FF attacking the vulnerable

jochenstacker

So far FF have taken money from schools, hospitals, the elderly, children, the disabled and too many of societies vulnerable to mention.
A few things things disturb me about this.

1: FF have been doing this systematically over the last 10 years at least.

which brings me neatly onto:

2: apart from a few people trying to bring this to the attention of the masses who where too busy buying new cars and houses for themselves no one seemed to care

which brings me to the point that really pisses me off:

3: Only now that people are getting hit in the wallet and may have to buy fewer new cars and houses do they start complaining about FF (and also a little bit about the poor and vulnerable getting raped by FF).

While I'm sure that everyone at a personal level will say "isn't it awful that wards are being closed in a childrens hospital", that didn't stop FF being elected again and again and again (and again and again, etc...)
Wasn't there just a little bit of "poor buggers, but at least I'm alright, let's check for a new car/house, then go vote FF.

Add on:

There seems to be some debate about the term "vulnerable"
Healthcare: childrens hospitals, A&E departments, failing that air ambulances
Homeless
Cancer screening BEFORE you get cancer
funding of schools and universities
education for mentaly/physically handicapped rather than stuffing them into a corner and hopin they'll keep up
proper childcare, proper care for the elderly, not homes you stuff them in to die

Just some examples of "vulnerable". Meaning people who don't have a voice and therefore are discounted by the government.
Especially the health service. It almost looks like the government is strangeling the health service to death, so they can build lots of shiny private clinics, so instead of paying out, they'll get a cut from a US style "medicine for profit" system.
Surely there must be some cosy deals and backhanders from cronies the government can do without, maybe not buy a new jet every year, cut back on mugabe style 600 strong police escorts while whisking some fat b*stard through town at 100 mp/h, maybe divert some "party donations" to usefull causes.
The current clique of criminals, imbeciles, bribe taking, inept and self serving fools should be told by the people "we won't take this sh*t any more, sort it out or we're coming for you with pitchforks, torches, tar and feathers"

Instead everyone is whining "Oooh, i have to pay a 5% levy, it's not fair, I have to buy a new car every 5 years instead of 3, I'm going on strike!"

Mario007

jochenstacker wrote: »

So far FF have taken money from schools, hospitals, the elderly, children, the disabled and too many of societies vulnerable to mention.
A few things things disturb me about this.

1: FF have been doing this systematically over the last 10 years at least.

which brings me neatly onto:

2: apart from a few people trying to bring this to the attention of the masses who where too busy buying new cars and houses for themselves no one seemed to care

which brings me to the point that really pisses me off:

3: Only now that people are getting hit in the wallet and may have to buy fewer new cars and houses do they start complaining about FF (and also a little bit about the poor and vulnerable getting raped by FF).

While I'm sure that everyone at a personal level will say "isn't it awful that wards are being closed in a childrens hospital", that didn't stop FF being elected again and again and again (and again and again, etc...)
Wasn't there just a little bit of "poor buggers, but at least I'm alright, let's check for a new car/house, then go vote FF"?

firstly i dont particulary like FF either. secondly i hate it when people use the term vulnerable...its just being so overplayed in the media and by the politicians and activists these days.

to reply to your post, i dont think FF was shutting down wards etc for the past 10 years...their aproach was more like 'sure we have money, so lets keep it going and put some more money into it', i think. the fact that they are doing it now is very cruel, especially when you see that there is 21bn of public service related expenditure and 20bn of social weflare relating expenditure that hasnt even been touched yet. i think that FF are not doing the 'hard decissions' as they say they are but really the easy ones as it is much easier to close a ward than to cut some welfare benefits.
to be honest i really dont get why FF had such a strong vote eversince 1932 as well

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

solice

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

How many people were unemployed in 1999 and how many are unemployed in 2009? Can that account for the difference or has the social welfare payment gone up significantly?

turgon

The only thing FF ever did the to the "vulnerable" was to throw money at them in a vote buying exercise.

This thread is just nonsense.

FF Governments have thrown money at social welfare, pensions, unemployment benefits etc. I agree with the poster about it possibly being a vote buying exercise, we are certainly paying for it now.

