Waterford Election 2011

nkay1985

Deise Tom wrote: »

Do we need four people to go to Dublin from Waterford. I for one dont think we do, and from what i hear Enda Kenny does not either. I have not heard it myself but did i hear some place maybe today that he said that the number of TD's we have in Ireland should be cut. I know he wants to amount of senators cut or got rid off all together. If he is in favour of cutting TD Numbers i for one would vote for it in a referendum.

What does that have to do with what you quoted? We're electing four TDs and decies was basically saying that if one of the four returned is from FF, he reckons whoever voted for them is brain dead.

I'm all for the reduction in Dáil numbers and abolishing the Seanad (or significantly cutting it) but I don't see the relevance here.

losthorizon

So far I have got two prepaid letters paid for by our taxes looking for my votes which is bad in itself and a waste of public money but also illegal. One was from Deasy (FG) and the other was Brendan Kenneally (FF). My wife wrote to Kenneally about her wage being cut recently and he sent back a pre drawn up standard reply. Now that theres an election hes using up public funds. Hes some operator. Ive kept the letters. Can I report this to anyone? They tell us to make sacrifices yet dont do it themselves. Its more like Tunisia or Egypt than a western democracy.

Trotter

Deise Tom wrote: »

Do we need four people to go to Dublin from Waterford. I for one dont think we do, and from what i hear Enda Kenny does not either. I have not heard it myself but did i hear some place maybe today that he said that the number of TD's we have in Ireland should be cut. I know he wants to amount of senators cut or got rid off all together. If he is in favour of cutting TD Numbers i for one would vote for it in a referendum.

Changing the number of TDs across the board is very different from refusing by-elections to keep the Dáil numbers right.. as well you know.

MagicMcGrath

Personally I think the only two candidates who are most likely to get elected are John Deasy FG and Paudie Coffey FG, not because they're great candidates, but because there's a shift in "fashion" towards them. There is no way John Deasy is any prized asset. Not much liked within his own party, and people will struggle to cough up what it is he has done for Waterford since getting elected. They should nonetheless get elected comfortably enough. As for the remaining two seats, they're up for grabs between Brendan Kenneally FF, Seamus Ryan LAB, Ciara Conway LAB, John Halligan IND, & David Cullinane SF. Personally I think Kenneally and the most popular of the Labour candidates will get it, and I see that being Seamus Ryan.

Godsentme

What about Joe Tobin of the Workers party? A decent man who is not in it for the money like all the rest. he only lost by 8 votes at the city council election. Has he got a chance?

Odats

Godsentme wrote: »

What about Joe Tobin of the Workers party? A decent man who is not in it for the money like all the rest. he only lost by 8 votes at the city council election. Has he got a chance?

I'd like to see Joe getting elected but realistically he doesn't have a hope to be honest. He would be a good voice for Waterford but he's behind Ryan,Halligan & Cullinane in the rest of the city vote.

jonnyfingers

Yes Boss wrote: »

They are the ultimate protest party! However, when you scrutinize their polices - they don't work! Therefore, they are unable to make a difference.

Voting for someone because they are different to the others is nearly as bad as voting for someone because your father did...

Well my answer to that would be that Fianna Fáil's policies have not worked but people voted for them believing that they would. Who's to say that Sinn Fein's policies won't work until they get a chance to impliment them?

FF don't seem to be changing any of their core policies. FG seem, to me, to be more of the same, similarly with Labour, both want to renegotiate the bailout interest rate, which I think is a waste of time. No matter what interest rate we have we're still going to be billions in debt to pay off private sector debt. Sinn Fein say they will look to default. That's another point of view and on supported by a few economists I've read. And even if it turns out that default is not on and renegotiating is the only option I know which party I'd rather have at the negotiating table, Sinn Fein. Could you imagine Enda Kenny negotiating???

While there are many Sinn Fein policies and ideals that I don't necessarily agree with but there are others that I do agree with. But if nothing else I believe that they deserve a large share of TDs in this election for being different to all the other parties. That's what's important. I know they won't have enough to form a government by themselves, instead they will have to go into coalition with another party. And that's the point. If FF, FG or Lab go into coalition they are all pretty similar and it will be a cozy little arrangement. If Sinn Fein are in coalition they'll bring another point of view which I think could bring balance to the other parties. I'd hope they would also have the balls to disagree when necessary. Look at the last coalition. How many times did the greens fall over themselves to do Fianna Fail's bidding? And the best part is that a coalition with Sinn Fein would mean them having to compromise on some of their less desireable policies, but the other coalition party, or parties, would have to do the same, which is probably win-win.

