Government parties falling apart!

Peared

For all those saying that rich older people should not have medical cards..

A card only costs the state money if it is used.

Can you really see the judges and gaybo waiting months for an appointment or staying in a public ward?

No way, those who can afford it will go private regardless.

dresden8

jmayo wrote: »

Dresden if you going to show your disdain for anybody that lives outside your cosmopolitan area as in referring to us all as boggers at least have the coutresy to get the story right.
Some TDs, funny enough including those with publican interests, want the drink drive laws lenient on not the young but rather the OLD, since the pub was their only social environment.
They would prefer to see 75 year old guy crawling home with 5 pints on him than 19 year flying home with 15 pints.
Personally i think both are dangerous but a few TDS didn't think so
Sure hadn't Jimmy down the road had been driving home like that for well on 40 years now.
Oh and just to add to your story a certain green wanted lenient driving tests for old people since they only used the car to get to shops and church
Besides they didn't drive fast i.e. anywhere near the speed limit or dangerously :rolleyes:

J, don't be so defensive, bogger is a term of affection. Some of my best friends are boggers, as I tell them to their faces. They call me a fat northside kn@cker b@stard. All in fun.

I'm well aware they took up the case of the 75 year old farmer, but with no checkpoints or enforcement the 19 year old drunken speed demons would have been in the clear as well. Of course now when the 75 year old farmer crashes his tractor he won't be able to afford his medicine. Or will there be a special dispensation for 75 year old tractor drivers to get the medical card?

But they are examples of how special interests dominate and even plainly ridiculous examples like this are free to be aired, and given credence on national t.v., even if ultimately they may come to nothing.

yermanoffthetv

Back to the medical cards...To be honest I think this whole medical card debacle is just another FF smokescreen to cover the hike in taxes. I mean, everything has gone up ciggs, fuel, motor tax, income tax ect. John Gormley will have us all using rickshaws if this keeps going (Im beginning to see them in Galway :eek:) I hope people are finally begining to realise that they squandered the prosperity we had. Its 2008 and we STILL dont even have a proper transport network :rolleyes:

ninty9er

Peared wrote: »

For all those saying that rich older people should not have medical cards..

A card only costs the state money if it is used.

Not true. A doctor gets an annual payment for each medical card patient they have registered regardless of whether they attend 100 times a year or none.


Personally, I think the policy isn't a bad one, but the limits at which it is proposed to apply is a bit ridiculous. It should be somewhere around €750 for a married couple.

For the people ranting about "these honest decent hardworking people who built the Ireland we have today", what about the working class family with a mortgage, no payment of €230.30 a week from the government, no fuel allowance, and paying 20% tax plus a 1% income levy. Why should they be denied a medical card with a smaller disposable income.

Heartache my arse, the limit is the only problem here. Means testing is a non-issue, and anyone who proposes otherwise needs their head examined. Why would a pensioner need an income of over €50,000? They can't secure a mortgage, and that's the largest single income drain on an individual.

is_that_so

ninty9er wrote: »

Not true. A doctor gets an annual payment for each medical card patient they have registered regardless of whether they attend 100 times a year or none.


Personally, I think the policy isn't a bad one, but the limits at which it is proposed to apply is a bit ridiculous. It should be somewhere around €750 for a married couple.

For the people ranting about "these honest decent hardworking people who built the Ireland we have today", what about the working class family with a mortgage, no payment of €230.30 a week from the government, no fuel allowance, and paying 20% tax plus a 1% income levy. Why should they be denied a medical card with a smaller disposable income.

Heartache my arse, the limit is the only problem here. Means testing is a non-issue, and anyone who proposes otherwise needs their head examined. Why would a pensioner need an income of over €50,000? They can't secure a mortgage, and that's the largest single income drain on an individual.

http://www.irishhealth.com/index.html?level=4&id=14339

As a result of this, GPs who have been treating patients who have reached the age of 70 since 2001 and have automatically entered the medical card scheme are currently paid over €630 per annum for treating these patients.

However, the maximium fee GPs can receive for patients who were over 70 and had medical cards prior to 2001 is only around €240.