El Stuntman

solice wrote: »

How many people were unemployed in 1999 and how many are unemployed in 2009? Can that account for the difference or has the social welfare payment gone up significantly?

there is obviously a large difference in the numbers claiming on all fronts so to gague this properly you need to look the inflation-adjusted numbers for:

Child Benefit
JA\JB
State OAP
plus all the other myraid benefit schemes out there

on an individual payment basis from 1999 to present.

Let's take a stab!

Child Benefit in 1999 = IR£34.50 (€43.81) pcm
Child Benefit in 2009 = €166 pcm
% rate of increase = 279%

does this equate to the rate of inflation for these ten years (HINT: no)?

jmayo

Mario007 wrote: »

firstly i dont particulary like FF either. secondly i hate it when people use the term vulnerable...its just being so overplayed in the media and by the politicians and activists these days.

to reply to your post, i dont think FF was shutting down wards etc for the past 10 years...their aproach was more like 'sure we have money, so lets keep it going and put some more money into it', i think. the fact that they are doing it now is very cruel, especially when you see that there is 21bn of public service related expenditure and 20bn of social weflare relating expenditure that hasnt even been touched yet. i think that FF are not doing the 'hard decissions' as they say they are but really the easy ones as it is much easier to close a ward than to cut some welfare benefits.
to be honest i really dont get why FF had such a strong vote eversince 1932 as well

To me vulnerable are not unemployed, they are the sick especially the very young and the old.
The way these groups have been treated over last number of years, even before all the latest cutbacks is disgraceful.
Look at the state of our private nursing homes system, which appear to have been primarily setup as a tax avoidance measure rather than actually care for the elderly and the infirmed.

Careers who safe the state huge amounts are actually treated as skivvies and area forgotten entity.

FF have allowed a health service deteriote, holding up their hands and blaming their creation the HSE, even though they pumped huge amounts of money into the system over the last 12 years.
FF have been downgrading facilities at certain hospitals over the last number of years with the horsesh**e about centralising resources at centres of excellence.
Why is centre of excellence in Northeast in Drogheda, how central is that to the geographical area ? Even if you look at population it is not even central.

How are patients meant to get to these centre of excellence often within the golden hour needed for survival ?
I would bet you have better chance of survival in Austrlian outback than if you live in West Clare or Cavan.

It was gas to see last night a ffer on the Dáil Health committee outside Crumlin demanding HSE look at their budgets.
Do the HSE answer to anyone at this stage, or what does harney do all day ?

The state spends amssive amounts of money on a health service and most of it never goes anywhere near the patient.

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Again to me vulnerable are the sick, the young and the old, not someone that is unemployed especially some of our longer term ones who even in good times only spent their time at the bookies.
Ps drug addicts should not be termed vulnerable either, they made a decision.
Sick people (not including those who have illnesses due to lifestyle choices), kids or elderly don't have a choice in the matter.

is_that_so

Unemployment is a very different beast in 2009 than it was even 10 years ago. Granted it is never pleasant but appears to be far-better rewarded now than it has ever been, a feature in the 1980s which led to a very large black economy.

The word "vulnerable" has really become a cliche and an excuse for people too lazy to think through what it actually means. Those who are vulnerable have always been so and don't figure in any of the lists the OP has come up with. FF did not create them, but as it is such an emotive word it cannot fail but get someone's attention. It also tends to propagate the victim mentality.

What is happening at present is a very belated, unfortunately necessary but pretty ham-fisted attempt to shore up a mess FF created. There is also little to be gained from blaming FF, and there is much we can blame them for, for the lack of common sense some people have displayed throughout this time.
We all aspire to a comfortable lifestyle and just because some have been foolish enough to build them on moeny they really didn't have does not make anyone else guilty.

whippet

The soundbites of words like the opposition's 'Vunerable' and the Socialist's 'Working People' are nonsense.

