eamonn gilmore on the frontline.

DrumSteve

see pat gave eamonn a real grilling there. He's setting himself up for the public service vote however i don't know how he is planning on slashing 5%of the public service bill just by getting rid of overtime and a few other bits and pieces...the more i see of him the more think he is more populist than ff.

Pride Fighter

DrumSteve wrote: »

see pat gave eamonn a real grilling there. He's setting himself up for the public service vote however i don't know how he is planning on slashing 5%of the public service bill just by getting rid of overtime and a few other bits and pieces...the more i see of him the more think he is more populist than ff.

If he cut the wages of people like Pat Kenny, who earns nearly 1 million a year, he can do it.

starbelgrade

Damn - I thought he'd been shipped off to Iraq. I'd visions of him & Willie O'Dea doing a Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid against the "insurgents". Misleasing title thread of the week. :mad:

thebman

DrumSteve wrote: »

see pat gave eamonn a real grilling there. He's setting himself up for the public service vote however i don't know how he is planning on slashing 5%of the public service bill just by getting rid of overtime and a few other bits and pieces...the more i see of him the more think he is more populist than ff.

Funny how RTE can grill the opposition :-/

jank

Pride Fighter wrote: »

If he cut the wages of people like Pat Kenny, who earns nearly 1 million a year, he can do it.

The usual PS pipe dream. Tax the invisible billionaires to make up the 20+ billion deficit...yea right.

10000maniacs

I have said it many times on this forum. Labours Eamon Gilmore and Joan Burton seem to oppose any strategy that is taken by Fianna Fail, yet devoid of any alternatives to the proposals themselves.
Last nights Frontline interview with Gilmore is nearly a carbon copy of an interview between Joan Burton and Vincent Browne about 6 months ago.
She was asked by Vincent, ok, you oppose the bank guarantee, what is your alternative? Browne kept pushing her for an answer until she was nearly in tears.
Last night Pat Kenny used the same tack and kept pushing Gilmore for an answer on how to claw back €4 billion+ in the public finances, and he was also left stumped, reverting to his wounded bear routine.:p
The sooner people realise that NAMA is Bankruptcy Lite for the Irish Republic, the sooner we will get out of this mess. Labour have done more damage in the last year with their idiocy than any other party.

MrMicra

10000maniacs wrote: »

Labour have done more damage in the last year with their idiocy than any other party.

Are you seriously claiming that Labour have done more damage to this country that Fianna Fail in the past year?
So Labour have done more damage by not having policies than Fianna Fail have done with the Anglo bailout?

Interesting; there really is a section that supports Fianna Fail that puts party above country.

10000maniacs

MrMicra wrote: »

Are you seriously claiming that Labour have done more damage to this country that Fianna Fail in the past year?
So Labour have done more damage by not having policies than Fianna Fail have done with the Anglo bailout?

Interesting; there really is a section that supports Fianna Fail that puts party above country.

Heres the facts.
1: I am not a Fianna Fail Supporter. Never was (or never will be)
2: If we were to follow Labours manifesto since September of last year, the banks would be bankrupt, peoples savings would be gone, salaries in the Public Service would have increased by 10%, the IMF would be running the countries finances. (maybe not such a bad thing):rolleyes:
Property tax would be in place. etc etc

Euro_Kraut

10000maniacs wrote: »

Heres the facts.
1: I am not a Fianna Fail Supporter. Never was (or never will be)
2: If we were to follow Labours manifesto since September of last year, the banks would be bankrupt, peoples savings would be gone, salaries in the Public Service would have increased by 10%, the IMF would be running the countries finances. (maybe not such a bad thing):rolleyes:
Property tax would be in place. etc etc

Eh no. Number 1 is a fact, number 2 is an opinion.

jonsnow

I don,t support any party (and I especially don,t support Fianna "fail":D).But while i respected Gilmore for having the guts to oust O,Donoghue it seems to me that Labour is far too concerned with protecting the public sector than protecting the country.Whatever strategies they put forward seem vague and populist.Gilmore was spouting some guff about him being taoiseach and kenny being tanaiste.But while he can lock up dublin and the PS vote hes always going to lose people like me when he won,t tackle the public sector workers in any meaningful way.

10000maniacs

Euro_Kraut wrote: »

Eh no. Number 1 is a fact, number 2 is an opinion.

