell ya that the average postman actually cant wait to get rid of post! = less work!!

this postal/long trip home argument is pretty lame to be honest. if ya wonted to vote u would have found a way. enough said.

the real problem is who are the people that voted in these idiots for another 5 YEARS!!!
and without mcdowell and co to keep them on a leash the power trip will only get worse!!
i predicted a ff/labour coalition so id say thats pretty done deal know.
judging by my amazing predictive powers heres whats gonna happen next 5 years, world economic slump, ppl wonder were did all the money go, this equals ff take a hammering in the next election and the blue shirts and labour get in!!

ghostdancer

can we start deleting these retarded topics some time soon?

i mean, i know people like to give out, but there's only so much ****wit "oh noes we voted dem back in!!!11" threads one can take. i know boards politics is at a pathetic level recently, but come on.....

Voipjunkie

ghostdancer wrote:

can we start deleting these retarded topics some time soon?

i mean, i know people like to give out, but there's only so much ****wit "oh noes we voted dem back in!!!11" threads one can take. i know boards politics is at a pathetic level recently, but come on.....

Agreed

maybe one thread called "The people are stupid I know better":rolleyes:

sioda

ghostdancer wrote:

can we start deleting these retarded topics some time soon?

i mean, i know people like to give out, but there's only so much ****wit "oh noes we voted dem back in!!!11" threads one can take. i know boards politics is at a pathetic level recently, but come on.....

Have you even read the thread I mean it mainly discussed the inavailability of voting facilitiies to people because of the day of the election.

ghostdancer

sioda wrote:

Have you even read the thread I mean it mainly discussed the inavailability of voting facilitiies to people because of the day of the election.

yes, i did read said discussion that has been reposted about 84 times over the last 24 hours. thanks kiddo.

thebaz

The reality is the majority of people in Ireland don't care about these ever ending tribunals , if Lawlor or Haughey were still alive they would get re-elected in ireland .. oh so sorry barristers and solicitors and a few in the media earning fortunes from these cash cows , would kick up a stink ... stop them now , and put this waste of public money to good use like education or the health service

sioda

Yeah but this has to be the most popular

sioda

Baz gotta agree with you I personally would happily see the back of tribunals making no headway and making rich lawyers richer

ghostdancer

sioda wrote:

Yeah but this has to be the most popular

i accept your apology.

sioda

None was given i was just stating that this thread is one of the most active of the evening and imo being very well discussed

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

smemon

oh the irony of it all :rolleyes:

we sit and moan about every bloody cent spent, every decision made and how cunning bertie is and how calculated every decision is, yet we vote them straight back in :cool:

typical Irish. Moan, whinge, complain to neighbours and then do nothing about it when given the opportunity to speak in public.

thebman

I think the reality is that the parties want to stop young people voting because they are idealistic etc.. and a large number would vote Sinn Fein or some other unexpected outcome which would harm the other parties so they all kept quiet.

doonothing

ok, just because the option of postal voting is there does not mean it was fair to put election day in the middle of an exam week. it makes it more inconvenient for one subsection of society to vote than another, and surely that isn't fair, regardless of other options one might have.

DublinWriter

luckat wrote:

After all the tribunals, after all the revelations...

...I'm allright Jack.

Zebra3

bemmet wrote:

The people have spoken
Live with it
its called democracy

Like the Nice Treaty? :rolleyes:

Like Ahern signing Ireland up for the PFP after promising not to. :rolleyes:

DaBreno

DaBreno wrote:

Its just not that straight forward. It took me four weeks to change constituency including time to wait for the council to "act" and trying to catch my local Gardia to be in the station so they could stamp my form(not so easy). Of course they had better things to do than hand around and stamp forms, my point is nothing moves fast in our Beauarcracy.

It took my sister less than a half hour...
2 mins at the garda station and then the form handed into the council.

Zebra3

Zebra3 wrote:

Like the Nice Treaty? :rolleyes:

Bull.Next you will be telling us we have to go with our first divorce referendum,first abortion referendum and the election of 1918... :rolleyes:

luckat

If people really wanted to vote they'd go to the trouble of using one of the options suggested - changing their residency on the register or using the postal vote.

Last month a Scot I know in Ireland took time off work and flew home, purely so he could vote. If you care enough, you'll do it.

mickoneill30

Basically the arguments are

1: I was too busy to register for a postal vote.
2: I didn't know how to register for a postal vote.
3: The election was sprung on us (it was a surprise).
4: The postal system that 1000s of people use every day is not reliable enough and I'm afraid my postman will open my vote.

Am I missing anything?

Wishbone Ash

doonothing wrote:

ok, just because the option of postal voting is there does not mean it was fair to put election day in the middle of an exam week. it makes it more inconvenient for one subsection of society to vote than another, and surely that isn't fair, regardless of other options one might have.

But it will be inconvienent for some people regardless of when it is held. I'm sure there are a lot of business people out there who may have been required to travel abroad yesterday and may not have been able to vote. I occasionally work a 15 hour shift. If I had to do that yesterday, I wouldn't have been able to vote either.

luckat

Getting back to the question of political corruption. The "Ah, sure, everyone's at it" argument doesn't wash. There are levels of fiddling, and levels of trust.

It's one level when a publican fiddles the books, employs illegal immigrants, etc.

It's quite another level when a group of people given the trusted job of running their country use this trust and power to make money for themselves - when the consequences could destroy the country.

Several Fianna Fail figures, central to the party, powerful in the country's politics, have taken money from builders and developers - remember that they have made construction the engine running the economy - in return for rezoning land which should have been used for other, more important, things, so that their friends in corruption can build profitable dwellings, for which they get tax breaks voted in by the same politicians.

It is under the rule of these people that the Catholic Church, whose officials assisted in the rape of children by constantly redeploying known rapists to new communities, were allowed to go free of payment, and the Irish taxpayers were billed with paying compensation to the churchmen's victims.

These are not "ah sure everyone's on the fiddle" questions. This is not what we should want in our country.

Have we no one better than this?

AidoCQS

I think it was Mick McConnell, a writer for the Kerryman who tells a story about meeting German students on a train to Dublin in the late eighties and he got chatting to them. They said that they were here to study the Irish political system. He felt proud thinking it was a study of democracy or proportional representation or something until he heard their thesis: That Irish politics is inherently corrupt, and that Irish people take a view that if they don't rock the boat, the proceeds of that will eventually trickle down to them.

Mick raged at them, he was very annoyed. Every time though that something happens to prove that thesis (Like Lowry/Ahern yesterday) he thinks of those students and regrets giving them a rollicking.

sioda

sioda wrote:

Its called democracy but its not. Democracy imho allows ALL persons entitled to vote but in this case they were not. Holding an election on thursday in a major college exam week marginalises a large number of the electorate who must stay in college to do their exams.

If there was a Radiohead gig on a Thursday night in May, would all the exam-sitting students miss it to stay in college to study?

How many exam-sitting students found 90 spare minutes to watch the Champions League final?

Excuses, excuses.....