New Irish Political Party, Amhran Nua

Cork Boy

Fair play - looks like a half decent effort so far but please publish who the founding parties are before ye start to look like another dodgy Libertas.

Quick read through some policies and have some constructive criticisms...

1. A three term limit for any TD... what if we have a series of general elections in a short space of time? How do TD's gain experience if the first two terms are in opposition? What if we have a really good TD? Perhaps you meant only 3 terms as a minister?

2. Restriction of free labour within EU. This is just plain wrong. Ever heard of the Bosnich ruling? Or is this your stance on immigration?

3. Property tax on second, third, fourth homes... not bad, i'd like to what figures ye have in mind.

4. Justice. Parental responsibility - YES!!! More details on justice though please? Do ye agree we need more prisons? Fo ye agree with automatic 25% remission of custodial sentences? Where do ye stand on sentences runnig concurrently?

And finally, i cant stress enough how badly ye need to publish who the founders are, and who they were, what experience they have (in policitcs, in business, in whatever...). CV's of the core founders would be ideal.

Cheers

honesty101

Thanks Corkboy. I am a fellow Corkonian! The webiste will be update in the coming weeks with details on the core contributors. Personally, I have no political background. I am motivated by pure anger and given my demographic i believe that i have no choice but to voice my opinions. i was going to go down the independent route until i cam across Amhran Nua. Energy and passion are the names of the game here. The government are lacking both and spending to much time applying the CYA rule and you'll never guess who taught me that less a long time ago....a bank branch manager!!

Cork Boy

so now we play the waiting game...

ps. - Rebels Abú

honesty101

the wait would be a lot shorter if u joined...:)

bill_ashmount

Hi,

Do you have an immigration policy? I can't find it.

Cheers.

honesty101

It is near the bottom of this page:
http://amhrannua.com/irish-politics-policy?page_id=4

bill_ashmount

honesty101 wrote: »

It is near the bottom of this page:
http://amhrannua.com/irish-politics-policy?page_id=4

Thanks, found it now.

akaredtop

Good idea! But change the name to english.A lot of people associate the old irish language with the past (christian brothers, child abuse, catholic church, peig sayers)

honesty101

The Irish culture is very important to Amhran Nua. Please see:
http://amhrannua.com/irish-politics-policy?page_id=23

O'Morris

honesty101 wrote:

As for our position on Lisbon, while it may seem that we are incapable of making decisions even at this early stage we have decided on our position simply because we do not want to appear to be a front for either the yes or no campaign.

I read somewhere that your party is opposed to any further handover of our sovereignty to the EU. Is that correct?

honesty101

Our policy re Europe is as follows:
http://amhrannua.com/irish-politics-policy?page_id=24

Grudaire

akaredtop wrote: »

Good idea! But change the name to english.A lot of people associate the old irish language with the past (christian brothers, child abuse, catholic church, peig sayers)

Ironically I see the lack of Irish on the website as an insult... sin a bhfuil!

honesty101

happy to take any Irish translations you wish to offer.

Grudaire

honesty101 wrote: »

happy to take any Irish translations you wish to offer.

I must apologise, but my political heart lies elsewhere! I do like the overall gist of what you're policies, but at times I feel that the idea's lack planning, and thoughtoutedness (ehm, best word I can think of:o) which is why I'm not jumping on board.

Perhaps if your apparent enthusiasm for the Irish language was real it would manifest itself in the form of a bit of effort using focal.ie . I never got why so many politicians think that they can decree things like 'more interest in the irish language' without caring for it themselves.

