Sweeping reforms in Ireland

SimpleSam06

I already posted this over in AH, but maybe thats not the right place to put it. How would you go about getting into power and what reforms would you like to see?

I think you'd first need a wide range of policies which would appeal to your target population, with enough appeal that it won't piss off business interests and those with a lot to lose from radical reforms.

Next you'd need to get your faces into the media, which is an expensive process. You'd either need independent financing or some sponsors with deep pockets, which again goes back to policies. And again, you need to have a support base before doing that, which is hard to get without media coverage, in a catch-22 situation.

Once you have policies, a party structure, a support base, and regular media coverage, you need to actually get into power. Actually on the whole, its not too hard a process. Find a sponsor or two, political and legal experts, a marketing team, and away you go. If it was up to me, I'd enact the following reforms:

• More stringent controls on the banking and financial sector to prevent them throwing money at people who really can't afford to pay it back.
  
• Anti property investment legislation, as was recommended in the Bacon report (actually implemented but cancelled due to a shortage of housing stock at the time).
  
• Much tighter control of the civil service, in particular the health service, with wide layoffs and pay freezes until they are on a par with the private sector, pension reform also.
  
• Sweeping reforms of the outdated armed forces in Ireland, with a focus on smaller, better trained and equipped groups, and a considerably enhanced naval and air profile. The days of the mass army are long gone, and if its not effective, remove it. Yes I know Aegis cruisers cost a fortune, but you only need to buy them once every 50 years.
  
• Enhanced support for entrepreneurs and small business people, with low interest loans and favourable grants for that purpose. And a branch of the government whose sole purpose it is to help them market and sell their product internationally and nationally.
  
• Much higher government investment in local industry and technology - open an Irish built car manufacturing plant for example, or make boats our speciality, this is an island after all. There are also exciting things being done in the field of renewable resources and biotech, automation, the list is endless. This is also where you can put your recently fired/retired civil servants.
  
• Reforms of the police and prison systems, making them better equipped but fewer in numbers, and a real alternative to the failed prison system we have currently in place, focused on proper rehabilitation.
  
• A review and reform of border controls and immigration.
  
• A foreign policy focused on trade and the exchange of raw materials and ideas with other nations, in particular poorer countries (a la what China is doing right now), leveraging our favourable position within the EU, which offers free access to a market of a half a billion people. As it is most of our foreign policy is flogging faith-n-begorrah.
  
• A minimal taxation policy.
  
• Loosened local intellectual property laws, which have historically lead to massive advancements in technology whenever it occurred (see again China and in fact the US around the turn of the last century).
  
• Reforms of the agricultural sector, focusing on better returns for the effort put in, and specialised food crops.
  
• Complete educational reforms, and a much larger investment into the educational system. I don't mean by this more pay for teachers, I mean more teachers, more schools, and the latest cutting edge equipment in schools and universities.
  
• Strong anti corruption legislation, mandatory end to end financial transparency for all public servants above a certain level, and using the new ubiquity of the internet to allow the general population to have more of a say in local government.
• Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure.
• Much development on the process of teaching the Irish language, and the focus on Irish culture in general. Particular emphasis would be placed on the works of people like Jim Fitzpatrick.
• Support for the concept of a united Ireland, but passive support only. If the people of the north vote to rejoin the south, they are more than welcome.

Now thats an Ireland I'd like to live in.

djpbarry

While I would largely agree with the policies you have laid out here, I have one or two questions:

1. What would the review and reform of immigration involve?
2. And the reforms of the armed forces?
3. A minimal taxation policy? Surely that would do more harm than good? Especially in conjunction with investment in infrastructure?
4. "Development on the process of teaching the Irish language"; is this not a bit out-dated?

SimpleSam06

djpbarry wrote:

What would the review and reform of immigration involve?

Well look at what we have now; rising dissatisfaction among the populace with the state of immigration. The immigration laws and procedures need to be reformed to deal with that.

djpbarry wrote:

And the reforms of the armed forces?

Basically we don't need an army, and the army we have is useless for the purposes of defence, with outdated equipment. What we need is a smaller, more mobile force, able to deal with serious issues and terrorism as it arises. National defence should fall far more into the Navy and Air Force.

djpbarry wrote:

A minimal taxation policy? Surely that would do more harm than good? Especially in conjunction with investment in infrastructure?

