TONIGHT With Vincent Browne

take everything

"We are where we are".

AOwannabe

Vincent is making too much of a fuss over the "loss of sovereignity".
We were going to have four austerity budgets anyway with huge spending cuts and tax rises so no point in saying the IMF is the bad guy.

telekon

Mad as a box of frogs.

baldbear

Fair play to Martin fro protecting those Tipperary Peasants from the floods! Jaysus he's a typical Irish politician.

PKen

AOwannabe wrote: »

Vincent is making too much of a fuss over the "loss of sovereignity".
We were going to have four austerity budgets anyway with huge spending cuts and tax rises so no point in saying the IMF is the bad guy.

Still waiting for these savage cuts to the Public Sector, which the IMF are infamous for. Can anyone tell me, is this going to happen? Going by what I'm hearing so far, I think they'll get away Scott Free.
Doesn't make any sense. I thought they were going to butcher the PS. They did so, in Latvia - why not here? If I was the IMF, I'd be saying, "Croke Park Deal, you've got to be kidding me".

JonathanAnon

PKen wrote: »

Still waiting for these savage cuts to the Public Sector, which the IMF are infamous for. Can anyone tell me, is this going to happen? ... I think they'll get away Scott Free... I thought they were going to butcher the PS.

Eoghan Harris made the exact same point in the Seanad last week and I found myself agreeing with him for once.. . It really is incredible to think that they go in to Latvia, cut 30% from the public sector staff and cut 30% from the remaining public servants wages.... they come in here, where the public service is hugely wasteful and bloated, and make no mandatory staff cuts (they only propose to cut 24,750 through natural wastage or voluntary redundancy), and cut nothing from their wages....

Here's the text of some of the speech

By the way, I never saw the IMF wimp out in any country except Ireland. It went to Latvia, Argentina and all over the world. The first thing it did was to cut into public sector pay and pensions, but not in Ireland. It is wimping around Ireland because it has been seduced, hypnotised and told, in effect, by a nod and a wink from all the political parties to do anything it wants, but not to touch the public sector.

http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2010/11/26/meanwhile-back-at-the-seanad-10/ (Second contribution from the bottom of the page..)

PKen

If I'm not mistaken, JonathanAnon, I saw a Latvian Teacher being interviewed a while back, in floods of tears. Her salary had neen cut by 50%! I'm with you, regarding Harris. Normally, I can't stand the man. Like you, I'm baffled by the IMF's in-action on the CPD. It's like that Little Britain sketch, "Look Into My Eyes, Look Into My Eyes". The IMF must surely be hypnotised.

JonathanAnon

PKen wrote: »

If I'm not mistaken, JonathanAnon, I saw a Latvian Teacher being interviewed a while back, in floods of tears.

Yeah, I saw the exact same woman.. she was on 350 a month... her a professional, who no doubt spent years studying in college to get such a job... If she was here she would have got 800 a month on the dole, medical card, expenses etc etc... Truly is baffling how they made huge cuts in a) public sector jobs/wages and b) welfare benefits..

Maybe the aforementioned cuts are like the bailout... They are "not" happening ... BUT will still magically appear in the budget.. is that possible?? I mean the 6 billion has to come from somewhere..

PKen

I rejoiced (like many others) when it was anounced, that the IMF were coming in. Sovereignty would be lost. But what the heck, at least we'd be free of the Irish Governments incompetance. The IMF would take control. We'd at last see some fiscal re-alignment.
So much for us losing our Sovereignty. It seems like it's business as usual. Despite the intervention of the IMF and ECB, every pressure group in the state from Old Age Pensioners to Public Sector Unions are still getting their way. Amazed. angry and confused.

queensinead

PKen wrote: »

Still waiting for these savage cuts to the Public Sector, which the IMF are infamous for. Can anyone tell me, is this going to happen? Going by what I'm hearing so far, I think they'll get away Scott Free.
Doesn't make any sense. I thought they were going to butcher the PS. They did so, in Latvia - why not here? If I was the IMF, I'd be saying, "Croke Park Deal, you've got to be kidding me".

The IMF obviously do not have your keen appetite for butchery. Amazing the amount of people who can't wait to have "savage cuts" imposed on somebody else---rarely themselves, mind.

The PS have not got away "Scot free". They have had two substantial pay cuts last year, up to 20% in some cases. Some other groups in society are starting to have their first cut imposed with this year's budget.
It is almost certain that the PS will have more cuts down the line. But the "butchering" of any worker is nothing to look forward to.

DeepBlue

queensinead wrote: »

Amazing the amount of people who can't wait to have "savage cuts" imposed on somebody else---rarely themselves, mind.

The response every sector of Irish society to the financial crisis since it struck nearly three years ago can be summarised as "Make someone else pay".

hotmail.com

They were talking about a leak regarding the Northern Ireland peace process in 1993. Anyone know what they were talking about and who leaked the story?

telekon

hotmail.com wrote: »

They were talking about a leak regarding the Northern Ireland peace process in 1993. Anyone know what they were talking about and who leaked the story?

"sure the dogs on the street knew who leaked this story" - VB.

To answer your question, nope, don't have a clue.

fontanalis

JonathanAnon wrote: »

Eoghan Harris made the exact same point in the Seanad last week and I found myself agreeing with him for once.. . It really is incredible to think that they go in to Latvia, cut 30% from the public sector staff and cut 30% from the remaining public servants wages.... they come in here, where the public service is hugely wasteful and bloated, and make no mandatory staff cuts (they only propose to cut 24,750 through natural wastage or voluntary redundancy), and cut nothing from their wages....