See here for a well layed out set of plans

ei.sdraob

honesty101 wrote: »

Our policy re Europe is as follows:
http://amhrannua.com/irish-politics-policy?page_id=24

you honestly think the referendum can be postponed with less that a month to go

come one grow some balls if yee want to be taken seriously

DoireNod

akaredtop wrote: »

Good idea! But change the name to english.A lot of people associate the old irish language with the past (christian brothers, child abuse, catholic church, peig sayers)

I associate the Irish language with Ireland past, present and future. It's not like some stigma from the past.

honesty101

ei.sdraob wrote: »

you honestly think the referendum can be postponed with less that a month to go

come one grow some balls if yee want to be taken seriously

This policy has been on the website for quite a while. It is obviously not going to be postponed at this stage given that FF have started its official campaign yesterday. For me personally I still think the govt have done a bad job in selling this again. They are not succeeding at their jobs.....looks like they would not survive in the real world either!

ei.sdraob

honesty101 wrote: »

This policy has been on the website for quite a while. It is obviously not going to be postponed at this stage given that FF have started its official campaign yesterday. For me personally I still think the govt have done a bad job in selling this again. They are not succeeding at their jobs.....looks like they would not survive in the real world either!

i agree with you

FF are useless and the Greens sold out

i would love an election myself

while i broadly agree with your policies, and think its great that yee are taking initiative (fair play lads!) i dont think leaving any vagueness or wriggle room in the policies reflects well on yee as i mentioned earlier

but yes good job we need alternatives in ireland

honesty101

ei.sdraob wrote: »

i agree with you

FF are useless and the Greens sold out

i would love an election myself

while i broadly agree with your policies, and think its great that yee are taking initiative (fair play lads!) i dont think leaving any vagueness or wriggle room in the policies reflects well on yee as i mentioned earlier

but yes good job we need alternatives in ireland

Thanks for the encouragement! Should there be any 'vagueness or wriggle room' in our polices then we welcome feedback to keep the naysayers at bay when we do go public. Needless to say we expect to be dismissed as probable 'headbangers' from day one! That being said how many of the existing parties have their policies open for public scrutiny and more importantly for suggestions.
I believe there was 30/40 private submissions re Nama and its alternatives. Do you honestly think that we will hear about any of them even though the answer may lie within.
We should come back to basics remembering what the jobs of public respresentatives are, ie to serve their constituents and in this case what policies are in the best interests of the country.
There is too much 'party politics' and not enough time spent discussing the problems. Do they even know where to start? The country will continue to flounder until there is an injection of energy and passion into this government. Amhran Nua has come into being purely through necessity. Given that we are not politicians we hope to use our own personal experiences for the betterment of this country. We will make these 'difficult decisions' that are required to be made.
Bottom line is, if we don't stand up and be counted who will we blame next time? Are you that confident that FG/Labour will pull us out of this mess?

jmayo

honesty101 wrote: »

This policy has been on the website for quite a while. It is obviously not going to be postponed at this stage given that FF have started its official campaign yesterday. For me personally I still think the govt have done a bad job in selling this again. They are not succeeding at their jobs.....looks like they would not survive in the real world either!

Do you post regularly on politics.ie ?
As I said to one of your parties posters on that forum a lot of your policies look like GP reguritated.
Of course somebody had to take up their policies since they dropped them :rolleyes:

On defence ...
BTW we don't have any fighter aircraft to be replaced by drones and how exactly would your special forces deploy ? Bicycles perhaps ?

This new branch of the gardaí will be a full paramilitary force such as CRS, Guardia Civil I presume ?

On your energy policy...
Where the hell did you get that we are the only unique ones with storng and steady winds all due to the gulf stream, an inter-cert geography book ?
(For those of you youngsters it was an exam replaced by that new fangled junior cert and just like the old leaving cert was probably harder )

Coming from a county that gets pi**ed on most fo the year due to said gulf stream, I can tell you you don't get constant winds, well unless the lad down the road was on the guinness and onions the other night :rolleyes:

Actually some of your policies such as ones on agriculture are fanciful.
Do all farmers start growing flowers since the ar** has fallen out of everything else.
It would suit a few farmers I know since they are right tullips

As for transport ...
"Develop continuous bus lanes between city centres, major suburbs, roads to commuter towns"

We have two lane roads, not even dual carriageways between our major towns and cities, and you want a permanent bus lane. :rolleyes:
Has whoever that came up with that doosey ever left effing South County Dublin ?

Introduce road rates for one off housing :mad:
Yeah lets make sure we go after the urban vote and screw the cuchies policy.
Oh do know that people in the countryside pay things like car tax etc.
Also going rate for planning permission in Co Wicklow is 12,000 to council.
This would be to build a hosue that doesn't use any council services :mad:

Sorry but most of these polices are delusional even by GP standards.

