A New Political Party: Manifesto suggestions...

Darragh29

(1) All TD's salaries to be cut to 50K.

(2) No more unvouched expenses and overhaul what can be claimed. Bare minimum in line with private sector.

(3) Bye bye the 4,000 Euro/hour governent jet. See www.buyandsell.ie for more info.

(4) "See this new chainsaw we bought??? We're taking this to public sector inefficiencies & cosy public sector jobs!"

(5) Government state Mercs, get rid of them, www.buyandsell.ie for more info.

(6) Paying 1 billion Euro a year in foreign aid. Yeah, we'll get back to you when we can afford it.

(7) Payments to political parties, "eh, sorry lads, end of!"

Please add as you see fit...!

I don't see how a credible political party with the right people and a manifesto along the line of above couldn't get elected!

Frankie Lee

Increased government support to small farmers and co-ops.

End to co-location and real HSE reform.
Full investigation into practices involved in the privatisation of the health services and convictions if necessary.

Reform of planning laws.

TD's salaries to the average industrial wage alternatively.

Foreign Aid Targets to be met and Ireland to take a more involved role in improving living conditions & human rights in third world countries regardless.
This may lead to a rift in the party I know.

mikemac

I agree with most of your suggestions Frankie Lee, a ninja edit there I see

Hey Darragh29, I see a lot of your posts and you've very strong views. But realy cutting the salary of 166 TDs, the cars of 15 ministers and a government jet is a drop in the ocean.
The money that would save could be spent by the public sector in one day without anyone even taking notice.

So I see you've posted a chainsaw to public sector ineffencies but to take on the likes of the militant unions will result in strikes. Just me, but the ESB are the first to spring to mind.
Are we ready for it, are we sure the government won't back down? I dunno, it can be done but it's going to take strong leadership to do it.

+1 for 1billion in foreign aid, why is this spent? And is it to increase, I know 0.7% GDP was the target?
I started a thread on this months back (it was 900 million back then) and I got flamed out of this forum
To be fair, it is spent on specific projects and not handed over to corrupt governments but 1 billion would plug a lot of holes and build a lot of classrooms where there are only prefabs right now.

Darragh29

mikemac wrote: »

I agree with most of your suggestions Frankie Lee, a ninja edit there I see

Hey Darragh29, I see a lot of your posts and you've very strong views. But realy cutting the salary of 166 TDs, the cars of 15 ministers and a government jet is a drop in the ocean.
The money that would save could be spent by the public sector in one day without anyone even taking notice.

So I see you've posted a chainsaw to public sector ineffencies but to take on the likes of the militant unions will result in strikes. Just me, but the ESB are the first to spring to mind.
Are we ready for it, are we sure the government won't back down? I dunno, it can be done but it's going to take strong leadership to do it.

+1 for 1billion in foreign aid, why is this spent? And is it to increase, I know 0.7% GDP was the target?
I started a thread on this months back (it was 900 million back then) and I got flamed out of this forum
To be fair, it is spent on specific projects and not handed over to corrupt governments but 1 billion would plug a lot of holes and build a lot of classrooms where there are only prefabs right now.

Agreed, the money saved above would be a drop in the ocean, but it would send out a clear statement to the country that a new show is in town, there is no more carry on and taking the utter p*ss with the people of the country and taxpayers funds. Where excess and waste are identified, a torpedo is in!

ejmaztec

I think that the chainsaw mentioned in (4) would be better used on the people mentioned in (1).

Anything after that we can play by ear.

The Raven.

Frankie Lee wrote: »

Reform of planning laws.

NEW PLANNING legislation to be published early in 2009 will put an end to opportunist rezoning of land by county councillors, according to Minister for the Environment John Gormley.

The Planning and Development Bill 2009 will no longer permit excessive zoning of development land, a phenomenon that has become a "major problem" in recent years, Mr Gormley said.

The Bill is designed to allow an adequate supply of zoned and serviced land to ensure that house prices are not forced upwards and that economic development is maintained.

However, it will also outlaw practices where councillors zoned far more land for development than was required.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1229/1229728603897.html

I don't know why he waited so long to do this. So much damage has been done, and is in the process of being done. There are still plans for huge housing and apartment blocks in spite of the fact that they are not selling. They should be prevented from building any more until the existing ones are sold or rented, and a genuine need for more occurs, with the necessary infrastructure.