No, if you strip off even a small amount of the civil service, and restrain the rest (discard that benchmarking for example), you have freed up enormous amounts of money that can be used elsewhere. Putting the civil servants into profitable companies increases that benefit. Don't forget, you have 20% of the working population in the civil service, all with gold plated pensions. That is not sustainable.

djpbarry wrote:

"Development on the process of teaching the Irish language"; is this not a bit out-dated?

That is exactly the problem. Irish as it is being taught in schools at the moment is a disaster. If we wish to maintain our national language, we need to reform that process completely.

djpbarry

SimpleSam06 wrote:

The immigration laws and procedures need to be reformed to deal with that.

Meaning what exactly?

SimpleSam06 wrote:

What we need is a smaller, more mobile force, able to deal with serious issues and terrorism as it arises.

Well, I would say the priority should be narcotics squads rather than anti-terrorism.

SimpleSam06 wrote:

Irish as it is being taught in schools at the moment is a disaster. If we wish to maintain our national language, we need to reform that process completely.

What I meant is that the Irish language as a priority in education is a bit of an out-dated notion.

SimpleSam06

djpbarry wrote:

Meaning what exactly?

Tightened, basically.

djpbarry wrote:

Well, I would say the priority should be narcotics squads rather than anti-terrorism.

The armed forces are not and never have been an adequate replacement for the Gardai, they are two different sections.

djpbarry wrote:

What I meant is that the Irish language as a priority in education is a bit of an out-dated notion.

You're entitled to your opinion, but my feelings, and probably those of a lot of Irish people, are that it would be advantageous to us to see the language restored to its proper place as the national language. It is very much part of Irish culture and identity.

r3nu4l

I agree with what you are saying about the Irish language.

SimpleSam06 wrote:

[*]Anti property investment legislation, as was recommended in the Bacon report (actually implemented but cancelled due to a shortage of housing stock at the time).

The problem with stock shortages is that builders realised that investors weren't buying anymore so cut down on the amount they were building. Investors fuelled the building boom in the first place unfortunately. That whole situation is a catch-22.

If you bring forth anti property investment legislation then you'd better have policies in place to encourage builders to build! Remember that if they aren't building in Ireland...they are probably still building in another country and may move their base of operations to that country...probably the UK!

cavedave

Reforms of the police and prison systems, making them better equipped but fewer in numbers, and a real alternative to the failed prison system we have currently in place, focused on proper rehabilitation.

I believe half the criminals should not be in jail.
Non payment of fines or buying of licences should probably be dealt with with community service not jail.
Prostitution and drug use and other "crimes" that occur between consenting adults should not be crimes.
Certain very serious criminals should be given a survival course some tools dropped off on the Saltee islands and left to fend for themselves. That might seem harsh but spending 100 thousand a year on a murderer is an appalling waste.

djpbarry

SimpleSam06 wrote:

Tightened, basically.

Tightened, meaning, "stop letting so many people into the country"? Why?

SimpleSam06 wrote:

The armed forces are not and never have been an adequate replacement for the Gardai, they are two different sections.

I’m not disputing that. What I am saying is that if I were to rank threats to our security as I see them, I would rank drug smuggling a lot higher than terrorism, given the links to organised crime.

SimpleSam06 wrote:

it would be advantageous to us to see the language restored to its proper place as the national language. It is very much part of Irish culture and identity.

How would this be "advantageous"? The fact that it is part of our culture is not in dispute, but I would say the lack of school places in this country is a much greater concern to parents than the particulars of how Irish is taught.

purple'n'gold

Tightened, meaning, "stop letting so many people into the country"? Why?

No right minded person wants to stop letting people into the country, but we should have a zero tolerance towards illegal immigration. People from outside the EU landing here without proper documentation, should be held at point of entry and sent back to where they have just come from ASAP. Word would soon get around that we are not a soft touch anymore.

silverharp

SimpleSam06 wrote:

[*]Anti property investment legislation, as was recommended in the Bacon report (actually implemented but cancelled due to a shortage of housing stock at the time).

I think the planning process should be overhauled and building standards improved, otherwise let the market find a balance, we don't dictate how many shoes can be sold, why is property any different.