PS you need to fix your website it doesn't display properly in IE6, the righ panel colour is ballsed.
A website should be viewable in most common browsers.

Salvelinus

uprising wrote: »

Same old cr@p, different name, so you want to be part of europe and keep all power, won't work.
#

Best of luck, you'll need it,

If you were a revolutionary party, ready to tell europe to feck off, tell shell to feck off, get our exports up to capacity, reap what we sow, drag members of the dail out by the hair and chop them up with samarai swords i might be interested but it's like a school project your doing, not running a country.

Take it to the skate board groupies in the fornt of the central bank or the nut case section of boards.

Biggins

honesty101 wrote: »

Given the stage we are at at present we welcome constructive criticism. Any thoughts or opinions on the way forward are welcomed. We also welcome new members who are annoyed, like us, as to the way we are being treated by this government. Maybe I am being very naive or too idealistic but i was brought up with the idea that if one had nothing positive to say then they should keep their mouths closed.

If we were all to sit on our asses going 'here we go again' then nothing would get done.
Criticism is welcome but only constructive ones please!

Who gets to say whats "constructive criticism"??? The Org'/maybe some day "party!"
I find that threatening to the idea of free speech. This sounds like party line advocated by the Chinese government and every other regressive, oppressive society still around today!

No bloomin' way am I going to support this type of oppressive mentality, no matter what way you will dress it up with PR spin in future (some of us still will still look under the covers and examine the nitty-gritty details for the actual truth!).

I want to see a new progressive party in this state but one that is NOT dictatorship in what it says constitutes "constructive criticism" and allows nothing (or little for PR) else - that Org can go sod off! :mad:

Salvelinus

honesty101 wrote: »

The Irish culture is very important to Amhran Nua. Please see:
http://amhrannua.com/irish-politics-policy?page_id=23

Do you support Man Utd or Liverpool? What will you do about the foreigners who destroyed the language nad the hill of tara?

Rob67

First off, I will state that I am speaking as a former member of the Defence Forces, just so you know where my interests are.

The following extract is taken from your website, my comments will be in brackets (and I have a few!):

Defence
To meet the changing needs and requirements of the twenty first century, the Defence forces of the Republic of Ireland must be reconstituted.Defence is a changing priority in the light of the benign security situation in Western Europe in the recent past and for the foreseeable future, although it cannot be neglected, as new challenges have arisen. To retool the armed forces to effectively face these challenges makes sense on many levels.

(So far, so good. Change is good and re-equipping the DF is better)

• The reduction of the main force of the army, with many of their duties being given to a new branch of the Gardaí, whose purpose is to deal with escalated security situations.

(Hold on there... reduce the DF and hand over duties to the Gardai? Where are the Gardai going to get the personnel from? They're over-stretched as it is. Added to this, Gardai are more expensive to pay than the average soldier, so where does the savings come from? How many soldiers are you intending to redeploy to the dole queue?)

• The enhancement of the naval and air forces, with an emphasis on modern equipment which reduces labour costs after a capital investment. Modern aircraft for example can be replaced by unmanned drones at a tenth of the cost of a normal fighter plane.

(HUH? Please specify the nature of the enhancements. The Aer Corps have very little in the way of modern aircraft, excluding recent purchases. Have you costed the differential between manned and unmanned airframes. Silly me, I forgot! We don't have modern fighter planes, well, nothing that will ever touch a sound barrier or carry air to air missiles anyway. Seems to me to be a bit of a nonsense statement)

• The army will be reformed and composed of two battalions of highly trained special forces soldiers, equipped with the best training and equipment available.

(You do know how many people are in a battalion, don't you? Surely you mean brigades? Besides, SF troops are drawn from the best of the best, as it were, the DF has some of the best people this country has ever produced but even then SF training is extremely hard and failure rates would be high as a result, we only have a small population after all... I think we would run out of candidates before the two (ahem!) battalions could be formed.

• As always the emphasis will be on Irish neutrality.

