Eamon Ryan's tells us off.

eoinmadden

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Eamon Ryan might be telling it as it is, but he's definitely not doing anything to solve the problem.

What should they be doing?

They've raised the guidelines for minimum apartment size. They've raised the guidelines for minimum insulation. They've made it easier to get planning for windfarms. They are investing money in wave power research.

They can't build a time machine and go back and stop the housing boom.

Liam Byrne

eoinmadden wrote: »

What should they be doing?

Refusing (and stopping their Government partners commissioning) high-powered luxury cars.

Putting their money where their mouth is (was ?) re Tara.

Promoting intelligent planning, where everyone doesn't have to travel 40 miles to work, or ensuring proper broadband coverage so people can work from home.

Prompting decent and affordable public transport......you still can't get direct train from most of our major cities to another.

Making recycling facilities available (lots of them are closed on Saturdays) and cheaper (Mr Binman's €3 per recycle bag does nothing to encourage recycling - easier and cheaper to throw it in the already-paid-for bin!

Forcing shops to provide paper bags for a couple of cent, instead of taxing us to use plastic because there's no alternative.

Will I go on ?

Andrew H

The Green Party sold out all of their beliefs to get into bed with Finna Fail. The one reason I would have voted for them would have been that they stood up for their ideals. But once they got into power we saw their true colours. Say goodbye to the Hill of Tara!

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely (look at Finna Fail)

Blackjack

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Prompting decent and affordable public transport......you still can't get direct train from most of our major cities to another.

Was part of the problem the major whinging that resounded as soon as there was a suggestion that a cent be spent outside the pale on any Infrastructure?.

thebman

sprinkles wrote: »

But seriously if you think the government are at fault for the house prices then you are wrong. It's the average joe willing to spend 500,000 on a badly built 1 bed apartment in sandyford that had the house prices soaring. They will level off at the value that people can afford. Hopefully this blip will force people into examining what they can afford - it's definately forced the banks to examine it a but more in depth and stop offering people mortgages they can't afford. Hmmmm.... were does the government fit into that?

Why were the banks offering people mortgages they couldn't afford in the first place? Thats where the problems started.

If the banks would only give people what they could afford to pay back, houses wouldn't have cost 500,000 because nobody could afford to pay that for a house because nobody could get a 100% mortgage to cover the cost of the house.

oscarBravo

Andrew H wrote: »

Say goodbye to the Hill of Tara!

Where's it going?

Andrew H

oscarBravo wrote: »

Where's it going?

Not exactly going anywere but it will have as much history attaached to it as wodquay by the time this goverment is finished with it. Oh yeah sorry they gave us Dublinia (tacky tourist attraction) when they were finished destroying that part of our heritage.

oscarBravo

Andrew H wrote: »

Not exactly going anywere but it will have as much history attaached to it as wodquay by the time this goverment is finished with it.

Because of a motorway that's going to be further away from Tara than the current N3?

eoinmadden

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Refusing (and stopping their Government partners commissioning) high-powered luxury cars.

The three ministers commute to work by bicycle and Luas. But perhaps they use big cars when going somewhere inaccessible by bike, perhaps they use small cars, I'm not sure.

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Putting their money where their mouth is (was ?) re Tara.

What's that got to do with the economy?

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Promoting intelligent planning, where everyone doesn't have to travel 40 miles to work,

John Gormley is doing that. He has brought out new planning guidelines. Just a few days ago he ordered Mayo County Council to send their county development plan back to the drawing boards because it is unsustainable.

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Prompting decent and affordable public transport......you still can't get direct train from most of our major cities to another.

The balance spending on public transport -v- roads has dramatically improved since the Greens agreed the Programme for Government.

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Making recycling facilities available (lots of them are closed on Saturdays) and cheaper

That's something that maybe needs to be tackled at a local rather than national government level.
In the meantime John Gormley has stopped Irish companies selling waste to dodgy Chinese companies for "recycling".

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Forcing shops to provide paper bags for a couple of cent, instead of taxing us to use plastic because there's no alternative.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Every shop I know, except Aldi, Lidl and Tesco, give away paper bags for free. From an environmental point of view it is better to reuse existing plastic bags then making more paper bags, anyway.

eoinmadden

Andrew H wrote: »

The Green Party sold out all of their beliefs to get into bed with Fianna Fail.

If you believe that the Green Party's sole policy was "We are anti-Fianna Fail", then sure. But that wasn't their policy.
Compromises were made, sure. The Green Party will not achieve everything set out in their election manifesto. But then neither will Fianna Fail. Are Fianna Fail sell-outs?
Jackie Healy Rae fought the last election on the basis that a vote for Fine Gael was a vote for the Green Party. He literally was an "anybody but the Greens " candidate. He now supports them in government.
Is he a sell-out?

Andrew H wrote: »

The one reason I would have voted for them would have been that they stood up for their ideals. But once they got into power

Its coalition. Not absolute power.