To hear the likes of Joe Higgins banging on about how every decision will affect 'the hard working people of this island' is so out of kilter with the reality. The hard working people of ireland during the celtic tiger years, bought houses (sometimes multiple houses), new cars, a couple of forgien holidays a year and managed to sustain a phenomnal market of golf courses and spas around the country. - I might sounds like I am generalising or sterotyping .. but that is what the opposition does consistantly.

The HSE is still a mess, an administation nightmare - working in the constraints of a pampered public sector and union controlled practices.

I don't have exact figures to hand, but the outcry of a €9m cut back in a childrens hospitals .. crys for the government to hand over more money .. what about the €60m+ spent by the HSE on Taxis last year .. if they made a 15% efficency in how they spent that €60 there would be money in the kitty for the children's hospital.

Throwing money in to a bottomless pit isn't the answer. Spending it wisely is the answer .. something that Harney alluded to last night ... but of course Kenny had to get up this morning and decide to accuse Mary Harney of launching an attack on the Nurses (oh ... somebody please think of the nurses) and Doctors on the front line .. while it was obvious to anyone who listened to her it was a clear attack on those who control where resources are spent.

Comments like Kenny's will make the front page of every tabloid but the reality is too difficult to cause mass hysteria and therefore it will always be spun differently by a media and opposition who are hell bent on forcing an early general election.

turgon

whippet wrote: »

Spending it wisely is the answer

But the public service has a track record of never really spending wisely. Why? Because its not in their interests. Public servants still get paid the same regardless of efficiency.

Instead it should be privatised so that the owners of the hospitals will risk their own livelihoods if they try the sort of recklessness the government does.

whippet

turgon wrote: »

But the public service has a track record of never really spending wisely. Why? Because its not in their interests. Public servants still get paid the same regardless of efficiency.

Instead it should be privatised so that the owners of the hospitals will risk their own livelihoods if they try the sort of recklessness the government does.

but wouldn't that be a move to 'evil capitalism' ... imagine, someone getting rewarded for risk !!! Joe, Mary Lou and the other socialists would be chaining themselves to lifesupport machines in protest!

Het-Field

I completely agree with the vast majority of replies to the OP.

It has flown from a faux social democratic attitude of FF, claiming that "those who can pay, should pay". Natuarlly this has transpired into an attack on the middle class, and the professions. Essentially the most economically active class has been stifled to ensure FF appear to be doing a "fair job" or redressing the defecit. The words "Vunerable", and "needy" have been thrown around by FF politicians to maximise support.

It is the middle class etc who are getting hit with levy after levy, and what they are earning, they are too scared to part with. Natuarlly this has had a knock on effect on the spending habits of the Irish public.

The "tough decisions" will come in the form of social welfare cuts etc. It could go a long way to addressing the defecit. Donegalfella has rightly quoted a 21 Billion Euro figure. There is certainly three or four billion there which the government could save. Regrettably (as has been pointed out) Ireland's live register figures are expected to hit 600,000 by the end of this year, which will continue to exacerbate the crisis on more then just a public spending scale.

FF's "Tough decisions" have not been robust in the slightest. They have been an attack on the middle class, and the PAYE worker who has been at the service of the state for years. Its the easy route for FF, and I know the average PAYE worker wont forget it in a hurry.

whippet

Het-Field wrote: »

FF's "Tough decisions" have not been robust in the slightest. They have been an attack on the middle class, and the PAYE worker who has been at the service of the state for years. Its the easy route for FF, and I know the average PAYE worker wont forget it in a hurry.

the current tough decisions are really only decisions that could be taken quickly to increase current income immediatly. The same sort of decisions couldn't have been done in the public sector / spending area as quick due to the inevitable opposition and obstruction of the unions and the social partners.

When / If the government do take the necessary spending cuts later in the year the country as a whole will have to brace itself for mass strikes, protests and 'bart's people' type stories at the end of the 6-One news. What ever you do, don't plan to have a baby born in the Rotunda hospital at the end of the year .. you won't have a chance to get parking as every interest group in the country will be marching to Kildare street .. looking for cuts in everything except their own area of interest.

As a FF supporter, PAYE worker and young family man, my loyalty to FF will be tested based on the 'hard' decisions it will make regarding public spending.