(what's that got to do with the DF, that's a political decision. This country has a tradition of neutrality, it's not in the constitution... yet.)

• Amhrán Nua is opposed to NATO membership or uninspected extraordinary rendition flights on Irish soil.

(Edward Horgan, is that you I see in the background?)

Honestly (accidental semi-pun, sorry!), this is load of aspirational, childish claptrap dreamt up by some 6 year old. I wouldn't trust your 'party' to run a kids paddling pool never mind a country with thinking like that. Your party is either very naive or very idealistic. In an ideal world we wouldn't need a Defence Forces, but this isn't an ideal world. The DF is a necessary part of society in the event of extreme events to safeguard the population, to assist the civil power in it's work to keep this country secure and free from the potential upheaval that extremists like to exploit in a 'soft society' that you extol.

Come back after you have studied the subject and have proper policies.

Good luck!

honesty101

Biggins wrote: »

Who gets to say whats "constructive criticism"??? The Org'/maybe some day "party!"
I find that threatening to the idea of free speech. This sounds like party line advocated by the Chinese government and every other regressive, oppressive society still around today!

No bloomin' way am I going to support this type of oppressive mentality, no matter what way you will dress it up with PR spin in future (some of us still will still look under the covers and examine the nitty-gritty details for the actual truth!).

I want to see a new progressive party in this state but one that is NOT dictatorship in what it says constitutes "constructive criticism" and allows nothing (or little for PR) else - that Org can go sod off! :mad:

First time anything I have ever said has been described as 'oppressive' or anything similar to being 'dictatorial'. Suddenly I question my communication abilities, not!
I'm afraid you missed the point. Lots of people here can usually only say what is wrong without putting forward recommended solutions to the problems they deem existing. So please advise. Thank you for your patience.

honesty101

Rob67 wrote: »

First off, I will state that I am speaking as a former member of the Defence Forces, just so you know where my interests are.

The following extract is taken from your website, my comments will be in brackets (and I have a few!):

Defence
To meet the changing needs and requirements of the twenty first century, the Defence forces of the Republic of Ireland must be reconstituted.Defence is a changing priority in the light of the benign security situation in Western Europe in the recent past and for the foreseeable future, although it cannot be neglected, as new challenges have arisen. To retool the armed forces to effectively face these challenges makes sense on many levels.

(So far, so good. Change is good and re-equipping the DF is better)

• The reduction of the main force of the army, with many of their duties being given to a new branch of the Gardaí, whose purpose is to deal with escalated security situations.

(Hold on there... reduce the DF and hand over duties to the Gardai? Where are the Gardai going to get the personnel from? They're over-stretched as it is. Added to this, Gardai are more expensive to pay than the average soldier, so where does the savings come from? How many soldiers are you intending to redeploy to the dole queue?)

• The enhancement of the naval and air forces, with an emphasis on modern equipment which reduces labour costs after a capital investment. Modern aircraft for example can be replaced by unmanned drones at a tenth of the cost of a normal fighter plane.

(HUH? Please specify the nature of the enhancements. The Aer Corps have very little in the way of modern aircraft, excluding recent purchases. Have you costed the differential between manned and unmanned airframes. Silly me, I forgot! We don't have modern fighter planes, well, nothing that will ever touch a sound barrier or carry air to air missiles anyway. Seems to me to be a bit of a nonsense statement)

• The army will be reformed and composed of two battalions of highly trained special forces soldiers, equipped with the best training and equipment available.

(You do know how many people are in a battalion, don't you? Surely you mean brigades? Besides, SF troops are drawn from the best of the best, as it were, the DF has some of the best people this country has ever produced but even then SF training is extremely hard and failure rates would be high as a result, we only have a small population after all... I think we would run out of candidates before the two (ahem!) battalions could be formed.

• As always the emphasis will be on Irish neutrality.

(what's that got to do with the DF, that's a political decision. This country has a tradition of neutrality, it's not in the constitution... yet.)

• Amhrán Nua is opposed to NATO membership or uninspected extraordinary rendition flights on Irish soil.

(Edward Horgan, is that you I see in the background?)