SimpleSam06 wrote:

[*]Much higher government investment in local industry and technology - open an Irish built car manufacturing plant for example, or make boats our speciality, this is an island after all. There are also exciting things being done in the field of renewable resources and biotech, automation, the list is endless. This is also where you can put your recently fired/retired civil servants.

I hope the car plant idea is a joke? however no reason why ireland should not be a centre of excellence in renewable energy

SimpleSam06

djpbarry wrote:

I’m not disputing that. What I am saying is that if I were to rank threats to our security as I see them, I would rank drug smuggling a lot higher than terrorism, given the links to organised crime.

To paraphrase "The Siege", the army is a broadsword, not a scalpel.

djpbarry wrote:

How would this be "advantageous"? The fact that it is part of our culture is not in dispute, but I would say the lack of school places in this country is a much greater concern to parents than the particulars of how Irish is taught.

There is no reason why both issues cannot be addressed simultaneously. I'd say they almost complement each other, in fact.

silverharp wrote:

I think the planning process should be overhauled and building standards improved, otherwise let the market find a balance, we don't dictate how many shoes can be sold, why is property any different.

I'm definetely with you on the planning process. Property is wildly different to shoes, not least because there isn't a limited stock of shoes, and the making of new shoes isn't a highly expensive and regulated industry accounting for a massive amount of the national tax returns. They do have one thing in common though. Everyone need shoes.

silverharp wrote:

I hope the car plant idea is a joke? however no reason why ireland should not be a centre of excellence in renewable energy

Why would the car plant idea be a joke? In fact we could mix it with that centre of excellence in renewable energy!

SimpleSam06

Del Griffith wrote:

If you bring forth anti property investment legislation then you'd better have policies in place to encourage builders to build!

In a situation where one house in six in the country is sitting empty, I don't think a great deal of new building will be required for a while. I mean, its not like one person in six is homeless.

cavedave wrote:

Certain very serious criminals should be given a survival course some tools dropped off on the Saltee islands and left to fend for themselves. That might seem harsh but spending 100 thousand a year on a murderer is an appalling waste.

Serious habitual criminals would be high on the list of things to do, without a doubt. Its a fine line to tread between treating them too well and descending into medieval punishment routines though.

djpbarry

purple’n&#8217 wrote: »

People from outside the EU landing here without proper documentation, should be held at point of entry and sent back to where they have just come from ASAP

That is immoral and, more importantly, illegal.

It is common for people seeking asylum to travel with false or no documentation. This is because they are frequently not in a position to seek the necessary documents from their own government or an embassy. Article 31 of the Refugee Convention [Geneva
Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951] acknowledges this difficulty and obliges states not to impose penalties on asylum seekers who arrive illegally in their state.

Persons who are trafficked usually work illegally in exploitative circumstances such as in sex work. The majority of trafficked persons are women and children. Smuggled persons are generally smuggled for the purposes of (illegal) employment or to seek international protection. In the latter case, people resort to smugglers due to the difficulty of travelling in a regular manner to another country such as visa restrictions, or the difficulty of obtaining valid documentation in their own country.

The World Summit for Social Development (Copenhagen, 1995) called on States to ensure that migrant workers benefit from the protection they are afforded under international law, to ratify all relevant international instruments, and to take measures to ensure that migrant workers are not exploited. In addition, States were encouraged to combat illegal immigration and trafficking in persons while safeguarding the rights of undocumented migrants.

Several initiatives are under consideration and the Council of the European Union agreed a Directive in May 2001, on the mutual recognition of decisions in the expulsion of third-country nationals. The provisions of this Directive apply to Ireland and it refers to expulsions based on a threat to public order or national security and safety in cases where a third-country national is convicted in a Member State of a crime, punishable by a term of imprisonment of at least one year, or if there are serious grounds for believing that the person has committed a serious crime, or if a third-country national contravenes entry and residence rules.

In April 2002, the European Commission issued a Green Paper on a community return policy on illegal residents. The Commission has drawn up a proposal for a Council Framework Decision on combating trafficking in human beings. This deals with both trafficking in persons for the purposes of labour exploitation and sexual exploitation. The Commission Proposal recognised that trafficked persons are not voluntary illegal immigrants, but have been brought to the host State by a variety of means including, deception, coercion, threats, and abduction. Rather than being criminals, they are victims.

silverharp wrote:

no reason why ireland should not be a centre of excellence in renewable energy

Finally, someone agrees with me!!

cavedave

Serious habitual criminals would be high on the list of things to do, without a doubt. Its a fine line to tread between treating them too well and descending into medieval punishment routines though.