Andrew H wrote: »

we saw their true colours.

We certainly do. They are not the hippie sandal wearers the media likes to make them out to be. They are hard working and willing to make unpopular decisions.

Andrew H wrote: »

Say goodbye to the Hill of Tara!

Is it being knocked?

Andrew H wrote: »

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely (look at Finna Fail)

If that is your feeling then you should make sure to vote for some party who never wants to get in to government.
Pity there is none.
Besides no politician or no political party in this country has absolute power. Voters have, perhaps wisely, chosen coalitions.

Andrew H

Correct me if im wrong but did the previous leader of the Green Party refuse to lead his party into a coalition with Finna Fail and then after a party conference and over whelming vote in favour of entering goverment (86% yes) resign, but said he would take a Junior Minister post within the new goverment!!

Granted the Green party did achieve some of it's goals in entering goverment and the days of breast feeding activists at Green Party conferences are long gone but Green Party's negotiators admitted that the proposed Government programme was far from perfect from their point of view, with failures to secure movement on key issues like the use of Shannon Airport by the US military, the building of the M3 motorway through the Tara valley, and hospital co-location.

The Greens helped to keep a party in goverment that has been in power way too long and in the long run will suffer the same faith that Dick Springs Labour Party and the Progressive Democrats have suffered at the hands of the electorate.

eoinmadden

Andrew H wrote: »

Correct me if im wrong but did the previous leader of the Green Party refuse to lead his party into a coalition with Finna Fail and then after a party conference and over whelming vote in favour of entering goverment (86% yes) resign, but said he would take a Junior Minister post within the new goverment!!

Trevor Sargent said that he would not lead the Green Party in government with Fianna Fail. This hinted that the Greens were willing to go into coalition with FF, just not with Sargent as leader.
Throughout the general election the Green Party repeated the mantra that they were not ruling out coalition with anyone, even Sinn Fein. You may remember that FF and FG were ruling out coalition with SF. Meanwhile Labour were ruling out coalition with the PDs.
The Greens made it very clear they would accept whatever kind of coalition the election numbers gave.

Anyway, true to his word, as the negotiations for the programme for government were coming to a close, Sargent resigned as leader.

All seemed above-board and honest to me.

eoinmadden

Andrew H wrote: »

Green Party's negotiators admitted that the proposed Government programme was far from perfect from their point of view, with failures to secure movement on key issues like the use of Shannon Airport by the US military, the building of the M3 motorway through the Tara valley, and hospital co-location.

C'est la vie. That's democracy for you!
As I said, the Irish electorate seems to choose coalitions.

Liam Byrne

eoinmadden wrote: »

C'est la vie. That's democracy for you!

It might be democracy, but it's not what the people voted for.

Yes, there's always give-and-take in a coalition, but surely "key issues" and promises based on those should be a pre-requisite for signing up / getting into bed with another party ?

Side issues or "nice-to-haves", fair enough; but killing off the main 2 or 3 policies that encouraged people to vote for you ? :rolleyes:

eoinmadden

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Side issues or "nice-to-haves", fair enough; but killing off the main 2 or 3 policies that encouraged people to vote for you ?

Was Tara a key issue for you?
I, not surprisingly, gave my #1 to the Green Party, but Tara was not a key issue for me.
Key issues for me would have been measures to curb energy use and greater investment in renewable energy, both with a view to combating climate change while weaning Ireland off its dependence on foreign oil, for the sake of the economy.

Liam Byrne

Shannon was a key issue for me.

But regardless of what "my" key issues were, they put themselves forward based on those "key issues", and they sold out.

Anyways, this is becoming a side-topic; let's get back (or at least relate) to the main topic.

CtrlSource

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

So you think that the we acted perfectly reasonably in accepting inflated prices and borrowing more money than we could ever hope to pay back?

I don't care whether you blame the greens or FF, but there is a certain thing called personal responsibility that we like to sweep under the carpet in Ireland.

It's like the spoilt little who ate too many sweets having and having a tummy ache blaming the sweetshop.

Indeed. People get so tetchy when politicians suggest we tighten our money belts. Why?

Damned if you do, damned if you don't :rolleyes:

Liam Byrne

CtrlSource wrote: »

Indeed. People get so tetchy when politicians suggest we tighten our money belts. Why?

.....the main reason ? Because they don't practice what they preach !!

We wouldn't get so tetchy if they did, and if they weren't the ones who wasted small fortunes on pointless things like useless e-Voting machines and PR consultants and make-up, and spending the price of a house doing up (not building, not buying - just "doing up") an office for a former questionable-if-not-actually-disgraced Taoiseach who's still earning a small fortune....not to mention all the others who have "pensions" while still "working" in the Dail !!!

And what's worse is it's all OUR money....... :mad:

CtrlSource

Liam Byrne wrote: »

.....the main reason ? Because they don't practice what they preach !!

