We are in a national crisis, where is our government?

InReality

I was thinking this morning that it would be a good move for cowen to fire dempsey.

No real downside to it for cowen as dempsey is pretty unpopular with backbenchers anyhow , and might improve cowen's image a small bit.

anyone think he night be getting this advise ?

and on-topic , I thought gormley answer was pure bizarre ?
sure of course you know where he is - he is on holidays abroad !

Ally Dick

Angry Troll wrote: »

as a dublin taxi driver put it just this morning, a ****ing disgrace…

Everything is a disgrace in this country. No stewards enquiries will be entertained about NAMA, banking crisis, floods, freezing. All will be just ignored by Biffo and co. If anything, when the big freeze is over, the government will be happy to sidetrack everyone with NAMA to prevent us debating it's poor response to the flooding and freezing

Poccington

Shea O'Meara wrote: »

RE: the snow/ice; I see nobody asked Willie O'Dea for help, so he did nowt. So in future every man jack of us will need to call Willie and Co. otherwise I guess they'll presume 'sure they're grand':rolleyes:

Has anyone actually rang them about the job losses or emailed an FYI?

He has the Defence Forces on standby to deploy if necessary, the Air Corps are already operating an Air Ambulance service. O'Dea doesn't have the power to deploy troops when he wants, so instead he has troops on standby and ready to deploy if called upon.

What else do you want him to do?

Seth Brundle

InReality wrote: »

No real downside to it for cowen as dempsey is pretty unpopular with backbenchers anyhow , and might improve cowen's image a small bit.

Would it actually be possible to improve Biffo's image?

Anyhow, were Dempsey dropped, we would just end up with another loyal friend of Cowen's who isn't any good!

BlaasForRafa

wes wrote: »

This is pretty sad state of affair, that the government can't get there state of affairs. Having the bloody transport minister off on holidays, in the midst of all the failures to sort out the roads etc, is seriously bad form.

blame it on the israelis

strathspey

It comes down to planning. Unfortunately in the ten years that I have lived in Ireland, planning is not an Irish forte!

Eliot Rosewater

Government orders all schools to close for 3 days.

Thank God they responded to the national crisis, I was so worried...:rolleyes:

Yi Harr

Not sure where the government are but South Dublin County Council were last seen gritting Supervalu carpark in Palmerstown, this whilst the 'public' footpaths and roads are at best treacherous. Public-private partnership at it's best??

ninty9er

pjgardiner wrote: »

Not sure where the government are but South Dublin County Council were last seen gritting Supervalu carpark in Palmerstown, this whilst the 'public' footpaths and roads are at best treacherous. Public-private partnership at it's best??

I find that very hard to believe.

Yi Harr

As would I had I not witnessed it with my own eyes.

ninty9er

Angry Troll wrote: »

and as for running out of grit as seems to be the case here in ireland right now: grit and salt are not very expensive and do not get rotten so can be stored in huge quantities for any such “emergency” or "national crisis" (just using the words in the current context makes me cringe), even for many years and decades…it is indeed, as a dublin taxi driver put it just this morning, a ****ing disgrace…

Many parts of the UK are now close to running out also, and they used to run an Empire, so expectations have a role to play here. NOBODY expected this would last for so long, and the Dutch have even resorted to putting scented bath salts on the roads according to one poster in Motors FFS.

spongeman

Ally Dick wrote: »

Everything is a disgrace in this country. No stewards enquiries will be entertained about NAMA, banking crisis, floods, freezing. All will be just ignored by Biffo and co. If anything, when the big freeze is over, the government will be happy to sidetrack everyone with NAMA to prevent us debating it's poor response to the flooding and freezing

Hear Hear. When I see the grannies trying to get around on their walking sticks etc I am so angry, walking on sheets of ice .

Somebody is not doing the job that they are paid to do.

In any other country they would be fired.

ninty9er

nwordjim wrote: »

If there was an emergency at work while I was on holidays, and I didn't come back or at least get someone to sort you can bet I wouldn't have a job when I got back.

I work (see sig) in a political organisation. The President is currently on holidays. He is the chief executive of the organisation. Our Secretary General (read:senior civil servant equivalent, only not half as well paid) is also out of the country.