Yes my suggestion of banishment is a premedieval routine and certainly crosses that line. In its defense it is cheap, it is arguably more pleasant then being locked up. So the question is "is banishing someone from society who has significantly broken the social contract unreasonable?". Or at least more unreasonable then the millions of euro we currently spend on each of these people currently.

karen3212

Hi op,
I like your ideas. Irish could definately be thought in a better way.

I don't know what the army would be for, anit-terrorism is probably better tackled by police. As for fighting drugs, well then I would just leagalise them and spend the money spared on education about drugs, and rehabilitation of addicts.

Also, I thought better teacher training might be a good idea as it's more effective than smaller classese with more teachers. Yeah though we do need more schools near where people live.

djpbarry

cavedave wrote:

In its defense it is cheap, it is arguably more pleasant then being locked up. So the question is "is banishing someone from society who has significantly broken the social contract unreasonable?". Or at least more unreasonable then the millions of euro we currently spend on each of these people currently.

This was attempted in the past by the state of California. The island in question was Alcatraz.

bonkey

purplengold wrote:

No right minded person wants to stop letting people into the country, but we should have a zero tolerance towards illegal immigration.

But that only requires that we enforce the laws that we already have, not that we change the law.

Incidentally, it wouldn't solve the problems that you claim its targetting, given that the overwhelming majority of foreigners in Ireland are legal intra-EU migrants which nothing short of succession would allow us to do anything about.

People from outside the EU landing here without proper documentation, should be held at point of entry and sent back to where they have just come from ASAP. Word would soon get around that we are not a soft touch anymore.

You seem to be labouring under the impression that Ireland gets a disproportionately high number of asylum seekers (genuine or otherwise). Have you any figures to back this up?

The UNHCR numbers, incidentally, disagree with any such notion. We are not amongst the top recipients, and the numbers of applicants to Ireland are falling steadily.

cavedave

This was attempted in the past by the state of California. The island in question was Alcatraz.

Alcatraz was a prison. A cruel expensive prison. I am not suggesting a prison. I am suggesting banishment to an otherwise deserted island.

bonkey

Just on some of the other points...

SimpleSam06 wrote:

More stringent controls on the banking and financial sector to prevent them throwing money at people who really can't afford to pay it back.

Banks don't make money out of people who can't afford to pay them back. They do, however, make money from people who can just-about afford to pay them back.

That people are stupid enough to put themselves in such crippling amounts od debt is neither the banks' nor the governments' responsibility. Its not the solution to the problem I think you want to target, which is housing.

Enhanced support for entrepreneurs and small business people, with low interest loans and favourable grants for that purpose. And a branch of the government whose sole purpose it is to help them market and sell their product internationally and nationally.

Business is not the government's forte, nor should it be. Enhanced support for such generally means one of two things :

1) Easy-to-get monies from the state - seems attractive but overall isn't necessarily a good thing.
2) Reductions in worker-security - attractive for employers only.

Much higher government investment in local industry and technology

Again, not the government's forte. You want them to fix the civil service because they've basically turned it into a money-pit, but at the same time you're suggesting they can be trusted to dabble meaningfully in business.

A review and reform of border controls and immigration.

Schengen is already a reform. Beyond that and implementing the laws we already have in place, I'd like to hear what else you have in mind.

A minimal taxation policy.

Can you show how this will pay for things? If not, why not go the whole hog and suggest a no-taxation policy.

To be honest, I don't think the level of personal taxation is the problem. If you had a public transport and public health system to rival the Swiss, as well as a world-class road network maintained through your taxes, good state0run pensions and so on you'd be happy to pay what you're paying and possibly more.

Its value people want to see - knowledge that their taxes are actually being well spent.

[*]Loosened local intellectual property laws, which have historically lead to massive advancements in technology whenever it occurred (see again China and in fact the US around the turn of the last century).

It works for economic giants who can afford to piss off whoever it is that they're stealing IP from. For us, it would mean succession from the WTO, as well as pariah status from the US and possibly from the EU. It would also fly 100% in the face of your notion of trading ideas with other nations.

[*]Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure.

