Getting Disillusioned

amacachi

I'm 20 and have voted in both the General Election and Lisbon Treaty Referendum since I turned 18. I always said I would vote in everything I could, and never understood people wasting the opportunity.

Now though I don't know if there's anyone to vote for. I'd've described myself as both socially and economically conservative to an extent, but since there isn't really a party that stands for that I thought in the last election I may as well vote for the locals who seem to have done good work around here in the last while.

Now I'm looking at the bigger picture and unfortunately the party that the candidates are with has to come into it. Let's look at the options;

Fianna Fáil: No thanks. No guts to do what needs to be done. And they didn't exactly have no part in this mess we're in now.
Fine Gael: Always had an impression growing up there was something "off" about them and now reading Enda proposing delaying/cancelling vital infrastructure in Dublin while promoting the WRC I realise what it was.
Labour: Hmmm, hard to take serious most of the time, but a nice example on the news today is they want to financially penalise parties who don't reach a % quota of female candidates. If that's what they're putting their efforts into at the moment, just, no thanks.
The Greens: Never particularly liked them and since they got into government they've been shown to be spineless.
PDs: Complicity personified.
Sinn Féin: Just no credibility.
Independents: IF they get in they only make up the numbers in a coalition and toe the government's line. Or they have no influence.

So yeah, who is there left to vote for

Sorry if this is coming across as whingey, just something that's been on my mind for a while now.

mike65

I've long since decided its really about voting against a party/parties than for a party, as you note none of them offers much hope, certainly not for an outbreak of fundamental competence and real life common sence. So the best we can hope for is to successfully punish the inept.

As I type some gombeen Joe is talking on radio about "diginity of the office" to justify helicopters and Charvet shirts. There is no hope.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Have long since lost fiath in the democratic pocess. People saying that they'd STILL vote Fianna Fail was the last straw.

turgon

I would symbolize the whole attitude mentioned by Ikky Poo2 by the fact that my grandmother still has a picture of Haughy hanging in her room. Depressing.

FlutterinBantam

Have to agree with the OP.

Irish politics is extremely incestuous,practically every TD has some family connection with the previous incumbent, which cannot be good for new thinking or innovation.

Mary Coughlan,Cowen,the Lenihans, Brutons, Flynns, Haugheys etc etc etc are cases in point.

The ones without any baggage Varadkar, Brian Hayes, James Reilly etc seem to have the most "go" about them.

We need to get away from these dynasty's I think.

djpbarry

amacachi wrote: »

Now I'm looking at the bigger picture and unfortunately the party that the candidates are with has to come into it. Let's look at the options...

Perhaps you should focus on the individual candidate rather than their party? Vote for whoever you consider to be the best TD for your constituency, rather than the party you feel would make the best government. If everyone did the former, the latter would look after itself.

amacachi

djpbarry wrote: »

Perhaps you should focus on the individual candidate rather than their party? Vote for whoever you consider to be the best TD for your constituency, rather than the party you feel would make the best government. If everyone did the former, the latter would look after itself.

That's what I did last time but it involved two FFers getting support from me.

Unfortunately things aren't as rosy now to focus on the local level.

Looks like I shall be spoiling my ballot so, really hoped I wouldn't become a cliché. :P

turgon

djpbarry wrote: »

Perhaps you should focus on the individual candidate rather than their party? Vote for whoever you consider to be the best TD for your constituency, rather than the party you feel would make the best government. If everyone did the former, the latter would look after itself.

Not really, individual TD's are just the pawns of the leaders in the Dail. They dont think independently whatsoever lest they be booted out.

Scofflaw

djpbarry wrote: »

Perhaps you should focus on the individual candidate rather than their party? Vote for whoever you consider to be the best TD for your constituency, rather than the party you feel would make the best government. If everyone did the former, the latter would look after itself.

I have to agree with turgon there. The Party Whip system means that whatever your local TD might say is completely irrelevant to what he or she will do in the Dáil. They can stand up and say they oppose the M3 at Tara, but they will never vote against it as long as it's government policy - unless they're an Opposition TD, in which case they'll always vote against it. As for what they can get done locally - they can only get you what you're legally entitled to, and they can only get the constituency what the Cabinet have decided to give to the constituency. You'll get a lot more independence out of your MEP.

resignedly,
Scofflaw

Frank007

completely agree that we need to get away from the dynasties of the past.
But how can you say Varadkar, Reilly and Hayes are any good.

