Accountability and the Irish government

JohnnyMobile

Hi all,

I haven't used boards in quite a while -it has really grown well!

Anyway...

More and more of late I have been annoyed with the way in which the Irish government dodge issues, make token gestures and generally appear to take the path of least resistance on just about everything.

The path of least resistance is obviously subjective and for the government appears more and more to be the path of arrogantly ignoring the public. I feel the Irish people are partly to blame for this as we do not seem to demand very much from our elected representatives. It often appears like we are worn out and so dejected that we believe rising up and speaking out is pointless, history has shown us otherwise.

At present I feel like the country is an out of control train and no one person can stop it but everyone pulling together could. The government can ignore one, two or three people but the more we shout and the louder we shout the more difficult it is to ignore us.

I avidly follow politics but have no political affiliation just a desire to see Ireland regain some dignity and make our government work for us and not for themselves. The most intolerable issue for me right now is the total non-existence of accountability. People act in a reckless manner with public money and they walk away with a large reward. The people who give them the reward do so without consulting the states legal advisors and we the tax payer pick up the bill. The leader of the country speaks in glowing terms about the person who is leaving his position because of how he oversaw the blatant wastage of public money and we all sit back and do nothing. 50+ million is spent on voting machines that are never used and the minister who is responsible arrogantly stays in office and will not admit he made a mistake.

The above are just a couple of situations to make my point, I am sure you can think up many more.

Usually it is the oppositions job to raise awareness about these issues and take the government to task but the lack of effective opposition means that this is not happening, something has to change.

I have a sick feeling in my stomach about the way Ireland is being run and every time I hear a member of our government dodge another issue or brush off another question that feeling intensifies.

What can one person do though?
Not a lot to be honest. But they can speak up and talk about their displeasure at the government. They can hope that more people out there will feel the same way and will also speak out. Perhaps our voices united can stop this run away train.

You do not have to dislike any particular party or even be interested in politics but if you feel like Ireland is becoming or has become a society with a government that just wont listen to the public please take 1 minute to sign the below petition.

As mentioned above, I know individually our voices are small but together they can be loud.

Thank you for reading this post.

http://www.petitiononline.com/sickire/petition.html

walshb

Welcome to the Banana Republic!

Darragh29

I was going to contribute to this but as another healthy and beneficial discussion was locked here a minute ago, I'm not going to bother making any more contributions on this forum.

We're all adults and if threads are going to be locked because people disagree, then the ultimate outome is that people just won't contribute...

JohnnyMobile

I dont want this to turn in to an argument about different political beliefs or party loyalties. This is merely a display of an average Irish person who is sick of how the country is being run.

It saddens me that a lot of Irish people now feel that their voice is not heard and their opinions do not matter.