You mean like they're doing? It takes time.

Support for the concept of a united Ireland, but passive support only.

Absolutely not. We dropped exactly that from our constitution as a part of what achieved the shaky peace that got us as far as we are today. Reintroducing it would be a disaster, whether as policy, encouragement, or anything else.

If the people of the north vote to rejoin the south, they are more than welcome.

No. If they vote to join the south, then the republic will also have to vote to let them.

bonkey

cavedave wrote:

I am suggesting banishment to an otherwise deserted island.

An island which will have to have its borders and airspace fully protected all the time, to make sure someone doesn't take a boat or helicopter and lift people away.

An island which will need to have all the necessary facilities and capabilities to be self-sustaining in terms of basic human amenities.

An island which, despite this, will have no imposed law, meaning that if it turns into a medieval "survival of the strongest" fiefdom for some tyrant prisoners, well...thats just fine.

Seriously...it sounds like a bad movie plot. In fact...I think this idea has appeared in more than one dodgy movie.

Hotblack Desiato

Sounds like a crackpot dictatorship to me.

SimpleSam06 wrote:

[*]Anti property investment legislation, as was recommended in the Bacon report (actually implemented but cancelled due to a shortage of housing stock at the time).

Not everyone can (or wants to) buy a home, without property investors tenants will be homeless.

[*]Much tighter control of the civil service, in particular the health service, with wide layoffs and pay freezes until they are on a par with the private sector, pension reform also.

Health service workers are not civil servants and many are on fixed-term contracts, etc.
Bring in layoffs if you like but the cost of redundancy will be huge and there are already staff shortages in many areas like healthcare (not admin) and immigration.
Sounds like a typical Indo rant.

[*]Sweeping reforms of the outdated armed forces in Ireland, with a focus on smaller, better trained and equipped groups

Already been happening for a long time (lots of barracks closures with money going instead into equipment.)

[*]Enhanced support for entrepreneurs and small business people, with low interest loans and favourable grants for that purpose. And a branch of the government whose sole purpose it is to help them market and sell their product internationally and nationally.

IDA?
Enterprise Ireland?
County enterprise boards?
Udaras?
Etc. etc. etc.

[*]Much higher government investment in local industry and technology - open an Irish built car manufacturing plant for example

Now that is quite simply a joke, at least I hope it is.

This is also where you can put your recently fired/retired civil servants.

Hmmm yes let's 'redelploy' a map draughtsman into a the Lada state car works, makes sense :rolleyes:

[*]Reforms of the police and prison systems, making them better equipped but fewer in numbers, and a real alternative to the failed prison system we have currently in place, focused on proper rehabilitation.

We already have insufficient places and short terms for violent offenders. Society needs protecting from these people.

[*]A foreign policy focused on trade and the exchange of raw materials and ideas with other nations, in particular poorer countries (a la what China is doing right now), leveraging our favourable position within the EU, which offers free access to a market of a half a billion people. As it is most of our foreign policy is flogging faith-n-begorrah.

This is just gobbledegook tbh.

[*]A minimal taxation policy.

Who's going to pay for the dole for all those sacked civil servants?

[*]Loosened local intellectual property laws, which have historically lead to massive advancements in technology whenever it occurred (see again China and in fact the US around the turn of the last century).

In other words legalise ripping off IP from other countries? Interesting, the EU won't allow it though.

[*]Reforms of the agricultural sector, focusing on better returns for the effort put in, and specialised food crops.

What is a 'specialised food crop' ?

and the latest cutting edge equipment in schools and universities.

This is the sort of hogwash Microsoft and Dell peddle. We don't need one laptop per child, we need smaller class sizes and more effective targeting of early educational disadvantage.

mandatory end to end financial transparency for all public servants above a certain level

Already in place. Politicians are not public servants though, if that's who you meant.

and using the new ubiquity of the internet to allow the general population to have more of a say in local government.

Yeah, because e-voting is such a roaring success, we should have i-voting :rolleyes:

[*]Much development on the process of teaching the Irish language, and the focus on Irish culture in general. Particular emphasis would be placed on the works of people like Jim Fitzpatrick.

You can't force language and 'culture' (or rather, one's particular idea of what constitutes culture) down people's throats, I thought we'd have learned that after trying it for 80+ years.

cavedave

An island which will have to have its borders and airspace fully protected all the time, to make sure someone doesn't take a boat or helicopter and lift people away.