If bank savings wern't guaranteed at the time, AIB, BOI, Anglo, EBS and Irish Nationwide WOULD have become insolvent in September 2008-FACT, not opinion.
People WOULD have lost all of their savings-FACT, not opinion.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

evercloserunion

10000maniacs wrote: »

I have said it many times on this forum. Labours Eamon Gilmore and Joan Burton seem to oppose any strategy that is taken by Fianna Fail, yet devoid of any alternatives to the proposals themselves.
Last nights Frontline interview with Gilmore is nearly a carbon copy of an interview between Joan Burton and Vincent Browne about 6 months ago.
She was asked by Vincent, ok, you oppose the bank guarantee, what is your alternative? Browne kept pushing her for an answer until she was nearly in tears.
Last night Pat Kenny used the same tack and kept pushing Gilmore for an answer on how to claw back €4 billion+ in the public finances, and he was also left stumped, reverting to his wounded bear routine.:p
The sooner people realise that NAMA is Bankruptcy Lite for the Irish Republic, the sooner we will get out of this mess. Labour have done more damage in the last year with their idiocy than any other party.

Good God man what on earth are you talking about. Labour have been saying for ages that they want to nationalize the banks. Say what you want about that policy but pretending they don't have one is called avoiding reality. Most of the arguments I have heard against nationalization have been along the lines of "ooh nationalization oooh, scary" and Labour have, IIRC, pointed to the success of nationalization in getting the economy moving in other countries. It's a hell of a lot more original an idea than FG's idea, which was NAMA taken and turned upside down.

10000maniacs

evercloserunion wrote: »

Good God man what on earth are you talking about. Labour have been saying for ages that they want to nationalize the banks. Say what you want about that policy but pretending they don't have one is called avoiding reality. Most of the arguments I have heard against nationalization have been along the lines of "ooh nationalization oooh, scary" and Labour have, IIRC, pointed to the success of nationalization in getting the economy moving in other countries. It's a hell of a lot more original an idea than FG's idea, which was NAMA taken and turned upside down.

On October 2nd 2008, Labour voted against the Government’s Irish bank-guarantee legislation. If the savings in Irish banks at the time wern't guaranteed, there would be no banks to nationalize now. Need I say more.

Euro_Kraut

10000maniacs wrote: »

If bank savings wern't guaranteed at the time, AIB, BOI, Anglo, EBS and Irish Nationwide WOULD have become insolvent in September 2008-FACT, not opinion.
People WOULD have lost all of their savings-FACT, not opinion.

No you are still not grasping the concept of a firmly held belief on your part and a fact.

I am reminded of Father Ted and the whole 'dreams V reality' battle in Dougals brain.

Euro_Kraut

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

In fairness Labour have won over very many supporters in Ireland recently with their leaders performance and their policies. If we are going to use opinion polls as metric for assessing the correctness of policy than Labour, like the Tories, are doing quite well.

10000maniacs

Euro_Kraut wrote: »

No you are still not grasping the concept of a firmly held belief on your part and a fact.

I am reminded of Father Ted and the whole 'dreams V reality' battle in Dougals brain.

If you think that any of the banks AIB, BOI, Anglo, EBS and Irish Nationwide would have survived everyone withdrawing their money in a short period of time (ie. a run on the banks), you have little grasp of Group Cert standard economics.

Sand

10000maniacs

If you think that any of the banks AIB, BOI, Anglo, EBS and Irish Nationwide would have survived everyone withdrawing their money in a short period of time (ie. a run on the banks), you have little grasp of Group Cert standard economics.

On October 2nd 2008, Labour voted against the Government’s Irish bank-guarantee legislation. If the savings in Irish banks at the time wern't guaranteed, there would be no banks to nationalize now. Need I say more.

Yeah, you could say a little more. Im guessing you view Labours voting against the govts guarantee as a bad thing. Evidence of how terrible and awful Labour are. I could be wrong?

But assuming I've interpreted you correctly:

Labour are a joke when their best representitives are people like Joan Burton, and Eamonn "Whatever you want to hear!" Gilmore.

BUT - in voting against Lenihans disastrous, boneheaded, poorly informed and thought out guarantee of not only deposits, but also bonds Labour made the right decision. Lenihans policy was perhaps the most rushed, dumbest decision made in the crisis, and the entire government policy since then has been rushing around trying to react to the sheer scale of the stupidity of the blanket guarantee.

In fact, as Morgan Kelly pointed out in a recent article, anything and everything Lenihan has said and done has been shown to be disastrously wrong and mistaken. Voting against any of his policies in the recent crisis is actually right and correct by default because Lenihan has yet to get anything right.

Recap:

- Lenihan guarantee was terrible policy. Terrible. As in the opposite of great.
- Labour voting against it is evidence of common sense.
- Labour are terrible, but for reasons other than you have cited.