They've made an absolute mess of this with the daily changes and mutterings of renegotiations and the free for all finger-pointing. So far all that is clear is the over 70s medical card, which incidentally should never have been handed out freely by FF in the first place, is being taken away. You can argue that they are just fixing a previous error but seeing as we haven't even got to the education cuts nor any of the inevitable cuts over the next year they have been utterly abysmal to date. Strikes me they have no idea what they are doing, where they are going or where it will all end.

nhughes100

I think the government is teetering on the brink of collapse. Two FFr's are gone, Finian McGrath and Jackie Healy Rae look like they won't vote for it. The Greens had a crisis meeting yesterday when they realised that they really should have read the fine print of the budget. All we need is a few TD's to get sick and a few of them on business abroad as there are next week and we could have some fun on our hands.

Surely there's a happy compromise between a retired judge's pension and someone who scrapes over the state pension. We're constantly told health care is on the basis of need, and if you get sick, really sick then all the pensions in the world may not be of any use to you. If anything should be means tested it's that 1100 quid a year anyone with a child under 5 and a half gets.

A sliding scale mean test is most appropriate here and for childrens allowance, say a combined income of 60K gets full allowance and every 10K after the allowance decrements accordingly. I'm suree the government could do something like that for medical cards as well. But the health(or lack thereof) of the person HAS to be taken into account.

turgon

jmayo wrote: »

Then becuase a TD resigns from the party we have people lauding him as some sort of saint.

With respect, whether or not Bertie Ahern took millions from Builders will have no direct effect on the people, whereas this will. Equating the two so simply is not really appropriate I think.

Blanchguy

Do you really believe that the money taken by our leaders has no effect on us? Our govenrment is now backing sub prime mortgages to try and dig multi billionaire builders out of their difficulties. Every commercial property in the country is worth 3% more since the budget, Brian and Brian looked after the super wealthy before they even looked after their own voters. Irish people get the government they deserve.

brianthebard

nhughes100 wrote: »

I think the government is teetering on the brink of collapse. Two FFr's are gone, Finian McGrath and Jackie Healy Rae look like they won't vote for it. The Greens had a crisis meeting yesterday when they realised that they really should have read the fine print of the budget. All we need is a few TD's to get sick and a few of them on business abroad as there are next week and we could have some fun on our hands.

McGrath and Rae will hold out until they are offered something they want for their constituency and then **** the rest of the country in the ass. Just because the FF have left the party doesn't necessarily mean they'll vote against it. This will be a test to see if the Greens are a real party any more or if they are just there to make up voting numbers as I've always said. Cowan won't let anyone be on business next week! The Dail will be full, don't worry.

Darragh29

If things are that bad, why are there no public protests??? With the medical card issue, how come on 50 people have protested publically over this to date???

is_that_so

Darragh29 wrote: »

If things are that bad, why are there no public protests??? With the medical card issue, how come on 50 people have protested publicly over this to date???

Well you have to remember the demographics here. Less likely to see them on protest marches. Age Action are planning a protest on Wed outside the Dail. The current bankbench revolt is effectively the protest for now.

Firefly Fan

For everyone, there is their own separate point (straw that broke the camels back) which they say "Enough, I cannot no longer stand by what is happening".
I think Joe reached that point, for him.
While some might not agree with him, I applaud his courage in breaking away from the herd whom (some) want to stay, not rock the boat and hang on to their now well paid and perked life style.
Joe now in political terms will be out in the cold as an independent. I'm sure it was not an easy decision but he had reached his breaking point.

If only more would finally stand up and be as actionable when and if they find the courage!

is_that_so

Pat Rabbitte, Alan Shatter and Brian Lenihan will be on The Week in Politics tonight at 11.05

jmayo

dresden8 wrote: »

J, don't be so defensive, bogger is a term of affection. Some of my best friends are boggers, as I tell them to their faces. They call me a fat northside kn@cker b@stard. All in fun.

I'm well aware they took up the case of the 75 year old farmer, but with no checkpoints or enforcement the 19 year old drunken speed demons would have been in the clear as well. Of course now when the 75 year old farmer crashes his tractor he won't be able to afford his medicine. Or will there be a special dispensation for 75 year old tractor drivers to get the medical card?