Here's the text of some of the speech

http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2010/11/26/meanwhile-back-at-the-seanad-10/ (Second contribution from the bottom of the page..)

Is that Harris' speech? If so, funny how he mentions all the political parties and not his beloved FF (who gave the Public Sector the pay rises). And if he (or whoever wrote that) thinks that Irish gombeenism can win over the IMF then he's deluded.
And an Irish Senator criticising the public sector, is like being caled ugly by Quasimodo.

Elmo

fontanalis wrote: »

Is that Harris' speech? If so, funny how he mentions all the political parties and not his beloved FF (who gave the Public Sector the pay rises). And if he (or whoever wrote that) thinks that Irish gombeenism can win over the IMF then he's deluded.
And an Irish Senator criticising the public sector, is like being caled ugly by Quasimodo.

Funny how Shane Ross has got away with it for so long. But then I suppose he had to go up for election unlike Harris (Harris is only a newbie).

hotmail.com

telekon wrote: »

"sure the dogs on the street knew who leaked this story" - VB.

To answer your question, nope, don't have a clue.

I think it has something to do with the fact that the Irish government was aware of negotiations between Gerry Adams and John Hume. I could be completely wrong. I know that the Minister for Foreign Affairs then was Dick Spring.

take everything

Vincent having great fun with the meteorological metaphors.
"Economic blizzard"

JonathanAnon

oh for the love of good... "how women would fix the economy"... And they have a person from SIPTU on who apparently considers her organisation to be part of the solution... And that awful Jill Kirby and her stupid accent..

telekon

JonathanAnon wrote: »

oh for the love of good... "how women would fix the economy"... And they have a person from SIPTU on who apparently considers her organisation to be part of the solution... And that awful Jill Kirby and her stupid accent..

Does tonight's topic kinda come across as a wee bit sexist to anyone else?

JonathanAnon

That SIPTU wan looks like Elle from neighbours..



except the SIPTU wan looks like she's on the way to recruit in the nunnery...

Havermeyer

telekon wrote: »

Does tonight's topic kinda come across as a wee bit sexist to anyone else?

I don't think I'd go as far as saying that it's sexist - but I'd like to see the reaction to a 'how can men fix the recession' style debate.

I still don't get the whole gender equality in politics though. Yes, there should be equality in politics based on ability*, but to increase the numbers of women in the dáil just to even out the numbers is ridiculous.

*I am well aware of the goons in the dáil at present, and their complete lack of ability.

take everything

I thought she looks a small bit like the one from Bones, Emily Deschanel.

minichunkies

The show is NOT live tonight. Vinnie recorded it an hour earlier in lieu of the bad weather.

uvox

nummnutts wrote: »

I don't think I'd go as far as saying that it's sexist - but I'd like to see the reaction to a 'how can men fix the recession' style debate.

You have that morning, noon and night, mate.

The HorsesMouth

In fairness Mary Murphy has some really good ideas if Vinnie didn't batter her with the Labour card everytime!

telekon

uvox wrote: »

You have that morning, noon and night, mate.

That reminds me of Michael Noonan's radio show on "Scrap Saturday".


"Michael, Noon and Night".

Havermeyer

@uvox

True, but that's not really what I was getting at. When was it ever presented as a 'what can men do' debate.

It's just my opinion that one sided discussions play out more like election campaigns and ultimately don't achieve much, other than a "we're great because...." and "they're useless because...." argument.

RayM

nummnutts wrote: »

I still don't get the whole gender equality in politics though. Yes, there should be equality in politics based on ability*, but to increase the numbers of women in the dáil just to even out the numbers is ridiculous.

The number of women involved in Irish politics is bizarrely low, and that's something which really should be rectified. A gender-based quota system is a crude method of righting a wrong (and it is wrong that half the population is represented by just 13% of the TDs), but - in the long term - it would break the long-standing male-dominated culture... which hasn't exactly served us very well. Plus, it can't possibly be any worse than the current situation, whereby political parties select many of their candidates on the grounds that the seat has been 'in the family' for fifty years or because they happened to be part of a Gaelic team that won a couple of All Ireland medals in the f**king '80s.

A gender based quota system, where the onus is on the political parties to seek out more female candidates, based on their abilities (i.e. not selecting them solely because they have ovaries), would inevitably result in a decrease in the number of gobshites and gombeens in the Dáil. I don't get why people are so opposed to the idea.

JonathanAnon

telekon wrote: »

"Michael, Noon and Night".

:mad: tut tut tut...

"Morning, Noon-an Night"...

eoinbn

telekon wrote: »

Does tonight's topic kinda come across as a wee bit sexist to anyone else?

Just a little! The problem wasn't caused by men, it was caused by incompetency which is something that both sexes share. One of the speakers said that it's unfair to single out the few women TD's and say that they were just as bad. She said what we needed was a critical-mass of women but 50% of the voters in the country are women and that didn't stop us voting in the same FF muppets 3 times elections in a row!
Then one of them started spouting crap about how the recession was hitting women harder than men blah blah blah-lets have some facts:

"The national unemployment rate for men under 25 has risen from about 10% pre-crisis to almost 45%. For young women, the unemployment rate is also very high, at an estimated 28% in Q2 2010. This compares to 23% for men over 25 and 14% for women over 25."

But no, lets not discuss that. They also kept talking about equality but in the same sentence were asking for extra rights for women works- more flexible working hours, maybe even 1 week on, 1 week off etc. It seems women want all the benefits of been mothers but they don't want any of the downside.