I have heard these sort of promises before. Do you think they will happen or do we need a new political party? I can't imagine a new party getting their act together on these issues anytime soon.

Darragh29

mikemac wrote: »

But realy cutting the salary of 166 TDs, the cars of 15 ministers and a government jet is a drop in the ocean.

My take on this is if you want to cut costs effectively, don't try to reinvent the wheel in the process, just look at where it has been done most sucessfully before and then understand and copy what was done there.

To my mind, Ryanair is an good example of an organisation that manages to keep costs to an absolute minimum so that it not just can compete sucessfully with other operator, but Ryanair does this so sucessfully that the competition cannot compete with Ryanair. O' Leary doesn't just target high expenditure items and eliminate them. He focuses on everything, from staff charging mobiles at work to forcing suppliers to give free ice cubes for drinks that they sell on planes. It's a "take care of the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves", philosophy, that you have to agree, does what it says on the tin, which is eliminate waste.

This is why I think we need to look at huge cuts in TD's salaries, sell state mercs, as for unvouched expenses, don't get me started, and call www.buyandsell.ie in relation to a government jet that costs 4K A FU*KING HOUR to run! When the govenment get there own renumeration down to reasonable level, maybe then they will be in a position to ask other exhorbantly paid people in the public sector to follow them.

Ordinary man

I'd like to see accountability brought in. If managers or minsters mess up as bad as they have, they should pay. Strip 90% of their assets. All pensions should be performance linked. Bad term = no pension.

Jim_Are_Great

I suggest actual devolution of governmental power from central to local level. This would manifest itself in many ways: directly elected mayors with limited executive competence, reduction of influence of county managers and similarly unelected budgetary officials. And so on.

turgon

Why should TD's get payed only the average industrial wage? Their job has a lot more pressure and responsibility than the average industrial worker.

Nuttzz

there is an arguement to say that the worse a TD is paid the more likely he is to take a backhander

Darragh29

turgon wrote: »

Why should TD's get payed only the average industrial wage? Their job has a lot more pressure and responsibility than the average industrial worker.

I think 50K is well above the average industrial wage. I just threw that figure out, I think they are paid too much for what they do. Reduce it to 60K or 70K maybe, but over 100K for what they do is just wrong I think.

We've been paying ourselves way to much in this country I think, or certain sections of the workforce have. It seems to me that you are a nobody in this country if you are earning less than 60K, I think that is unsustainable.

What can you do with 100K a year that you cannot do with 60K??? This is where I think we have been going wrong, one person until recently had to have 2 or more properties, take the equivilent of two or more average industrial wages, have a car that is worth the value of one house??? Just pure greed, gimme gimme gimme, more more more, like drug addicts...

Darragh29

Nuttzz wrote: »

there is an arguement to say that the worse a TD is paid the more likely he is to take a backhander

I don't think the money is a factor in how a TD will vote on an issue. They operate as per the party whip, if they go against the whip, they are out of the party...

T runner

40% positive discrimination towards females standing for elections for all parties.
Works for progressive countries like Holland and Sweden.
This might brake the cycle of largely untalented guys from 1) (largely in FF and FG) and encourage a new type of male and female politician.

juuge

mikemac wrote: »

.....cutting the salary of 166 TDs, the cars of 15 ministers and a government jet is a drop in the ocean.
The money that would save could be spent by the public sector in one day without anyone even taking notice.

So? We do nothing then, is that it? The most effective change can be achieved by little changes. Don't try to bulldoze the problem but rather chip away at it and this way reform will happen. Because something doesn't have an immediate and rapid result is not an excuse for not doing it in the first place. I believe our politicians are by and large motivated by greed and power. Look at the likes of Ray Burke! Take his pension away - that'll hurt him. Look at Dick Roche even after he was dumped by Bertie he contines to crawl back and be seen beside Cowen at every opportunity. he doesn't do that for the good of the people of Wicklow, he does it for power. We don't need these type of people running our country. Change has to happen and happen now.

bmaxi

We don't need a new political party, what we need is to force the ones we have to act on behalf of the people rather than themselves. I have, over the years, seen manifestos that would have been the panacea for all our ills except for one thing, they were unworkable.
I believe that one thing motivates politicians more than anything else, fear. It can't have escaped notice how Cowen, Lenihan et al, scurried for cover in the face of an angry electorate after the Budget, I firmly believe that if we remove these individuals, along with the rest of the Cabinet, from Dail Eireann at the next election the transformation in politicians across the board would be remarkable. It surely can't be argued that these are the cream of the bunch and it would send out a message to all the political parties that no one has a God given right to be elected.
I need to be convinced on positive discrimination toward women, Labour in the UK adopted this and threw up some right turkeys. It could provide a situation where the likes of Coughlan and Flynn could be in Government rather than say, Bruton and Gilmore for no other reason than sex.