But they are examples of how special interests dominate and even plainly ridiculous examples like this are free to be aired, and given credence on national t.v., even if ultimately they may come to nothing.

Jeeze if you told me you were from the northside :-)
I know the idea of having different drink drive laws and different driving tests for people based on age is a joke.
Publicans do have a huge amount of pull, just look at fact the price of pint wasn't increased in budget.
It is usually one of the first things to be increased.
Instead they increased wine, which people would mainly drink at home or in restaurant.
Funny that isn't it.

PS I used to always think that some ould fellow driving tractor after a few was not so bad, until I met guy driving big tractor while 3 sheets to the window. It frightened the living hell out of me. PS he was old or young, he was in between - 40ish.

jmayo

ninty9er wrote: »

Not true. A doctor gets an annual payment for each medical card patient they have registered regardless of whether they attend 100 times a year or none.

Personally, I think the policy isn't a bad one, but the limits at which it is proposed to apply is a bit ridiculous. It should be somewhere around €750 for a married couple.

For the people ranting about "these honest decent hardworking people who built the Ireland we have today", what about the working class family with a mortgage, no payment of €230.30 a week from the government, no fuel allowance, and paying 20% tax plus a 1% income levy. Why should they be denied a medical card with a smaller disposable income.

Heartache my arse, the limit is the only problem here. Means testing is a non-issue, and anyone who proposes otherwise needs their head examined. Why would a pensioner need an income of over €50,000? They can't secure a mortgage, and that's the largest single income drain on an individual.

Jeeze shoot me now I actually agree to an extent with nintyer for once.
Did your granny clip you round the ear and knock some sense into after all ;-)

There should never have been a free medical card for all over 70s inn the first place, but the way the government went about taking it back was going to hit a lot of people who were basically scraping by.
Some people have stated that the rich would not be using public hospital services so it was costing nothing but would these epeople use it to get cheap medication and use at their local GP to save a few quid.
The reason some of these people got rich was they didn't like spending money in the first place.

turgon wrote: »

With respect, whether or not Bertie Ahern took millions from Builders will have no direct effect on the people, whereas this will. Equating the two so simply is not really appropriate I think.

Ah you see turgon that is where you are wrong.
Because certain politicans (no proof bertie baffeler ever did any of this) affectively took bribes allowing huge housing estates to be built with no concerns for the people who would be living there.
This has a huge direct affect on people for generations !

Gandalf23

is_that_so wrote: »

Pat Rabbitte, Alan Shatter and Brian Lenihan will be on The Week in Politics tonight at 11.05

Anyone see this? Any fireworks?

genericgoon

nhughes100 wrote: »

A sliding scale mean test is most appropriate here and for childrens allowance, say a combined income of 60K gets full allowance and every 10K after the allowance decrements accordingly. I'm suree the government could do something like that for medical cards as well. But the health(or lack thereof) of the person HAS to be taken into account.

It would probably be harder to have a sliding scale for something like the medical card scheme compared to Child allowance since it isn't a regular payment. However a scale of something like Full Medical Card>Free GP visits + Half Cost Medicines>Free GP visits>Half GP visits>Nothing. The current 3 strata system probably doesn't have enough wiggle room.

Also, the health of the individual is already taken into consideration when you are applying for the Medical card. If however you are suggesting it becomes a much more integral part of the means testing then that would be a meritorious idea.

corkfella

Gandalf23 wrote: »

Anyone see this? Any fireworks?

ya it was interesting, rabbitte spoke well, shatter doesnt come across well at all, he is very laboured with his points. lenihan was under pressure all through but he has been given some poisened chalice by the biffo. at the way the government is performing they may be in trouble sooner rather than later, they have lost touch with the people and are starting to lose their confidence.

is_that_so

Plenty of fun on Q&A (much better than last night ) and looks like education is about to wreak as much havoc in FF as the medical cards. The Budget is an unravelling sweater as someone on radio said today.

O'Dea: "I was in a class of 40"
Man in audience : "Well it did nothing for you."