Honestly (accidental semi-pun, sorry!), this is load of aspirational, childish claptrap dreamt up by some 6 year old. I wouldn't trust your 'party' to run a kids paddling pool never mind a country with thinking like that. Your party is either very naive or very idealistic. In an ideal world we wouldn't need a Defence Forces, but this isn't an ideal world. The DF is a necessary part of society in the event of extreme events to safeguard the population, to assist the civil power in it's work to keep this country secure and free from the potential upheaval that extremists like to exploit in a 'soft society' that you extol.

Come back after you have studied the subject and have proper policies.

Good luck!

Thanks Rob67 for taking the time to review. I will make sure my colleagues review and respond. You can also mail us direct at info@amhrannua.com so that we can respond direct if you wish.

Regards,

sliabh

I tried reading about the "Energy Policy" and saw you guys are just rehashed that fantasy guff that Spirit of Ireland have been bleating about. A look at some of your other policies show that they are about as well thought out (Rob67's nicely ripped your defense one earlier).

The whole thing looks like the product of a primary school civics class and is about as well thought out. You get marks for effort, and I can understand why you might want feedback, but this stuff is still a long way from making any sort of platform you can take to the people. You need to go back and do a lot more homework on this.

honesty101

Rob67 wrote: »

First off, I will state that I am speaking as a former member of the Defence Forces, just so you know where my interests are.

The following extract is taken from your website, my comments will be in brackets (and I have a few!):

Defence
To meet the changing needs and requirements of the twenty first century, the Defence forces of the Republic of Ireland must be reconstituted.Defence is a changing priority in the light of the benign security situation in Western Europe in the recent past and for the foreseeable future, although it cannot be neglected, as new challenges have arisen. To retool the armed forces to effectively face these challenges makes sense on many levels.

(So far, so good. Change is good and re-equipping the DF is better)

• The reduction of the main force of the army, with many of their duties being given to a new branch of the Gardaí, whose purpose is to deal with escalated security situations.

(Hold on there... reduce the DF and hand over duties to the Gardai? Where are the Gardai going to get the personnel from? They're over-stretched as it is. Added to this, Gardai are more expensive to pay than the average soldier, so where does the savings come from? How many soldiers are you intending to redeploy to the dole queue?)

• The enhancement of the naval and air forces, with an emphasis on modern equipment which reduces labour costs after a capital investment. Modern aircraft for example can be replaced by unmanned drones at a tenth of the cost of a normal fighter plane.

(HUH? Please specify the nature of the enhancements. The Aer Corps have very little in the way of modern aircraft, excluding recent purchases. Have you costed the differential between manned and unmanned airframes. Silly me, I forgot! We don't have modern fighter planes, well, nothing that will ever touch a sound barrier or carry air to air missiles anyway. Seems to me to be a bit of a nonsense statement)

• The army will be reformed and composed of two battalions of highly trained special forces soldiers, equipped with the best training and equipment available.

(You do know how many people are in a battalion, don't you? Surely you mean brigades? Besides, SF troops are drawn from the best of the best, as it were, the DF has some of the best people this country has ever produced but even then SF training is extremely hard and failure rates would be high as a result, we only have a small population after all... I think we would run out of candidates before the two (ahem!) battalions could be formed.

• As always the emphasis will be on Irish neutrality.

(what's that got to do with the DF, that's a political decision. This country has a tradition of neutrality, it's not in the constitution... yet.)

• Amhrán Nua is opposed to NATO membership or uninspected extraordinary rendition flights on Irish soil.

(Edward Horgan, is that you I see in the background?)

Honestly (accidental semi-pun, sorry!), this is load of aspirational, childish claptrap dreamt up by some 6 year old. I wouldn't trust your 'party' to run a kids paddling pool never mind a country with thinking like that. Your party is either very naive or very idealistic. In an ideal world we wouldn't need a Defence Forces, but this isn't an ideal world. The DF is a necessary part of society in the event of extreme events to safeguard the population, to assist the civil power in it's work to keep this country secure and free from the potential upheaval that extremists like to exploit in a 'soft society' that you extol.

Come back after you have studied the subject and have proper policies.

Good luck!