That is a good point and one that is serious enough to scupper the whole scheme.

An island which will need to have all the necessary facilities and capabilities to be self-sustaining in terms of basic human amenities.

Most islands would have this. As long as to describe basic as the standard of living of most humans in the world now and in the past. That may be too low to be acceptable to people.

An island which, despite this, will have no imposed law, meaning that if it turns into a medieval "survival of the strongest" fiefdom for some tyrant prisoners, well...thats just fine.

Most prisons appear to be like this at the moment.

silverharp

bonkey wrote:

Banks don't make money out of people who can't afford to pay them back. They do, however, make money from people who can just-about afford to pay them back.

That people are stupid enough to put themselves in such crippling amounts od debt is neither the banks' nor the governments' responsibility. Its not the solution to the problem I think you want to target, which is housing.

Banks do make money doing this, that is what the sub prime mess is about, they sold the loans on to stupid European banks


I normally go with the free market approach, in fact abolishing central banks would sort out a lot of finance issues around the world, but it is a simple fact that a significant portion of the population don’t understand the consequenses of being in debt. Had banks not been allowed issue 100% mortgages and increase the loan multiples and tolerate liar loans, the problem would not be as bad now. Cars have safety features attached, no reason why loan products should as well.

purple'n'gold

bonkey wrote:

But that only requires that we enforce the laws that we already have, not that we change the law.

Incidentally, it wouldn't solve the problems that you claim its targetting, given that the overwhelming majority of foreigners in Ireland are legal intra-EU migrants which nothing short of succession would allow us to do anything about.


You seem to be labouring under the impression that Ireland gets a disproportionately high number of asylum seekers (genuine or otherwise). Have you any figures to back this up?

The UNHCR numbers, incidentally, disagree with any such notion. We are not amongst the top recipients, and the numbers of applicants to Ireland are falling steadily.

I am not labouring under any impression. What I am saying quiet plainly is, if anyone who is not an EU citizen lands here without proper documentation they should be sent straight back to the country they just came from. It’s not a matter of how many of them there are, whether it is 100 people or 10,000.

djpbarry

purplengold wrote:

What I am saying quiet plainly is, if anyone who is not an EU citizen lands here without proper documentation they should be sent straight back to the country they just came from. It’s not a matter of how many of them there are, whether it is 100 people or 10,000.

I have already pointed out why this should not, and cannot, be done.

SimpleSam06

karen3212 wrote:

I don't know what the army would be for, anit-terrorism is probably better tackled by police. As for fighting drugs, well then I would just leagalise them and spend the money spared on education about drugs, and rehabilitation of addicts.

Well the army in its current form is an expensive boondoggle. If we reduce the numbers and improve the equipment and training, we will cover all eventualities not covered by the regular law enforcement groups.

karen3212 wrote:

Also, I thought better teacher training might be a good idea as it's more effective than smaller classese with more teachers. Yeah though we do need more schools near where people live.

Definetely a good idea.

bonkey wrote:

Banks don't make money out of people who can't afford to pay them back. They do, however, make money from people who can just-about afford to pay them back.

That people are stupid enough to put themselves in such crippling amounts od debt is neither the banks' nor the governments' responsibility. Its not the solution to the problem I think you want to target, which is housing.

Actually you are mistaken there. Banks will lend out money to people that might not be able to pay it back. The recent advent of a practise known as "securitisation" means they can package up mortgages and sell them on as securities, essentially removing any liablility to themselves. As to those unfortunate enough to have bought the marketing, you have to remember that was and is one hell of a marketing machine, whose sole purpose was to sell houses. In the absence of any alternative information, why would people do otherwise?

bonkey wrote:

Business is not the government's forte, nor should it be. Enhanced support for such generally means one of two things :

1) Easy-to-get monies from the state - seems attractive but overall isn't necessarily a good thing.
2) Reductions in worker-security - attractive for employers only.

Eh, can you expand on point one, and explain point two. How does state assistance for entrepreneurship reduce worker security?

bonkey wrote:

Again, not the government's forte. You want them to fix the civil service because they've basically turned it into a money-pit, but at the same time you're suggesting they can be trusted to dabble meaningfully in business.

