what do we need to change ?

PCPhoto

fair enough question - what do we need to change in order to get the country in a better position:
(NOTE: you might want to print this and stick it on the inside on your front door for canvassers to answer questions based on it)

Anyways:
Personally I think we need a complete overhaul of our constitution and various schemes and platforms that governmental finances are based on.

- Public spending is definately one that needs to be addressed - make politicians accountable for the wastage of public finances (which will ensure they actually consider their actions before throwing money at an idea)
- Stop the loopholes allowing Politicians to work as teachers etc then take time off to become a politician - if you change career you run the risk of becoming unemployed thats the chance you should take.

Judicial System - seriously needs an overhaul.
- if we recorded the amount of overtime created by Gardai and recruited the extra numbers to actually limit the Garda overtime.
- punish habitual or repeat criminals properly - if they wish to behave like scumbags - punish them like scumbags.
- help the judges to actually see what life is like - they seem to live in their own bubble - so they can give appropriate sentences, consecutive sentences for different crimes - if you plead guilty to 10 robberies you should get 10 sentences not 1 sentence, you have endangered lives and traumatised people on loads of occasions - YOU NEED TO BE PUNISHED, The courts need to actually take a zero tollerance approach - yes everyone can make a mistake, but everyone should learn from their mistake and choose not to make the same mistake again.

IMO the most difficult one - overhaul of our health system: get the money hungry fat cats out of the offices, hire enough doctors, nurses, surgeons, consultants, radiographers etc and admin staff to do the job, get rid of those who are duplicating positions and dividing the workload when there is no need to do so.
Why do we need VHI, Bupa etc - because our own health system isnt working properly - does the government care ? NO - why ? ... because they are getting money on both sides, from VHI/Bupa etc and also from Public visits. we have a ridiculous system that you cannot goto a specialist without a referral from a doctor - and it costs approx €50 to visit the doctor to get that referral.

This seems to be going in more of a rant and rave, so I'll stop with my suggestions on what faults I see with the current system and how to change it.

Anyone else got suggestions on what needs to be changed and how to change it.

P. Breathnach

PCPhoto wrote: »

... This seems to be going in more of a rant and rave...

You said it, brother.

FGR

All well and good but Garda overtime has already been cut back substantially. Of what OT remains a large portion of it is due to members being required for court, interview of suspects and other menial tasks that may require them to be present when they should be off duty. I'm pretty sure a lot of that is going back as time owed, however.

As for the judicial system - no point in bringing in harsher sentencing when there isn't enough prison spaces to deal with the current system. Almost, if not every prison is overcrowded and as such many people convicted serve a fraction of their time and are instead released on 'temporary release' which blows away the point of prison terms in the first place.

ionix5891

Cut public spending and dole

yes i know its not a popular option

but the country cant keep borrowing money forever, something is gonna snap at this rate, and i sure hope its not the bond markets

PCPhoto

ForegoneReality wrote: »

All well and good but Garda overtime has already been cut back substantially. Of what OT remains a large portion of it is due to members being required for court, interview of suspects and other menial tasks that may require them to be present when they should be off duty. I'm pretty sure a lot of that is going back as time owed, however.

As for the judicial system - no point in bringing in harsher sentencing when there isn't enough prison spaces to deal with the current system. Almost, if not every prison is overcrowded and as such many people convicted serve a fraction of their time and are instead released on 'temporary release' which blows away the point of prison terms in the first place.

yet they closed several prisons a couple of years ago .... to cut costs (or was it that they werent up to standard)
ie. Spike Island

Spudmonkey

Three main things in my opinion

- Need to bring more money into the economy, be this in the form of attracting foreign investment (with which we need to make ourselves ourselves more competitive again), creating indigenous companies, or exploiting the natural resources we have (maybe more investment in the likes of fishing?)

- Need to get public spending back under control, this means reducing dole payments (along with weeding out the scroungers), getting better value for money with the health service, education system etc

- Make prisons a less inviting place to go, take away their three course meals and whatever other perks they have.. (I always thought people were fed bread and water in jail and had to break stones!)

1huge1

Keep inflation at low levels to regain competiveness.

Give a lot of power to the competition authority and reduce wages.

Getting our competitiveness back is the biggest gain we will get from this recession and it is what our boom was based on in the 90's.

Not that wishy washy boom we had for the last 9 years were we have lost all our competiveness.

Sorry for the poorly worded answer and I will rework it later on.

In a rush to start a barbaque...

af_thefragile

Before anything, we need to change people's attitudes.



We have been too lazy. We just wanna sit back and wait for a messiah to come and lead us out of darkness.
Doesn't happen.

We need to take charge out the country. THe people need to become aware that this is their country and they are in charge of it. Not some looneys at FF or FG.

Everyone needs to find out what they individually can do to protect themselves from this recession.
People need to take responsibility for themselves. People need to work harder to make sure they get a decent education and attain the skills to get a proper job.
We need entrepreneurs who can set up new businesses in the country creating jobs and better services.

Interventionism and centralisation is not the answer to solving the economic problems. The government failed to properly run a health system, education system and most other services, how can you expect the government to miraculously manage to efficiently and progressively run the whole economic market under its umbrella?

The market is not a foreign, alien entity. Its composed of people just like us. If everyone of us just looks after ourselves, the country will "fix" itself. We or some messiah doesn't need to do anything.

This is where the problem lies. We don't wanna do anything. We want to leave it all to the government to do it for us.
This is what needs to change first. We can't leave it upto the government to cradle us and nurture us. The government isn't capable of that.
We need to wean ourselves off the government and start looking out for oneself and one another.
This is the only way the country can progress. Through the collective awareness and responsibility of its people and their liberties.