Please see response from my colleague below:
Hello, thanks for your comments and your very understandable concerns
about our defence policy - its worth noting that we are the only
political group to actually have a defence policy to the best of my
knowledge, the rest are content to let the fine men and women of the
defence forces moulder away.

We want to provide Ireland with a first rate, fully equipped mobile
force capable of extending itself as required, to better serve the needs
of the country in the 21st century, and do so as economically as
possible, creating a leaner and more effective force that will gain the
respect of professional defence forces worldwide.

> (Hold on there... reduce the DF and hand over duties to the Gardai?
> Where are the Gardai going to get the personnel from?
The defence forces! We aren't letting people go in this phase, just
reskilling to serve a more valuable purpose.

> They're over-stretched as it is. Added to this, Gardai are more
> expensive to pay than the average soldier, so where does the savings
> come from? How many soldiers are you intending to redeploy to the dole
> queue?)
None, a full retraining and reskilling programme will be opened up for
armed forces members to pursue other careers if thats the best route to
take. A better question to ask is how many soldiers will FF consign to
the dole queue, beacuse you may be guaranteed they aren't planning any
retraining.

> (HUH? Please specify the nature of the enhancements. The Aer Corps
> have very little in the way of modern aircraft, excluding recent
> purchases. Have you costed the differential between manned and
> unmanned airframes. Silly me, I forgot! We don't have modern fighter
> planes, well, nothing that will ever touch a sound barrier or carry
> air to air missiles anyway.
Thats right, which detracts not at all from the cost comparisons' value,
intended to highlight the relatively low cost of unmanned drones, which
we need to fulfil our EU obligations among other things. As sinister as
they sound, there are more countries using them than otherwise, its not
so high tech anymore.

> (what's that got to do with the DF, that's a political decision. This
> country has a tradition of neutrality, it's not in the constitution...
> yet.)
So neutrality has no reflection on the relative size of the defence forces?

> Honestly (accidental semi-pun, sorry!), this is load of aspirational,
> childish claptrap dreamt up by some 6 year old. I wouldn't trust your
> 'party' to run a kids paddling pool never mind a country with thinking
> like that. Your party is either very naive or very idealistic. In an
> ideal world we wouldn't need a Defence Forces, but this isn't an ideal
> world. The DF is a necessary part of society in the event of extreme
> events to safeguard the population, to assist the civil power in it's
> work to keep this country secure and free from the potential upheaval
> that extremists like to exploit in a 'soft society' that you extol.
As a former member of the defence forces, you are perfectly entitled to
your opinion, and no harm at all, but throwing abuse isn't something
that would be viewed as constructive, although it may feel great at the
time. What would be constructive would be if you want to put your
questions over on the party forum here,

http://amhrannua.com/public-forum/

we'd be delighted to deal with them in more depth, and change the
policies if that seems the best course of action.

Lockstep

I'll say this for ye; that's probabaly a much better website than the other political partys I've seen.



Query; where do ye see yourselves on the old left/right divide? (Or Nolan Chart if you prefer)
I'm always interested as to what political partys see themselves as.

honesty101

sliabh wrote: »

I tried reading about the "Energy Policy" and saw you guys are just rehashed that fantasy guff that Spirit of Ireland have been bleating about. A look at some of your other policies show that they are about as well thought out (Rob67's nicely ripped your defense one earlier).

The whole thing looks like the product of a primary school civics class and is about as well thought out. You get marks for effort, and I can understand why you might want feedback, but this stuff is still a long way from making any sort of platform you can take to the people. You need to go back and do a lot more homework on this.

Please see response from my colleague:
Our energy policy was in place considerably before the Spirit of Ireland
initiative was ever heard from, the only thing that changed in the
interim was one line indicating our support for Spirit of Ireland. So
when two seperate groups come up with the same idea seperately, is it
not possible that the idea might have some merit beyond whatever
objections you seem to have?
(Re school project) So you have no substantive objections, and in fairness have given no evidence whatsoever that you have actually read any of the policies?
Apologies if you have, but its not the first time we've encountered
people who think the internet's anonymity is a free pass to take pot
shots at anyone with the temerity to take a stand.