Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Time for a General Election?

Options
13»

Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 991 ✭✭✭endplate


    I don't understand what are people's problem is with Enda Kenny. He worked tirelessly since the 2002 election to bring his party back to where it was in was previous to the 2002 election in 2007. This was a party that was nearly ruined. Now if someone has the skills to bring something back from near death. Than what does that tell you about what he could do for this country. Remember this country is nearly dead. So if those doubters would just cop on and wake up this is possibly a leader that could bring this country back from ruin.

    Just cos he's not Bertie (sure can't you sit beside him and enjoy a pint) (I'm sure he would tell you to f**k off in reality). Also notice how he ran from office like a scalded cat just before the downturn don't bother telling me it was to do with the tribunals. He was arragont enough to stay put during the election. This government is totally compromised cos it depended on spending tax payers money inefficiently to stay in power


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,432 ✭✭✭mcwhirter


    Yes it is time people, lets vote FF out.


  • Registered Users Posts: 11,692 ✭✭✭✭OPENROAD


    endplate wrote: »
    I don't understand what are people's problem is with Enda Kenny.


    When someone says FG, the first person to enter my mind is Richard Bruton and not Enda Kenny, the fact that the recent opinion polls as far as I know showed an increase for FF should answer your question.

    On the plus side for FG, Ihave been very impressed with Ricahrd Bruton though granted things are always easier in opposition,it does seem FG would concentrate more on getting spending under control rather than just simply raising taxes which may make things even worse.


  • Registered Users Posts: 360 ✭✭mikedublin


    Yes !

    We need a new government that is in touch with Real People, that takes account of their ability to pay all these Tax rises.
    The government are so used to hanging around with people on 100,000 or 200,000 a year that they don't give a monkeys about anyone on 30,000 and expect us to "take the pain".


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,037 ✭✭✭Nothingbetter2d


    zootroid wrote: »
    By the way, this thread could really have done with a poll!

    yer i tried looking for the means to set it up as a poll but couldnt find it


  • Advertisement
  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 34,567 ✭✭✭✭Biggins


    Yes.


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,136 ✭✭✭✭is_that_so


    No, because we would have no more of these threads. IMO "General Election now?" threads are the only thing keeping the country on an even keel by allowing people to vent wildly or otherwise. As for "all the same" posts well that's politics and these are the people we vote/don't vote for. If you want something different then get involved yourself or be more careful of what you vote for. More importantly make sure you vote.


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,136 ✭✭✭✭is_that_so


    Belfast wrote: »
    NO.

    The opposition is just as clueless as the government and did not see the problem coming. Even when people like David Mcwilliams warned that in
    House prices: up or down?
    February 3rd, 2002 ,
    http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2002/02/03/house-prices-up-or-down

    back in 1998 he warned about the problem.
    This is when the problem started not last year went unemployment went up and the tax revenue coming in to the state fell below expectations.
    http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/1998/11/03/bhead.htm
    "Economist warns of move
    from Celtic Tiger to Ostrich
    by Brian O'Mahony
    IRELAND risks moving from Celtic Tiger economic status to Celtic Ostrich over the next two years a top economist has warned.
    David McWilliams, senior economist and strategist with Banque Nationale de Paris, in London, said the circumstances that drove the economy forward these past few years are evaporating before our very eyes. Boom conditions here were driven by the seven years of economic growth in the US and on the back of the Asian Tiger economies, he said.
    In a series of warnings Mr McWilliams told a conference in Ennis that "we were defying economic gravity," driven by huge credit growth of over 20% per annum, while the economy was growing at just 8%.

    Mr McWilliams warned that if we ignore the danger signals from the UK, the US, the Asian economies and more recently Russia, we were in serious danger of hitting rock bottom over the next two years.
    But Pat O'Neill, of AIB Capital Markets, disagreed fundamentally with the view of Mr McWilliams.
    He dismissed it as a "typical" UK view of the Irish economy.
    Even though Mr McWiliams is Irish and is one of those credited with inventing the Celtic Tiger legend, his pessimistic view is not shared by Irish economists generally.
    Noteworthy is Dermot O'Brien of NCB Stockbrokers, who has forecast annual growth of 5% per annum over the next five years at least.
    Demographics says Mr O'Brien, are driving the phenomenal economic growth here. The babyboomers of the early 1970s and becoming the plastic card consumers of the 1990s and that phenomenon cannot be ignored.
    So while we stand to lose export orders and suffer some job losses, Mr O'Brien says the economy is destined to roll along over the next few years.
    Mr McWilliams made his comments at a conference entitled "Are We Forgetting Something" held in Ennis, Co Clare. He warned that "some sort of crisis was round the corner" unless the world economy came back into play to stimulate demand.
    Since the middle ages, booms have always been followed by busts and Mr McWilliams said the only debate now is how severe the bust that is going to follow would be.
    Mr McWilliams has been accused by some of "headline grabbing."
    "

    The opposition ignored his warning just as much as the government did.