Lastly I'd just like to mention my views on a vote for the independants. It's my belief that many independants are only in it for themselves mainly becauase Jackie Healy Ray and Michael Lowry have tainted the Independant status. It's hard to fault them, when their vote is needed they are in a unique position of power, with nobody to answer too. It has also resulted in parish pumb politics which I detest. Yes it's nice to get things for your constituency but it can't be used as a bargaining tool to buy a vote. So unless I know that an independant is a trustworthy, hard worker who will do what's right for the people and not what benefits himself/herself they won't be getting my vote. But even if someone like this was running, for this election I don't think there will be any need for independants as a government will be formed without them. So a vote for an independant this election may well be a wasted vote as they will have no power. Still I would rather a independant to get in than someone from Fianna Fail.

But to get back on the quote at the top of this poset. You say that voting for someone who's different to the others is not a valid reason.

If what we have isn't working, and all that's being promised is more of the same, would voting for someone who's different not be the only valid reason?

Dan133269

losthorizon wrote: »

So far I have got two prepaid letters paid for by our taxes looking for my votes which is bad in itself and a waste of public money but also illegal. One was from Deasy (FG) and the other was Brendan Kenneally (FF).

How do you know they're from public funds and not campaign funds?

jonnyfingers wrote: »

Well my answer to that would be that Fianna Fáil's policies have not worked but people voted for them believing that they would. Who's to say that Sinn Fein's policies won't work until they get a chance to impliment them?

This should answer your question.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UoGl78MzWY

(How do I embed a youtube video? tried the youtube button at top but didn't work.)

jonnyfingers wrote: »

Sinn Fein say they will look to default. That's another point of view and on supported by a few economists I've read. And even if it turns out that default is not on and renegotiating is the only option I know which party I'd rather have at the negotiating table, Sinn Fein. Could you imagine Enda Kenny negotiating???

Really? I know who I would rather have and it would be Enda Kenny, and I am not a supporter of Fine Gael. How would SF negotiate a deal? "With a ballot box in one hand and a gun in the other" as numerous members including Gerry Adams have put it, that's the official declared SF approach to negotiating is it?

And in any event, no one in Europe will negotiaite will SF, they are also regarded as terrorists in the European Institutions.

jonnyfingers wrote: »

If Sinn Fein are in coalition they'll bring another point of view which I think could bring balance to the other parties. I'd hope they would also have the balls to disagree when necessary. Look at the last coalition. How many times did the greens fall over themselves to do Fianna Fail's bidding? And the best part is that a coalition with Sinn Fein would mean them having to compromise on some of their less desireable policies, but the other coalition party, or parties, would have to do the same, which is probably win-win.

Well unlucky for you and SF that both Labour and FG have said they will never go into coalition with them.

old gregg

Dan133269 wrote: »

And in any event, no one in Europe will negotiaite will SF, they are also regarded as terrorists in the European Institutions. .

Would you care to substantiate that statement with some credible links and 21st century evidence? It does sound somewhat hysterical otherwise.

Make A Stand

I have a real problem in deciding who to vote 4.

Will definitely not give a vote 2 Kenneally and will never vote 4 him again !!!

Had been thinking about Deasy and Coffee but think Kenny is a liability.

He's a real problem for FG and I dont want 2 see him as Taoiseach so wil not give No 1's 2 FG.

Will not be voting SF so that leaves Halligan and Labour 4 No.1 not a great choice !!!!

deise4life

Make A Stand wrote: »

Had been thinking about Deasy and Coffee but think Kenny is a liability.

He's a real problem for FG and I dont want 2 see him as Taoiseach so wil not give No 1's 2 FG.

I agree with the Kenny comment, FG would be in a better position for the election if he wasn't the leader. But I think the two candidates are weak. I've no time for Deasy (either does his party!) and what has Coffey done since joining the Seanad..?

deisemum

deise4life wrote: »

He did great work for my family and for that reason I'm forever greatful, like I said we all have our own reasons

He's a great one for admitting to doing "favours" to use his own word and didn't give a sh1t how his "favours" terrorised people young and old in their own homes.

old gregg

deisemum wrote: »

He's a great one for admitting to doing "favours" to use his own word and didn't give a sh1t how his "favours" terrorised people young and old in their own homes.