PomBear

thebman wrote: »

Funny how RTE can grill the opposition :-/

They shouldn't be grilling them with the chances of FF staying in power in 2 years

evercloserunion

10000maniacs wrote: »

On October 2nd 2008, Labour voted against the Government’s Irish bank-guarantee legislation. If the savings in Irish banks at the time wern't guaranteed, there would be no banks to nationalize now. Need I say more.

Labour voted against the guarantee as it was. According to Finfacts:

Labour finance spokesperson Joan Burton refused support, because the Government would not accept amendments - including a call for the legislation to only come into operation when full particulars of the terms and conditions were published.

Ivana Bacik later said of the topic:

I believe, just as I did when we were discussing the guarantee to the banks, that we are debating in vacuum, without access to the real facts and on the basis of assurances provided to us by the Government last September, which now ring hollow.

It's quite clear that what Labour wanted was proper information and transparency in the way the guarantee was drafted and implemented. Now, unless you are alleging that, had the guarantee been drafted in a more transparent way and fuller details been made available to the Oireachtas, the banks would have failed, your argument is flawed. And if that is what you are alleging, you would really want to produce more evidence or ellaborate on your reasoning.

---

Anyway, within the context of the debate that point is moot because you are wrong anyway. You said that Labour had no proposal. Even if Labour opposed any and all bank guarantees, their alternative was nationalization.

thebman

Yeah sands right, guaranteeing bonds was just wreckless and unrequired

Those were people that took a risk and knew that it was a risk and would have accepted the consequences.

thebman

PomBear wrote: »

They shouldn't be grilling them with the chances of FF staying in power in 2 years

lol who ya telling :P

I won't mind seeing a few people getting what their owed for pursuing their own agenda though I don't want to see RTE become a propaganda house for any other political party either.

Can't believe I have to pay for that privilege

Soldie

PomBear wrote: »

They shouldn't be grilling them with the chances of FF staying in power in 2 years

Are you suggesting that RTE should be biased?

irish_bob

Euro_Kraut wrote: »

In fairness Labour have won over very many supporters in Ireland recently with their leaders performance and their policies. If we are going to use opinion polls as metric for assessing the correctness of policy than Labour, like the Tories, are doing quite well.

thier are two reasons why labour have seen an increase in popularity of late , the public sector has to significant degree deserted fianna fail and secondly , labour under gilmore have engaged in populism which would shame one bartholemew aherne , irish people have always lapped up populism , we love whoever will promise us more pork or less pain

evercloserunion

irish_bob wrote: »

thier are two reasons why labour have seen an increase in popularity of late , the public sector has to significant degree deserted fianna fail and secondly , labour under gilmore have engaged in populism which would shame one bartholemew aherne , irish people have always lapped up populism , we love whoever will promise us more pork or less pain

And FG are promising us pain are they?

dresden8

irish_bob wrote: »

the public sector has to significant degree deserted fianna fail

Ah, the old chestnut, c. 300k public servants foisted a FF government on 1.8 million private sector workers.

Keep pushing it out there bob.

Euro_Kraut

10000maniacs wrote: »

If you think that any of the banks AIB, BOI, Anglo, EBS and Irish Nationwide would have survived everyone withdrawing their money in a short period of time (ie. a run on the banks), you have little grasp of Group Cert standard economics.

I do think that actually. But its my opinion not a fact. Get it?


By the by, I have a Masters in Economics.

thebman

evercloserunion wrote: »

And FG are promising us pain are they?

No lol if there was an election tomorrow all their promises would assume a recovery next year with 900% growth and flying pigs.

meglome

Euro_Kraut wrote: »

In fairness Labour have won over very many supporters in Ireland recently with their leaders performance and their policies. If we are going to use opinion polls as metric for assessing the correctness of policy than Labour, like the Tories, are doing quite well.

You know in may ways I like Eamonn Gilmore, I think he really is one of our better politicians. The problem is Labour cannot afford to really tell the harsh truth to many of the people who might vote for them. I watched him on the Frontline and honestly he's talking nonsense. I don't know a huge amount about economics but my maths is perfectly good. Anyone who is suggesting that some sticky plasters will fix our finances (and especially the public service pay bill) is talking straight out of their arse. It's a shame really because we desperately need our politicians to tell the harsh truth so we can face up to it.

thebman

I'm beginning to dislike Eamon Gilmore more every day TBH.

He just says what people want to hear and I know all politicians say that but when it is so clear it isn't true he might as well say something more realistic.

meglome

thebman wrote: »

I'm beginning to dislike Eamon Gilmore more every day TBH.

He just says what people want to hear and I know all politicians say that but when it is so clear it isn't true he might as well say something more realistic.

Didn't say it in my previous post but I was very disappointed to say the least by what he had to say. There's no hope of me voting for Labour if they don't start coming clean.