Vadrefjorde

We do need a new political party, for the simple reason that we don't have an opposition party. Over the last few years the opposition has time and again come out and backed the exisiting coalitions requests, with the exception of Sinn Fein in the Lisbon debate i guess, and then the good old discrediting them with history from 30 years ago dispenses with them.
The PD's are thankfully gone apart from the troll left behind who still presses ahead with PD idealogy in the HSE, by which i mean structuring it in such a way to make private health insurance a necessity.. for the benefit of private enterprise (maybe someone should tell her it won't work with a country full of dole queues).
What is missing is a party which is nationalistic in values and who is willing to stand up for the country, the recession is an inevitability, none of the current parties have an agenda or the ability to reverse that. I would vote for a party who had reverting to the punt and pulling out of the euro as a manifesto.
Right now we have a currency situation that has never been encountered before, we are tied in to the euro whereas before we were able to devalue our currency in tandem with sterling. We have a second referendum on a treaty which has already been voted on, and a government that doesn't have the backbone to tell Europe that we made a decision.
A green party that ditched their ethos and values after 24 hours in coalition and who will hopefully never preside in any form over this country again..

Darragh29

bmaxi wrote: »

We don't need a new political party, what we need is to force the ones we have to act on behalf of the people rather than themselves. I have, over the years, seen manifestos that would have been the panacea for all our ills except for one thing, they were unworkable.
I believe that one thing motivates politicians more than anything else, fear. It can't have escaped notice how Cowen, Lenihan et al, scurried for cover in the face of an angry electorate after the Budget, I firmly believe that if we remove these individuals, along with the rest of the Cabinet, from Dail Eireann at the next election the transformation in politicians across the board would be remarkable. It surely can't be argued that these are the cream of the bunch and it would send out a message to all the political parties that no one has a God given right to be elected.
I need to be convinced on positive discrimination toward women, Labour in the UK adopted this and threw up some right turkeys. It could provide a situation where the likes of Coughlan and Flynn could be in Government rather than say, Bruton and Gilmore for no other reason than sex.

I'm all for redemption, but I think one of the prerequisites for redemption to be possible is for remorse to be demonstrated. This government no more think they are a part of the economic catastrophe we are now experiencing, than the man on the moon.

I think there comes a time when you have to call something as you see it and deal with it as such, unpalatable and all as that may be. These people who call themselves a government are as removed from the people of this country as some far away yet-to-be-discovered solar system.

I can't understand how a group of decent respectable people have not emerged to fill this very obvious vacuum in our political system. Then and again, I read a quote over the Christmas from Mahatma Ghandi, "You need to be the change that you want to see in the world"...

I'm not into politics, other than making it my business to vote every time I have an opportunity, but what has happened here in recent months has made me more furious with every passing day! I wondered recently why I wasn't into politics, or almost hostile to people that were, and I ended up coming to the conclusion that it is just our particular flavour or brand of politics in Ireland, that I have a bad reaction to.

sock puppet

Vadrefjorde wrote: »

We do need a new political party, for the simple reason that we don't have an opposition party. Over the last few years the opposition has time and again come out and backed the exisiting coalitions requests, with the exception of Sinn Fein in the Lisbon debate i guess, and then the good old discrediting them with history from 30 years ago dispenses with them.
The PD's are thankfully gone apart from the troll left behind who still presses ahead with PD idealogy in the HSE, by which i mean structuring it in such a way to make private health insurance a necessity.. for the benefit of private enterprise (maybe someone should tell her it won't work with a country full of dole queues).
What is missing is a party which is nationalistic in values and who is willing to stand up for the country, the recession is an inevitability, none of the current parties have an agenda or the ability to reverse that. I would vote for a party who had reverting to the punt and pulling out of the euro as a manifesto.
Right now we have a currency situation that has never been encountered before, we are tied in to the euro whereas before we were able to devalue our currency in tandem with sterling. We have a second referendum on a treaty which has already been voted on, and a government that doesn't have the backbone to tell Europe that we made a decision.
A green party that ditched their ethos and values after 24 hours in coalition and who will hopefully never preside in any form over this country again..