I wouldn't piss on Kenneally if he was on fire but I'd love to know what you mean here

Edit: and now I know, thanks deisemum

jmcc

See that FF has their Keneally posters up along the Dunmore road already.

Regards...jmcc

STIG83

I am think about giving Paudie Coffey and John Deasy my vote, Brendan Kenneally will more than likely lose his seat

deise4life

Saw Cullinane had his posters up out by Farran Park the past week which should not have been allowed..

nkay1985

Dan133269 wrote: »

And in any event, no one in Europe will negotiaite will SF, they are also regarded as terrorists in the European Institutions.

old gregg wrote: »

Would you care to substantiate that statement with some credible links and 21st century evidence? It does sound somewhat hysterical otherwise.

+1.

A lot of ridiculous statements are made on Boards but this must rank way up on the list.

Put it this way. Who would you rather have negotiating any kind of a deal for you? Someone with little negotiation experience or someone with years of experience negotiating at the very highest level of international politics? Whatever your thinking on SF as a party and their policies etc, it's impossible to argue that they wouldn't be better placed to handle negotiations on Ireland's behalf than FG or Labour.

ziedth

Must say I'm flip flopping everyday, I think I'll just have to take an afternoon out and look up each parties policy on various things that would interest me and decide that way personally (right or wrongly) I'm voting for the party not the person.

Odats

What I'd like to see is do something like Billy McCarthy done for the recent budget. Get the Granary/Theatre Royal maybe for the evening and do a question and answers with all the candidates and broadcast it on WLRFM and even possibly get a live stream aswell (for us tech savvy folks).
There we could get a good insight into their policies etc and see their reactions to the questions.

MagicMcGrath

deisemum wrote: »

He's a great one for admitting to doing "favours" to use his own word and didn't give a sh1t how his "favours" terrorised people young and old in their own homes.

Deisemum you are very cynical. I am very interested to know what Kenneally did to your family?? I am all for proper debate on whether candidates should get elected or not, but I really think a number of people on this thread are adding to the demise of their characters with certain comments they're making like "not pissing on TD's if they're on fire". Whatever happened to straight talking debates on policies? I'd like to get back to as much if others agree.

Deise Tom

Odats wrote: »

What I'd like to see is do something like Billy McCarthy done for the recent budget. Get the Granary/Theatre Royal maybe for the evening and do a question and answers with all the candidates and broadcast it on WLRFM and even possibly get a live stream aswell (for us tech savvy folks).
There we could get a good insight into their policies etc and see their reactions to the questions.

He is doing it with Ian Noctor, one show in Dungarvan, one in Waterford. He said so this morning an urged people to email in their questions they wanted asked. Should be good as both Ian and Billy are good at what they do.

Make A Stand

The posters that Davy Cullinane had out by Farran Park last week were not in fact election posters.
I contacted waterford city council about the VERY BIG posters that were put up before the election was called.

The posters in fact were advertising the launch of Cullinane's election last Monday night.

You can only put up election posters for 30 days before the election but as these were not 'election' posters he got away with it!!!

The fact that they looked like and read like election posters was just a
COINCIDENCE!!!!

nkay1985

MagicMcGrath wrote: »

Deisemum you are very cynical. I am very interested to know what Kenneally did to your family?? I am all for proper debate on whether candidates should get elected or not, but I really think a number of people on this thread are adding to the demise of their characters with certain comments they're making like "not pissing on TD's if they're on fire". Whatever happened to straight talking debates on policies? I'd like to get back to as much if others agree.

Deisemum has kept us all very well informed about her bad experiences with Kenneally and, as evidenced by the fact that she sent a PM to someone earlier in the thread, continues to be. Suffice to say that she's entirely correct to have that attitude towards him. So she's not adding to the demise of his character, rather she is telling others what his character is really like.

old gregg

@MagicMcGrath: you've misquotated me there. I think it's all well and fine debating policy but in the case of politicians running for office it's also worth taking some time to consider what they have achieved to date and if that leads some to an opinion that a particular candidate can't be trusted then it's as valid as anything else around here I'd imagine.