Varadkar has to be one of the most pompous and pretenscious TDs ever, he has shown his poor knowledge of finance and economics on many occassions and he is meant to be the enterprise spokesman.

nesf

djpbarry wrote: »

Perhaps you should focus on the individual candidate rather than their party? Vote for whoever you consider to be the best TD for your constituency, rather than the party you feel would make the best government. If everyone did the former, the latter would look after itself.

The party whip system makes this relatively pointless except in situations where you can be sure that if a certain person gets elected that they'll get a Ministry.

Personally I'd echo mike65, I tend to vote for whichever party I disagree least with rather than anything else. Being on the economic right it leaves me with the odd couple of FF and FG these days.

Pride Fighter

Frank007 wrote: »

completely agree that we need to get away from the dynasties of the past.
But how can you say Varadkar, Reilly and Hayes are any good.

Varadkar has to be one of the most pompous and pretenscious TDs ever, he has shown his poor knowledge of finance and economics on many occassions and he is meant to be the enterprise spokesman.

I agree, Varadkar, Hayes and Reilly are just arrogant, pompous oafs. Typical political elites that have never lived in the real world.

dave-higgz

Frank007 wrote: »

completely agree that we need to get away from the dynasties of the past.
But how can you say Varadkar, Reilly and Hayes are any good.

Varadkar has to be one of the most pompous and pretenscious TDs ever, he has shown his poor knowledge of finance and economics on many occassions and he is meant to be the enterprise spokesman.

Pride Fighter wrote: »

I agree, Varadkar, Hayes and Reilly are just arrogant, pompous oafs. Typical political elites that have never lived in the real world.

Whatever about Varadkar, Hayes and Reilly have done a wonderful job as spokesmen for Health and Education. The FF ministers need to be held account for their actions and I believe that they have been doing that.

Dr. James Reilly's idea of universal healthcare is what we need and his opposition to some of the ludicrous decisions by Mary Harney cannot go unnoticed. I think he'd make a much better minister. And what makes him elite? He's a doctor. He knows best practice!

nesf

dave-higgz wrote: »

Dr. James Reilly's idea of universal healthcare is what we need and his opposition to some of the ludicrous decisions by Mary Harney cannot go unnoticed. I think he'd make a much better minister. And what makes him elite? He's a doctor. He knows best practice!

A doctor, and no offence to the profession, is little more knowledgeable of how to run the HSE than clerical staff in the Department of Transport know how best to implement national transport strategies and how best to weigh different options. It's a completely different job.

Reilly hasn't come out with any concrete figures on what needs to be done and how to pay for it. If we want a universal public system we need to substantially raise taxes to do it. He has not explained which taxes would be picked, the trade-off between the deflationary effect of these taxes and the positives of a universal public system and other major factors in these kinds of decisions.

It's all well and good to talk about universal healthcare, we all want it by and large, but the problem is how do we pay for it? We can't afford our present system at today's tax rates and wage levels, how the hell are we going to massively enlarge it without enormous change in both of these? We get one of the worst "bangs for the buck" ratings in the last European Health Consumer Index (http://www.healthpowerhouse.com/files/2008-EHCI/EHCI-2008-report.pdf) and somehow manage to spend roughly the same amount of money per capita as many of the higher tax countries on healthcare and get back an inferior return on this. This needs to be tackled first and I'd have an awful lot more respect for Dr. Reilly if he focused his efforts on this question and not the universality one and was telling us not about our need for a universal system but how we can realistically have one.

amacachi

The trouble with paying for the Healthcare system as it is now is that every arsehole town and county demands its own hospital. My town is one such place. Of course rather than shut the hospitals down they close bits of them, gettin feck all saving but causing plenty of extra expenditure in other nearby hospitals.

What party would have the balls to close down the unneeded hospitals? Hmmm, I wonder.

djpbarry

turgon wrote: »

Not really, individual TD's are just the pawns of the leaders in the Dail. They dont think independently whatsoever lest they be booted out.

Scofflaw wrote: »

The Party Whip system means that whatever your local TD might say is completely irrelevant to what he or she will do in the Dáil.

nesf wrote: »

The party whip system makes this relatively pointless except in situations where you can be sure that if a certain person gets elected that they'll get a Ministry.

Fair points. One can still dream though...