If an emergency arose this week, I would have dealt with it, while I was off sick, there is a chain of command there, and the next highest office would take the decision. Certainly not a firing matter.

InReality wrote: »

I was thinking this morning that it would be a good move for cowen to fire dempsey.

No real downside to it for cowen as dempsey is pretty unpopular with backbenchers anyhow , and might improve cowen's image a small bit.

Fire him? Why? He's responsible for transport POLICY, not it's implementation. As has been said ad infinitum, the responsibility for road surface maintenance in winter conditions rests with LOCAL authorities. The clue is in the name....LOCAL.

What are you basing your proposal of his unpopularity amongst the parliamentary party on?

The Taoiseach has given Gormley responsibility for heading the team to address the problem. What would you propose Dempsey do if he were here?

Pointless thread really.

ninty9er

spongeman wrote: »

Hear Hear. When I see the grannies trying to get around on their walking sticks etc I am so angry, walking on sheets of ice .

Somebody is not doing the job that they are paid to do.

In any other country they would be fired.

I don't see too many people being fired in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland over icy footpaths.

Get real will you.

Oracle

I had to laugh yesterday on the News at One on RTE Radio, Sean O'Rourke was interviewing Environment Minister John Gormley. At one point Sean asked John Gormley ".... where is Noel Dempsey the Minister for Transport, this area is his responsibility ......." I heard Gormley reply "I don't know." What a farce, not even other members of the cabinet know where their colleagues are.

Worse still Gormley started making excuses, saying he'd appointed someone else to take responsibility for the emergency. He's the minister, what's he doing??? The entire government comes across as incompetent, disorganised and irresponsible. :mad:

sold

Crisis!???>.... I lived in Poland and the weather there is a lot worse EVERY year, Schools are open, the country does not stop even with 2 feet of snow and tempertures up to -20. What do you expect the goverment to do? coordinate the grit? You can be 100% sure that if we have stock piled 3 times more salt that someone would critise them for wasting money on Salt that was not needed.

bonzos

If he got a call to say his wages would not be lodged this week he would not be long coming home....didnt take gormley long to learn all the FF tricks needed to defend uselesss wasters.

ninty9er

Oracle wrote: »

What a farce, not even other members of the cabinet know where their colleagues are.

Do you keep tabs on all of your colleagues?

bmaxi

ninty9er wrote: »

I work (see sig) in a political organisation. The President is currently on holidays. He is the chief executive of the organisation. Our Secretary General (read:senior civil servant equivalent, only not half as well paid) is also out of the country.

If an emergency arose this week, I would have dealt with it, while I was off sick, there is a chain of command there, and the next highest office would take the decision. Certainly not a firing matter.

Very commendable but what we are witnessing seems to be the absence of any sort of command structure. If Dempsey is responsible for Transport, who is his second in command? If you know, then I wish you would pass the info to your friends in Cabinet, because they don't seem to.

paddyland

ninty9er wrote: »

If an emergency arose this week, I would have dealt with it, while I was off sick, there is a chain of command there, and the next highest office would take the decision. Certainly not a firing matter.

So given a chain of command structure, and the chief executive/president/minister/head schmuck is out of the country, the next highest office would take the decision.

What happens when the chief executive/president/minister/head schmuck is an ASS?

JonathanAnon

paddyland wrote: »

So given a chain of command structure, and the chief executive/president/minister/head schmuck is out of the country, the next highest office would take the decision.

What happens when the chief executive/president/minister/head schmuck is an ASS?

The accident prone Mr Dempsey should have lost his cabinet position the last time. Didnt he initiate the whole E-voting thing which is what usually held against (fellow idiot cabinet member) Martin Cullen.

If he was on holiday he should have come home. But maybe it's better he makes another gaffe so that he might be dropped at the next reshuffle.

jrar

bonzos wrote: »

If he got a call to say his wages would not be lodged this week he would not be long coming home....didnt take gormley long to learn all the FF tricks needed to defend uselesss wasters.

Gormley has once again allowed FF to run rings around him - instead of telling Biffo to f@@k off and get Dempsey back from abroad, he's now left in the public mind as the guy responsible for the lot !