Odd that you stress the need for a new party yet are happy with the demise of the PDs.

bmaxi

We've seen, in the shape of the PDs and Greens, new parties arrive on the scene full of ideology and verve, to do what? Strange as it may seem the PDs were seen as a breath of fresh air and much was expected of them, they were going to change the face of politics in this country, what happened?
Fact is, there are parties in existence that have, as their ethos, nationalism and a concern for the well being of the nation, they are FF, FG and Labour. The problem is, those within the parties have chosen to desert their core values and sacrifice their ethics on the altar of greed. It is not the vehicles that need to be changed but the drivers.
We all should take our share of the blame for consistently re-electing gombeens, fraudsters and cheats, for what good reason I've yet to discover.

pseudonym1

Audits audits and external audits. Would want to know where every €100 went!
Promote and enhance arts and crafts esp indigenous products.
Re - valuate and arrange welfare system no gratified payments to lay abouts those taking advantage expect work in return for payment.
low interest repayable grant scheme
Allow administration of the abortion pill
Ensure teachers sit and mark exams - nobody else gets 3 months off!
TBH dont know what would do about healthcare system.
All for now - so when what are we going to call our new party??

P. Breathnach

pseudonym1 wrote: »

All for now - so when what are we going to call our new party??

Borrow a name from the UK: The Monster Raving Loony Party.

HydeRoad

Is it not conceiveable that Sinn Féin might become the party that fills the void, now that we are facing into the kind of desperate economic climate that such a left wing party thrives in?

I sincerely hope that no matter how desperate the people of Ireland become for a change of government, that they do not, in the face of massive unemployment and prospective social upheaval, fall for the charms of a party who have a repugnant recent history, in a class apart from anything Fianna Fáil ever done.

The economic recession will be least of our problems if this band start winning support enough to sway the next general election.

Do not doubt Fianna Fáil's ability to suck a large slice of lemon and copulate with these people if it means hanging onto power at any cost. What a merry gang we would have in charge then!

Vadrefjorde

sock puppet wrote: »

Odd that you stress the need for a new party yet are happy with the demise of the PDs.

What is odd about that, many russians stressed they needed a new political party yet were happy with the demise of the soviet union.
I am very happy with the demise of the progressive democrats, they were the epitomy of what was wrong with this country.

Hagar

We need more gaols, lots of them. Real gaols, without colour tvs and luxury living. Places that criminals will be afraid to end up in. We also need judges with the sense to stop being bleeding-heart, tree-hugging, touchy-feely liberals and put the scum in the gaols for a long time. Then the decent law abiding people can get on with their lives.

Darragh29

Hagar wrote: »

We need more gaols, lots of them. Real gaols, without colour tvs and luxury living. Places that criminals will be afraid to end up in. We also need judges with the sense to stop being bleeding-heart, tree-hugging, touchy-feely liberals and put the scum in the gaols for a long time. Then the decent law abiding people can get on with their lives.

I was thinking about this over the Christmas, after reading Paul William's book "Gang Wars", and I think more than prison spaces, the judges are part of the problem. The above book mentions several occasions where criminals out on bail murdered people, and these criminals had a long history of violence, it's not like they got bail on an understanding that they were not a risk to society and then unexpectly murdered someone after getting bail.

I think the answer to this is to "performance manage", those that make the decision with regard to bail, obviously the judge. If some scumbag who has a history of armed robbery, drug dealing and absolute mayhem, is before the court and a judge gives him bail, and that guy goes out and murders someone, then the judge should lose his job by default. Then we might see judges being a bit more careful with regard to throwing bail at hardened scumbags.

@ Hyderoad: I never really understood the link between Sinn Fein and underworld criminality until I read the above book, which shows the movers and shakers and how they were working hand in hand with major gangland figures while also fronting the CPAD (Concerned Parents Against Drugs), movement. Well worth a read.

murphaph

I would like to see our entire political system overhauled starting with the county councils;

1) Abolish loads of the county councils as they are simply too small to be economically viable. Replace them with perhaps 5 regional authorites. No city councils because land use around cities needs to be controlled. Creating administrative boundaries around cities has led to an explosion of doughnut planning.