We wouldn't get so tetchy if they did, and if they weren't the ones who wasted small fortunes on pointless things like useless e-Voting machines and PR consultants and make-up, and spending the price of a house doing up (not building, not buying - just "doing up") an office for a former questionable-if-not-actually-disgraced Taoiseach who's still earning a small fortune....not to mention all the others who have "pensions" while still "working" in the Dail !!!

And what's worse is it's all OUR money....... :mad:

So should they remain silent on it and just issue the odd press release about the state of the Economy?

e-voting was a good idea, badly handled and a lot of money was wasted to be sure. The make-up thing is a byproduct of the Media culture that politicians have to operate in to be honest. Nobody seems to know the full story about Bertie's new office. If it's in a bit of a state and needs doing up then that's okay with me. The amount seems excessive, but it depends on what they're going to do with it.

Regarding the salaries and pensions of Politicians - i'm firmly of the belief that if you pay them better, you will attract better people who would otherwise earn multiples of a TD's salary in the private sector instead. It's worth paying them well

thebman

I have to disagree, e-voting is just a bad idea. The system is inevitably vulnerable to hacking and once hacked, the person can much more easily rig a result than if all the votes were on paper. e-voting is great if you want to rig elections IMO.

I honestly don't see how its the tax payers job to do up the Taoiseach's office especially not our job to make it a palace for the man.

I disagree on your last point too. If you pay them lots, you attract greedy, selfish people. If you pay them sh*t, you get humble people that actually want to work for the good of the country. I wouldn't be against bonuses if they deliver their pre-election promises though.

techdiver

brim4brim wrote: »

I have to disagree, e-voting is just a bad idea. The system is inevitably vulnerable to hacking and once hacked, the person can much more easily rig a result than if all the votes were on paper. e-voting is great if you want to rig elections IMO.

A proper encrypted system would not be hackable. E-Voting does and will work but only if implemented correctly.

You can implement a dual E-Voting system which incorporates a paper trail also. From the voters point of view nothing will change, the ballot is still done in the traditional form using paper, but is then fed into an electronic scanning ballot box. This box will scan the vote and automatically tabulate the votes.

If there is any doubt about the outcome there is a paper trail to revert to so it is impossible to rig. This format will give all voters piece of mind and is user friendly as they do not have to change the manner in which they vote.

oscarBravo

e-voting is off-topic for this thread; there's a whole forum dedicated to the topic. The executive summary: e-voting isn't trustworthy, and nobody has yet come up with a reasonable way of making it so.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Liam Byrne wrote: »

.....the main reason ? Because they don't practice what they preach !!

We wouldn't get so tetchy if they did, and if they weren't the ones who wasted small fortunes on pointless things like useless e-Voting machines and PR consultants and make-up, and spending the price of a house doing up (not building, not buying - just "doing up") an office for a former questionable-if-not-actually-disgraced Taoiseach who's still earning a small fortune....not to mention all the others who have "pensions" while still "working" in the Dail !!!

And what's worse is it's all OUR money....... :mad:

That's democracy for you. They do it for one reason: because they can.
Out of interest, hom many people in this thread voted FF in either of the last two elections and are now whinging about them?

Liam Byrne

oscarBravo wrote: »

e-voting is off-topic for this thread; there's a whole forum dedicated to the topic. The executive summary: e-voting isn't trustworthy, and nobody has yet come up with a reasonable way of making it so.

Unfortunately no-one in the Government managed to cop this before they spent OUR money on it...... :rolleyes:

Yeah, we can (and should) discuss it in detail only in the other thread; I just raised it here - along with Bertie's office renovation bill and the expensive new cars - as examples of the typical "don't waste money" crap that the Government direct at us while doing the exact opposite themselves......

It's Haughey all over again......"tighten your belts", they say, while milking everything they can out of the system, including expenses that they don't need to produce receipts for and - I was stunned at this one - compensation for not being able to claim expenses - now THAT'S a complete farce!!!! :mad:

dresden8

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Out of interest, hom many people in this thread voted FF in either of the last two elections and are now whinging about them?

If you were to run a poll on this I would say not many, but then again people always seem to lie about their voting preferences. Nobody I know votes FF but they always get in. (Or so it seems) Nobody I know ever votes in favour of the pay-deals, but they always get accepted by huge majorities.

It's like it's their dirty little secret.

thebman

Or massive voting fraud going on.

I think the people being stupid enough to lie about who they vote seems more accurate given Ireland's general population level. The builders might not vote for them next time so we might finally get rid of the fookers although we still need an alternative people can actually feel confident voting for.

Most of the people I spoke to voted FF and said it was because they wouldn't vote for FG because of Enda Kenny. A cope out maybe but take him away and they won't have that excuse any more. FG need someone more charismatic. Lets face it, it shouldn't be that hard to get someone more charismatic than Brian Cowen as everyone seems to hate him.