Meanwhile Gilmore threatening vote on education cuts. Great ding dong between him and O'Dea. Part 2 coming up.

jhegarty

is_that_so wrote: »

Plenty of fun on Q&A (much better than last night ) and looks like education is about to wreak as much havoc in FF as the medical cards. The Budget is an unravelling sweater as someone on radio said today.

O'Dea: "I was in a class of 40"
Man in audience : "Well it did nothing for you."

Meanwhile Gilmore threatening vote on education cuts. Great ding dong between him and O'Dea. Part 2 coming up.

watching with popcorn.... he really is getting beaten around the studio....


I don't give this government a week (unless they back down)

brianthebard

Lolz quality heckling there.

gurramok

As O'Dea said himself, budget deficit projected by govt of €13.3bn next year(most prob worse) and yet the €100m for pensioners is tiny and downright mean to the most vulnerable, can he not see the irony?

Time to take on the public sector unions to deal with that €19bn wage bill and the CIF to deal with their €500m tax break for buying overpriced unsold stock via naive first time buyers.

jhegarty

McGrath latest to leave the sinking ship

yermanoffthetv

gurramok wrote: »

Time to take on the public sector unions to deal with that €19bn wage bill and the CIF to deal with their €500m tax break for buying overpriced unsold stock via naive first time buyers.

Amen to that.They should look at their own inefficients first before passing the pill onto the tax payers. Housing is still overinflated and to continue subsidizing the housing market is just plain ludicrous. Quite frankly, some of the decisions in this budget begger belief

corkfella

I thought q and a was great television last night. The one thing you could really feel was the visible anger rising from the crowd, the 2 elderly gentleman were clearly very upset and the northern guy was livid, I thought he was going to come down to willie at one stage. If, and I think it could be a big if they get through this vote on wen, they will be facing into revolt about teachers next week.

The government line of we all have to pull together is correct and I accept to having to pay more tax in order to pay for essential public services. But what I do have a problem with is the bailout of the builders and the ignoring of the waste in the public sector at present, I was reading the paper on sunday and cannot remember exact figures but some of the borrowing is to pay for public sector pay which is ridiculous. I just feel that the government have run too long, have lost complete touch with what is going on in the country and will suffer a death bu a thousand cuts if they keep going with their present policys.

If we leave public sector reform until next year's budget we will be looking at a 20 billion black hole and please dont quote the government re next month's reforms because if they were as half-arsed as their budget it wil probably involve a huge redundancy package for some workers who are close to retirement.

eoinbn

gurramok wrote: »

As O'Dea said himself, budget deficit projected by govt of €13.3bn next year(most prob worse) and yet the €100m for pensioners is tiny and downright mean to the most vulnerable, can he not see the irony?

Time to take on the public sector unions to deal with that €19bn wage bill and the CIF to deal with their €500m tax break for buying overpriced unsold stock via naive first time buyers.

O'dea does my nut in, but he is right on this. The savings have to be made and they have to be made EVERYWHERE. There was a lot of playing to the audience from the panel last night. Statements like-"if we want to get out of this recession in 3-4 years time we need to invest in primary eduction" playing to the teachers in the crowd- pure nonsense. Can someone tell me how giving better 1-1 time with a 5 year old is going to help the economy in 4 years time?

Teachers and nurses will always tell you that they are understaffed, but how many of them would take a cut in their higher than average salary to help the problem? Were the nurses think of the health service when they blackmailed the government before the last general election, or was Liam doran just making a name for himself?
At the very least we need pay freezes from both the public and private sectors to restore competitiveness as well as cutting all the dead wood in the public sector.

nesf

What annoyed me about Q&A last night and the previous week was Gilmore and Burton. They're speaking out of both sides of their fecking mouth going on about the squeeze on the middle class and then harping on about universilisation as a core tenet for them. We can't have the latter without squeezing the middle class, and the working class, with taxation. Which is fine, we either go one way or the other, we can't pretend that we can do both. That and Gilmore giving the impression that they wouldn't need to make any unpopular decisions if it was their budget, which is crap tbh. There isn't enough millionaires in the country to close the deficit without hitting the rest of the country's pockets.

FG at least are being coherent, Dukes was excellent last week. They're actually managing to look and sound like a workable alternative at least.