    Fine Gael seems to be turning out policy biased on marketing surveys as to how to solve the problem.

    Fianna fail has been in power to long, but replacing them with another set of clueless Muppets for the opposition who want to spend even more (€11,000,000,000 stimulus packge Fine Geal). is not going to help.

    Perhaps it is time to sack all of the correct crop of politicians in Leicester house and start with new one with some new ideas.

    The last time the political classes were wiped out in Ireland was the election of 1918 when the home rule party were almost wiped out.

    This has already been called for with the bankers.

    Perhaps it is time for such a Seachange again.

    A general election with a choice between Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber (Fianna fail , Fianna Gael and Labour) is not going to solve the problem.

    To paraphrase Micheal O'Leary. "The political classess have become fat dumb and happy during the Celtic tiger years"

    No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
    Albert Einstein



    One last major problem with an General election now is the elector register is out of date and needs to be brought up to date before any new election.

    The one sensiable thing I heard in the Dail in recent years was form labour who suggested when the last census was being collect the same people should do a survey to bring the elector register up to date.

    Both Fine Geal and Finna Fail said it was a bad idea.

    Perhaps it suited the 2 majors parties not to have the elector register updated.(Things might have changed)

    Again credit where it is due you have devoted some degree of thought to this yet many of your posts on this topic do not offer any realistic solution. This is just another example and TBH appears to be just venting your spleen.
    You dislike both FF and FG yet they are part of the political reality in Ireland and will continue to be.

    Many of your alternative suggestions go completely against our innately conservative view of politics and politicians. FF and FG and Labour to a lesser extent have positioned themselves to take advantage of this and "them's the choices" as they say.

    Consequently the choices are a FF coalition government or a FG coalition and no amount of wishing for new parties is going to change that. I agree that the alternative may not quite be ready, Labour certainly are not, but seeing as they are locking onto our ire to keep their numbers up we are in part to blame. FG has come up with plans, Labour lots of nothing but both for now are more keen to keep FF on the ropes to ensure that they do become a party of government.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 211 ✭✭Terra


    I don't care much for an election. I think we need something more like a revolution to change the way things are done.

    I care more about how much the current government actually cost the taxpayer.

    I mean in terms of their salaries, pensions, expenses and even getting free drivers and cars..

    And we even Bertie still has a free driver and car.

    I just don't think we can afford this government.

    They need to cut their salaries, expenses and overall cost in half. Now that for me is the though decision that none of them will make.

    They need to lead by example.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,271 ✭✭✭irish_bob


    Terra wrote: »
    I don't care much for an election. I think we need something more like a revolution to change the way things are done.

    I care more about how much the current government actually cost the taxpayer.

    I mean in terms of their salaries, pensions, expenses and even getting free drivers and cars..

    And we even Bertie still has a free driver and car.

    I just don't think we can afford this government.

    They need to cut their salaries, expenses and overall cost in half. Now that for me is the though decision that none of them will make.

    They need to lead by example.


    and if they led by example and took a 30% pay cut , would you support pay cuts for nurses , teachers , guards , doctors and other public servants plus social wellfare cuts


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,163 ✭✭✭✭Liam Byrne


    In all honesty, it's NOT time for a general election.

    That was about 2 years ago, when McDowell bottled it on taking Bertie to task for his unexplained crap, and the ensuing fiasco distracted the Government from doing their job. Of course, part of me reckons they wouldn't have done it anyway, considering that the Budget (wallop the easy targets who have no voice) was brought forward while the Bord Snip stuff required as much delaying tactics as possible, including fecking off on hols without bothering to follow it through (I mean it's not like we're losing millions every day....oh hang on, it is :mad:)

    But in the absense of that properly-timed election, better late than never; the current arrogant, flamboyant wastes of cash and space need to be landed on their incompetent asses and let someone who has a plan other than riding the storm and the public; FF are banking on something happening to let them buy the next election; they're only interested in their own asses and seats and pay and pensions, and couldn't give a bollox about long-term planning.

    Will FG ? I don't know. But they couldn't do any worse, and you never know - they may have learned from their time in opposition and the unsustainable nature of politics in this country, and if so it'd be win-win....


Advertisement