Sand

@Spadder

You ungrateful gits!
Brave Minister Dempsey was inspired by the heroic tales of Tom Crean and Ernest Shackleton.

He left us to get help! He and his Garda driver braved the ungritted N3 and M50 to get to the airport. ( he couldn’t use the air corp chopper because it was foggy)

He knew it would be dangerous in the Carribean sun this time of year, but he decided for the sake of the country, it had to be done.

He will return to rescue us from this God forsaken Island.

You sir, win the internet.

Post of 2010 already decided?

sceptre

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Interviewer "Where is the Minister of Transport?"
Gormley "We don't KNOW WHERE HE IS"

He should be bitchslapped for that by his own people.

Here's what should have happened:
Interviewer "Where is the Minister of Transport?"
Gormley "The Minister is on annual leave in order--"
Interviewer "Does he even know that half the country is snowed in?"
Gormley "The minister had arranged to take time off months ago due to his daughter's wedding. We've been--"
Interviewer "The country's at a standstill with the snow and the Minister's disappeared for a wedding?"
Gormley "I can understand your anger but <raises hand kindly> policies set by the Minister are in place, the government team is continuing to work on getting control over this, the longest cold spell in forty years and we're well placed to help out the local authorities to get a handle on things"

Done and dusted. He wouldn't even have to do his best evangelist face with a smiling "And I'm here" at the end. Gormley should be sent on a few sessions to learn how to deal with the media. Never ever say "we don't know". Or "I don't know" or anything that can be directly translated as "I don't know". Always look like you're trying to tell the interviewer more and they're cutting you off (and not in that Willie O'Dea way either - actually have something to say). Never look like you're trying to shut down the interviewer. And then you can decide later on your own turf whether or not you need to know where Noel Dempsey is. That's the smart approach. What Gormley did was not the smartest of approaches.

And as I've said before, this really is a local authority responsibility that would benefit with guidance from the government. I'd rather bash the government for the actual idiotic stuff they're directly responsible for.

sceptre

Two threads merged by the way, they're discussing the same thing at this point.

JustAComment

We are all forgetting one thing: whether through government or otherwise the objective is to collectively deliver the common good. Its what we do, through OUR governments or collectively TOGETHER in other ways.

But back to the every day reality of life immediately outside our homes. On the path outside your home issue, I am sure that somewhere there is an obligation to clear the path outside your home. I am old enough to remember the 1962/63 times, and we all did it then as kids helping our parents. It was like the first thing we did the next day after the fall of the night before. Subsequently I recall as a law student finding the obligation in question, but trying now (the indicies are so bad) to relocate it I cannot. There is an old law, the Public Health (Ireland) Act 1878 which empowers each Local Authority to make bye-laws to require such clearing. I am sure they exist for Dublin anyway, but they have obviously been well hidden from the eyes of google, and no public official is referencing them for whatever reason. Anyway my view is simple: we are all in this together. The mere act of all clearing the snow from the paths in front of our homes (particularly before it becomes so impacted and iced as to be impossible to clear and so very dangerous) would make life so much safer for everyone. The rest of the world (with real seasons and obvious reasons) require it, we should learn from them and follow their example.

parsi

It' simple really:

if you're going to claim responsibility for the good things that happened despite you , then you have to accept responsibility for the bad things that happen despite you.

View

Imagine for a moment that the Cabinet did drop everything and high-tailed it down to Joe Bloggs' home to shovel the snow from the driveway to his house.

What would happen? I'd guess that the entire country, probably including Joe Blogg himself, would instead be whining about they weren't governing the country and didn't they have more important things to do given the financial mess we're in?

kwalshe

pjgardiner wrote: »

Not sure where the government are but South Dublin County Council were last seen gritting Supervalu carpark in Palmerstown, this whilst the 'public' footpaths and roads are at best treacherous. Public-private partnership at it's best??

owner of SV Palmerstown is luke moriarty who ran for election with fianna fail in last general elec. This report does not suprise me

Angry Troll

winter wonderland out there this morning…finally dublin looks like home to me…