People may say that my loyalty to FF should have been more than tested over the last few months, but after listening to Gilmore, Burton, Kenny, Bruton skirting past and deflecting any questions with regards to specific policies I realise that the options to the electorate are minimal.

is_that_so

whippet wrote: »

Comments like Kenny's will make the front page of every tabloid but the reality is too difficult to cause mass hysteria and therefore it will always be spun differently by a media and opposition who are hell bent on forcing an early general election.

This is just what parties in opposition do and FF will be no different, although as someone posted elsewhere they'll probably be a lot worse. Kenny is picking on things that are current and that we can "relate" to and trying to get a lift on that populist bandwagon Gilmore is sitting astride and maybe nudge up his popularity. Politics is all about spin unfortunately. It's also very close to the end of the Dail session and any last digs at a fairly unpopular government will show up over the next week or so in all kinds of guises.

Het-Field

whippet wrote: »

the current tough decisions are really only decisions that could be taken quickly to increase current income immediatly. The same sort of decisions couldn't have been done in the public sector / spending area as quick due to the inevitable opposition and obstruction of the unions and the social partners.

When / If the government do take the necessary spending cuts later in the year the country as a whole will have to brace itself for mass strikes, protests and 'bart's people' type stories at the end of the 6-One news. What ever you do, don't plan to have a baby born in the Rotunda hospital at the end of the year .. you won't have a chance to get parking as every interest group in the country will be marching to Kildare street .. looking for cuts in everything except their own area of interest.

As a FF supporter, PAYE worker and young family man, my loyalty to FF will be tested based on the 'hard' decisions it will make regarding public spending.

People may say that my loyalty to FF should have been more than tested over the last few months, but after listening to Gilmore, Burton, Kenny, Bruton skirting past and deflecting any questions with regards to specific policies I realise that the options to the electorate are minimal.

Im no FG fan, but did you not see their proposed 13 Billion Euro plan ???

The concept of social partnership has been proven as a flawed model. Dont blame the Unions. They almost have a legitimate expectation to come away from those talks in a vastly improved position. Thats the fault of Bertie Ahern. His mantra was to throw money at the partners. We had this cheap and easy money, and he utilised it to keep the unions quiet. He also hounded good men like Willie Walsh out of "Aer Lingus" to keep the staff onside. Bear in mind, unlike Bertie, Walsh has taken responsibility for his corporate mistakes in the past. Partnership was a sham, and has not worked properly since the 1980s. If Biffo was the "tough negotiator" we were told he was, they would have been whipped into shape. Its clear the scope of his robust negotiation goes as far as post Sunningdale, Downing Street Declaration, Belfast Agreement Northern Ireland, and Programme for government negtiations with the useless Green Party, and the democralised and destroyed PDs.

If they have to take decisions which cause strikes, then we know where it has come from.Bertie, Cowen, Lenihan and Coughlan have made it this way. I have much respect for FF, but the current crop are shirking decisions, which MUST be taken. The longer they take, the longer Ireland will be in this quagmire of recession and unemployment.

The measures have simply exacerbated the crisis. EG The increase in VAT (which altered consumer habits, and sent them scutttling over the border. Dundalk was considered a "Ghostown" before Christmas. Equally, if the Government felt the necessity to remove the medical card from over 65s, then it should have been done. Now, only a tokenistic group of people have lost their card.

The FF mantra of "well just look at the opposition, and their lack of solutions is rubbish). Fine Gael have actively been creating policy. Labour are the one who are high on rhetoric, low on solution. However, we know this Government is failing, why keep following a blind hope that this administration "Will Work". It has been proven that it will not.

bladespin

Not pro FF but OP has it backwards, if anything FF overspent and spent unwisely, they didn't cut anything, that where the bulk of our current problems stem from.

I don't thing any of the other main stream parties would have done anything very differently.

Once the country is back making money FF will have about half the vote again, that's how politics works:
money in our pockets; govt ok.
feel the pinch; opposition were right all along.