Well yes, the civil service is, as you said, a money pit. Cash goes in and never comes out. Business on the other hand needs to produce a profit, you can see pretty quickly if its working or not. Besides I'm not talking about state direction, I'm talking about state assistance, more of a middle man role.

bonkey wrote:

Can you show how this will pay for things? If not, why not go the whole hog and suggest a no-taxation policy.

...

Its value people want to see - knowledge that their taxes are actually being well spent.

Well when I said minimal taxation, I mean just sufficient to cover all of the reforms I mentioned, and keep the machine ticking over. This could easily be saved, as I mentioned before, by paring down the civil service.

If you can give people value for money along with minimal taxation, so much the better!

bonkey wrote:

It works for economic giants who can afford to piss off whoever it is that they're stealing IP from. For us, it would mean succession from the WTO, as well as pariah status from the US and possibly from the EU. It would also fly 100% in the face of your notion of trading ideas with other nations.

Only certain nations. I agree that the fallout would be tricky, but an analysis would have to be done to see whether the benefits would outweigh the problems. I don't know if you've ever heard of a data haven, but its another possible idea which could be applied in this instance.

bonkey wrote:

You mean like they're doing? It takes time.

Nah, sorry, government investment in infrastructure has been incredibly poor. Most of the work you see being done is being done with EU structural funds. If you want to see the current government in action, look at Galway's water supply, and try to get broadband internet access outside a major municipal centre.

bonkey wrote:

Absolutely not. We dropped exactly that from our constitution as a part of what achieved the shaky peace that got us as far as we are today. Reintroducing it would be a disaster, whether as policy, encouragement, or anything else.

I can definetely see where you are coming from with this. However this policy would seem to be implicit in most of our dealings with the north in any case. No need to make it explicit, just continue as we are.

SimpleSam06

ninja900 wrote:

Sounds like a crackpot dictatorship to me.

Just call me Hank Scorpio.

ninja900 wrote:

Not everyone can (or wants to) buy a home, without property investors tenants will be homeless.

Wrong, without Buy to Let investors, tenants will be homeless. Flippers and investors depending on capital appreciation produce nothing except higher house prices.

ninja900 wrote:

Health service workers are not civil servants and many are on fixed-term contracts, etc.
Bring in layoffs if you like but the cost of redundancy will be huge and there are already staff shortages in many areas like healthcare (not admin) and immigration.

I would classify them as employees of the state. As for shortages and redundancies, well we fixed that problem before, didn't we? I seem to recall an influx of south east asian and Indian nurses and doctors when that problem reared its ugly head in the past.

ninja900 wrote:

Sounds like a typical Indo rant.

You wouldn't happen to be a civil servant would you?

ninja900 wrote:

Already been happening for a long time (lots of barracks closures with money going instead into equipment.)

Random reductions are no good. A systematic deconstruction and rebuilding from the ground up are required to meet modern defence goals for Ireland.

ninja900 wrote:

IDA?
Enterprise Ireland?
County enterprise boards?
Udaras?
Etc. etc. etc.

I take it you have had no dealings with these bodies then. I have dealt with most of them, and believe me almost anything is better. I'll give you an example. One of my companies applied for a grant from the County Enterprise board, an equipment grant. It was processed and accepted, after six months of callbacks. Then we discovered we had to supply the funds for the equipment ourselves, and upon production of the receipts we received half of the portion of the equipment costs covered by the grant, excluding VAT.

Needless to say it was not a VAT registered company. To top it all off, a healthy portion of the grant money had to be repaid within a year. If you call that assistance, I hope you never have to assist anyone.

ninja900 wrote:

Now that is quite simply a joke, at least I hope it is.

Whats funny about an Irish manufactured car? Many European countries have their own brand of car.

ninja900 wrote:

Hmmm yes let's 'redelploy' a map draughtsman into a the Lada state car works, makes sense :rolleyes:

Its a good deal better than leaving the lot of them sitting like a millstone around the country's neck. We don't need one civil servant for every four other workers in the country, nowhere near it. This part of the policy would be the most difficult to implement, I'll grant you, but if Thatcher could stare down the civil service in the UK, it can be done elsewhere.

ninja900 wrote:

We already have insufficient places and short terms for violent offenders. Society needs protecting from these people.