2) The national system in this country is a joke, a glorified county council with overpaid county councillors who draft laws at a painfuly slow rate (that is actually the primary function of Dail Eireann, to pass bills into acts and create law, not to discuss Mrs. Kelly's septic tank problem!). We need to accept that our wealth is no longer derived primarily from the countryside and realise we are more urban a nation than many. To this end I believe that rural Ireland is ridiculously over-represented in Dail Eireann and the cities should take precedence, especially Dublin.

3) End the nonsensical 'jobs for the boys' practices of decentralisation and move everything back to the empty office space in the capital city. People in the country need to to realise we can't create civil service jobs in Letterkenny and Shannon etc. just to avoid them having to leave home to find a job. Peope leave home in rural Bavaria and Baden-Wurtemberg and move to Munich and Stuttgart to work. They don't expect the federal states of Germany to move civil service functions all over the place to provide those jobs. It is totally inefficient to be sending letters to a million people in Dublin from a rural outpost in the middle of nowhere.

4) Encourage rationalisation of our farms. It is undoubtedly a legacy of british rule that we have such small pockets of barely viable farmland. We should see these farms amalgamated as happened across much of Europe.

5) Develop Dublin, Cork, Limerick and possibly Waterford and Galway to proper city status. Encourage people to move to the cities and create the critical masses required. Immediately end one-off housing development which has destroyed large swathes of our once beautiful land. Invest large sums in these cities to make them beautiful, attractive urban spaces where people WANT to move to.

6) Build as many prisons as it takes to remove the scum element from these cities. No luxuries. Forget about 'reforming' criminals. Provide decent education to all children so they can make informed choices. End the practice of building social housing ghettos-they just prolong the circle of deprivation and 'chips on shoulders'-it may be painful for people who paid full whack for a house/apartment to live next to someone who got it for free but the children will play together and hopefully the children in the 'free' house will aspire to something better than their parents, thus ending the cycle.

7) Drugs are a massive problem nationwide. As much as 70% of robbery/burglary etc directly funds drug misuse. Drug dealing on all levels (from corner pusher to major importer) should result in life imprisonment due to the devastation drug abuse brings to families and communities. Drug users should have proper facilities available to them to try to come off drugs-give them say 3 attempts then lock them up as a lost cause. The rest of society should not shoulder the burden of someone else's drug habbit.

8) Wholesale institutional reform of the public sector. We NEED quality public services but we also need to pay the going rates, reduced slightly due to the secure nature of employment in the public sector. Introduce Taylor laws intot he public sector-no striking allowed. You don't like it? Don't join the public sector!

9) Introduce military/civil service for all persons reaching 18 years of age.

I would like to point out that I am not 'right-wing' and am a socialist at heart but lazy bloodsuckers destroy it for everyone else and need removing from the equation.

jank

Bring back 3rd level fees.
Invest in one or two universities that are of international standing.
I would be in favour of a federal system where the regions/provinces have more of a say in their own affairs.
Longer school year for all.
Make prisoners work while in the community while in jail.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Darragh29

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

No, what I'm saying is that I agree with you, the way in which this country is administrated, has to be overhauled. A country simply cannot be run in a sustainable manner, along the lines of how this country is presently being run.

But before we can expect anyone to put their shoulder to the wheel, I think we need people in office who will first of all, be in a position to lead.

You cannot lead people anywhere when you are telling them that they will experience the wrath of the recession, and face redundancy, while you are driving around in a car worth over 100K. You cannot lead a person who could be looking at their house being repossessed by the bank, when your monthly unvouched expense bill, in all likelyhood, exceeds the arrears on their mortgage.

This is not leadership, it is the opposite of leadership. I think in order to be able to lead people, you have to firstly be able to identify with them. This is why I'm saying that example always has to come from the top. You cannot preach to people and expect them to take you seriously when you are living beyond your means yourself.

So what we cannot afford now, we must manage without. Nobody else in this country gets an allowance just for turning up at work, so I don't see why our TD's should get one. Everyone else in this country has to vouch for their expenses, so I don't see why the rules should be any different for TD's.

A 4,000 Euro an hour state jet is actually unbelievable.

Permabear

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