Badabing

Can someone answer me this question, What do the CEO and managers in hospitals actully do?

conchubhar1

vulnerable is not thrown around too much

look at the homeless on the street - yes they arent vunerable and love the welfare

ffs

whippet

conchubhar1 wrote: »

vulnerable is not thrown around too much

look at the homeless on the street - yes they arent vunerable and love the welfare

ffs

they are the vunerable, but unfortunatly our politicians, lobby group and social partners seem to want to use this classification of person for just about everyone, including those who earned above the EU average in wages for the guts of a decade, choose to spend it on a vastly inflated property market, desires for new cars, extra holidays every year all topped up with a multitude of credit cards, loans and overdrafts ...... these are not the vunerable in society, these are the cubs who thought they were invincible and are now crying foul !!

turgon

conchubhar1 wrote: »

look at the homeless on the street - yes they arent vunerable and love the welfare

Whats your point?

Why do you think they can continue to live on the street, often times drinking all day?

conchubhar1

my point is they are vunerable and welfare, as high or as low as you want it, doesnt help them

ah they drink? all of them?

your true colors show - misinformed much?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

turgon

conchubhar1 wrote: »

my point is they are vunerable and welfare, as high or as low as you want it, doesnt help them

I know it doesnt. It disincentives them from sorting out their lives and taking some personal responsibility.

conchubhar1 wrote: »

ah they drink? all of them?

Of course not. But the majority of homeless people I pass have a can or a bottle in their hand. Its an observation I have made. But hell, Im all for hiring an expert working group to set up a committee with a view of setting targets for an eventual investigating panel - all to prove what one can easily see any evening on the streets.

conchubhar1 wrote: »

your true colors show - misinformed much?

What "true colors" please?

El Stuntman

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

amazing to note that the biggest jumps were pre-election :rolleyes:, clearly FF were 'targeting the vulnerable' quite nicely


for their votes

deadhead13

turgon wrote: »

Why do you think they can continue to live on the street

Mental health issues in the main.

turgon wrote: »

It disincentives them from sorting out their lives and taking some personal responsibility.

There are people who are incapable of sorting out their lives and taking personal responsibility. We have inadequate and underfunded mental health services. Hence the majority of homeless people have mental health problems. We have inadequate and underfunded institutional care for children. Hence a large number of homeless people have been through the institutional care system as children.

conchubhar1

the people you see my have cans - have you walk all streets in ireland and seen a majority of homeless with cans?

welfare has increased, has our wealth not since 1999?

ie - it jumped up but so did peoples wealth and so did prices

----
sorting out their lives?

ye its as simple as jumping up and getting a job...... pff

solice

conchubhar1 wrote: »

the people you see my have cans - have you walk all streets in ireland and seen a majority of homeless with cans?

welfare has increased, has our wealth not since 1999?

ie - it jumped up but so did peoples wealth and so did prices

----
sorting out their lives?

ye its as simple as jumping up and getting a job...... pff

I think the point is that welfare payments out paced inflation and we as a country cant afford to pay so much anymore. Should welfare not be in line with inflation?

Now that we are in a deflation period should welfare be cut?

If you could survive a year ago on 197 a week, and prices are cheaper now than they were then, should you not be paid less?

conchubhar1

it was in line with inflation - that was my point - it wasnt bump up because of ff vast niceness for people

possibly so

families can not survive on 197 a week in ireland

whippet

deadhead13 wrote: »

We have inadequate and underfunded institutional care for children. Hence a large number of homeless people have been through the institutional care system as children.

Underfunded? I think not, just like the health system as a whole, the issue isn't with the amount of money being pumped in to it, it is to do with how that money is being spent?

the HSE was supposed to tackle this but to date hasn't due to many reasons .. one being the issue of postions becoming redundant but the occupier of said position remained. Hence massive wastage of money that could be used to provide these services.

whippet

conchubhar1 wrote: »

families can not survive on 197 a week in ireland

familes will get additional benifets to that, rent supplements, childrens allowance etc.

My understanding is that social welfare payments are there to support people while they are trying to find their feet and provide for themselves. I get the feeling more and more that people expect that social welfare give people an option of a supported lifestyle.