Without a doubt. Its also just as certain that the current justice and prison system are outright failing, not just in terms of places available in prison, but in the whole prison system. A new route needs to be found to prevent recidivism.

ninja900 wrote:

This is just gobbledegook tbh.

Would you like me to use smaller words for you?

ninja900 wrote:

Who's going to pay for the dole for all those sacked civil servants?

On a very crude level, where we seem to be operating here, dole for civil servants is a good lot cheaper than salaries and pensions for civil servants. But that wasn't the point, was it.

ninja900 wrote:

In other words legalise ripping off IP from other countries? Interesting, the EU won't allow it though.

We managed a lower corporate tax rate than the rest of the EU, we can pull something off on this front too!

ninja900 wrote:

What is a 'specialised food crop' ?

More profitable crops than basic foodstuffs. Higher end stuff.

ninja900 wrote:

This is the sort of hogwash Microsoft and Dell peddle. We don't need one laptop per child, we need smaller class sizes and more effective targeting of early educational disadvantage.

Actually I mentioned building more schools earlier.

ninja900 wrote:

Already in place. Politicians are not public servants though, if that's who you meant.

Not to the extent that it should be. What were the reported contributions for Fianna Fail this year, if anyone can remember?

ninja900 wrote:

Yeah, because e-voting is such a roaring success, we should have i-voting :rolleyes:

I never said voting, merely greater transparency, discussion, and feedback. Make the minutes of council meetings open to the public - having sat in on one or two such meetings myself, I can tell you it would be an eye opener!

ninja900 wrote:

You can't force language and 'culture' (or rather, one's particular idea of what constitutes culture) down people's throats, I thought we'd have learned that after trying it for 80+ years.

Well given the way that Irish is generally taught in schools, I can't blame you for having a jaded opinion of it. The goal here would be to rejuvinate that process, and make it more intelligent, rather than the backwards method we have at the moment. I had one teacher spend half a class insisting to me that the word "sacsanaigh" (english) should be pronounced "sassana", even though the spelling of the word was clearly "sack-sa-nee" (saxons).

eoin5

Hey SimpleSam, would you do anything about the infection of Starbucks esque franchises killing local businesses? Would you do anything about our reliance on big foreign corporations like Intel and Guinness. I'm with you on the car factory, bring back the delorians

SimpleSam06

eoin5 wrote:

Hey SimpleSam, would you do anything about the infection of Starbucks esque franchises killing local businesses? Would you do anything about our reliance on big foreign corporations like Intel and Guinness. I'm with you on the car factory, bring back the delorians

Well on the one hand, you have people complaining they can't get KFC or Burger King in their home town, and on the other hand they are crying about the loss of uniqueness. I'd be well in support of setting up local competitors to those businesses though. Dunnes is the biggest threat to local flavour I can see, tbh.

As for the reliance on foreign business, thats what the whole "support for entrepreneurship" was about.

cyclopath2001

SimpleSam06 wrote:

No, if you strip off even a small amount of the civil service, and restrain the rest (discard that benchmarking for example), you have freed up enormous amounts of money that can be used elsewhere. Putting the civil servants into profitable companies increases that benefit. Don't forget, you have 20% of the working population in the civil service, all with gold plated pensions. That is not sustainable.

The number of Civil Servants is about 27,000. That's not 20% of the working population.

How would you select who to fire? The ones with the best chance of getting a private sector job? What happens if it means closing a government office in a politically sensitive constituency?

I can see a committee being formed already.

SimpleSam06

cyclopath2001 wrote:

The number of Civil Servants is about 27,000. That's not 20% of the working population.

Okay, I'm using the term "civil service" maybe a bit too generally here. Lets say, anyone that gets paid from the money the Revenue Commissioners collect.

cyclopath2001 wrote:

How would you select who to fire? The ones with the best chance of getting a private sector job? What happens if it means closing a government office in a politically sensitive constituency?

I can see a committee being formed already.

Close it, hang the consequences. I wouldn't be a career politician, my interests are what is best for this country, in the medium to long term. What we have at the moment is not it, nor anywhere close. And anyway, if you're worried about people's noses getting bent out of shape, imagine the backlash from the nurses and teachers when benchmarking is discarded and pay is frozen, with a complete pension review.

As to who gets fired, lets start with the €250,000 a year consultants, and work our way down the food chain, shall we?