In times like this it's easy pickings for the Opposition, which is fair enough, but really you get to see which parties look more like potential leaders by what they're proposing.



Oh and that really angry guy with the kids, seriously more the fool him for actually believing letters from politicians in an election year. I mean, seriously how gullible are people? Of course politicians will tell you what you want to hear when there's an election looming, if they didn't they wouldn't be politicians for very long.

beggars_bush

government have very little incentive to reform the public sector

the first thing that should go will be all the extra staff they hired up in Leinster house

i work in the public sector. so do teachers, nurses, gardai, prison officers etc

thats not the area that need real reforming

fair enough the wages of prison officers and gardai are gones ridiculous

its the desk jockeys and managerial levels in the department of health, HSE, education, justcie, finance, leinster house, county councils that need to be tackles

all the quangos - state bodies that are doing the job that the government departments should be doing themselves! merge them into 10 - 15 departments

gurramok

eoinbn wrote: »

Teachers and nurses will always tell you that they are understaffed, but how many of them would take a cut in their higher than average salary to help the problem? Were the nurses think of the health service when they blackmailed the government before the last general election, or was Liam doran just making a name for himself?

And O'Dea nor any govt minister has spoke about the €500m they gave to the builders to help them sell their overpriced houses so trust is gone on whatever he says for example.

I'd agree that some public sector workers need to look at their standard of living and realise its sky high in some.
Funny thing is that we have more nurses per head of population than the average in the EU(or is it OECD?) and yet we still have the worst health service.(yes those army of hse admins are a financial problem as well)

It's always the marginalised that gets screwed when things get bad, never the public sector.

eoinbn wrote: »

At the very least we need pay freezes from both the public and private sectors to restore competitiveness as well as cutting all the dead wood in the public sector.

Yes. But you must balance out that there are more in the private sector on lower wages than in the public sector.
A freeze on the pay of the better off all round along with the long overdue public sector cuts in staff in the right areas would be fair instead of deducting 1% wages from waitresses.

is_that_so

nesf wrote: »

What annoyed me about Q&A last night and the previous week was Gilmore and Burton. They're speaking out of both sides of their fecking mouth going on about the squeeze on the middle class and then harping on about universilisation as a core tenet for them. We can't have the latter without squeezing the middle class, and the working class, with taxation. Which is fine, we either go one way or the other, we can't pretend that we can do both. That and Gilmore giving the impression that they wouldn't need to make any unpopular decisions if it was their budget, which is crap tbh. There isn't enough millionaires in the country to close the deficit without hitting the rest of the country's pockets.

FG at least are being coherent, Dukes was excellent last week. They're actually managing to look and sound like a workable alternative at least.

In times like this it's easy pickings for the Opposition, which is fair enough, but really you get to see which parties look more like potential leaders by what they're proposing.



Oh and that really angry guy with the kids, seriously more the fool him for actually believing letters from politicians in an election year. I mean, seriously how gullible are people? Of course politicians will tell you what you want to hear when there's an election looming, if they didn't they wouldn't be politicians for very long.

Gilmore is DL and always will be and would be expected to speak as he does. He also has half an eye on SF muscling in on traditional Labour demographics. Some of what he says makes sense but an awful lot belies his roots. Burton is not much different. Burton in particular doesn't seem to have much grasp of her brief and flounders when it gets to detailed discussion on finance. She tends to depend on "facts about this government".

I see them as old style socialists and the only problem I have with them is that they won't admit how much it would cost us in tax terms to have such universality. The only point they did get picked up on, was the populist 18% tax rate. In Govt that would have to be tempered , especially given how long they have been in the wilderness. Even so Labour's biggest problem is the average age of their TDs;most are over 50. They will need new, younger blood if they expect to pick up seats in a general election.

As for the chap in the audience, he was good for entertainment value and a bit OTT but he also highlights the frustration that exists when it comes to school funding. There are any number of stories about problems with infrastructure , teaching posts and actual school premises. The reasonable, sensible, ex-teacher Hannafin skillfully managed expectations and soothed nerves in her time in Education. And Batt O'Keeffe toddles off on a junket. Again this is another one that the Govt. should have seen coming.