Deise Tom

There is no time wasted in putting up posters for the election. FF, FG, Lab and SF have them up in Dungarvan today. Would love to know what they cost to print and if they influence people on how to vote. Surly there is better ways of spending money. Also how many of them were printed locally, i.e within Waterford city and county or are they coming from the canditates respective head quarters who could be getting them in from maybe outside of the republic.

Dan133269

old gregg wrote: »

Would you care to substantiate that statement with some credible links and 21st century evidence? It does sound somewhat hysterical otherwise.

What I meant was they will not want to negotiate with SF, not that they literally will refuse to do so if in power.

Anyway, sources for claim that EU believes link between SF and IRA.

European Parliament

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/file.jsp?id=5245252&noticeType=null&language=en

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/meps-to-debate-sinn-fein-links-to-ira-267158.html

http://www.jimallister.org/default.asp?blogID=71

http://euobserver.com/?aid=18634

European Commission

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=DN/05/114&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Council of Europe

http://www.breakingnews.ie/archives/2005/0310/ireland/kfsnmhkfkfoj/

Do you not accept that Sinn Fein have links with the IRA and that the IRA are a terrorist organisation?

nkay1985 wrote: »

+1.

A lot of ridiculous statements are made on Boards but this must rank way up on the list.

Put it this way. Who would you rather have negotiating any kind of a deal for you? Someone with little negotiation experience or someone with years of experience negotiating at the very highest level of international politics? Whatever your thinking on SF as a party and their policies etc, it's impossible to argue that they wouldn't be better placed to handle negotiations on Ireland's behalf than FG or Labour.

That's purely speculative. You are talking about people negotiating a deal where the final goal of such a deal is to simply stop murdering people. And you conclude from this that these people must be master tacticians, much more so than the politicians who have previously served as Ministers in governments, and actually have had dealings with European partners.

So you are saying you would rather have Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness going to Brussels to meet Jose Manuel Barosso et al rather than Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore? And in any event, how are SF "better placed" to handle negotiations about Ireland when their leader Gerry Adams doesn't know the first thing about Irish domestic wage rates and social welfare payments? watch the youtube clip I posted.

edit: here it is, how do I emb a video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UoGl78MzWY

jmcc

Well one thing that SF hasn't done is to completely banjax the country and its economy as did Fianna Fail. Then there was that claim that Biffo was "smart" - a master of his brief. Yeah right!

Fianna Fail is lucky that it is only their election posters hanging from lampposts. It should be interesting to see what Fine Gael and Labour make of things when they get into government. Fianna Fail may well lose their only remaining Waterford seat and if they do lose it, it will be lost for a generation or two.

Regards...jmcc

Guramoogah

STIG83 wrote: »

Brendan Kenneally will more than likely lose his seat

He'll lose the seat of his trousers if he calls around here because I'll set the dogs on him.

old gregg

Dan133269 wrote: »

What I meant was they will not want to negotiate with SF, not that they literally will refuse to do so if in power.

Anyway, sources for claim that EU believes link between SF and IRA.

European Parliament

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/file.jsp?id=5245252&noticeType=null&language=en

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/meps-to-debate-sinn-fein-links-to-ira-267158.html

http://www.jimallister.org/default.asp?blogID=71

http://euobserver.com/?aid=18634

European Commission

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=DN/05/114&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Council of Europe

http://www.breakingnews.ie/archives/2005/0310/ireland/kfsnmhkfkfoj/

Do you not accept that Sinn Fein have links with the IRA and that the IRA are a terrorist organisation?

Thanks for these. A quick glance through the links seems to indicate a bunch of stuff relating to the same topic from 2005, a DUP member whining back in 2004 but absolutely nothing relating to whether any European government, official body, etc would have concerns about dealing with Sinn Fein today.

As to the leading question as to what I do and do not accept .... I reckon Sinn Fein have links with the IRA and that those links are slowly being made obsolete in the same way that they did years ago within FF/FG and more recently the former WP. Do I think the IRA a terrorist organisation? I have a major problem with any organisation that kills and injures civilians whether that's the IRA, UVF, British Army or anyone else.

AdMMM

STIG83 wrote: »

I am think about giving Paudie Coffey and John Deasy my vote, Brendan Kenneally will more than likely lose his seat

I'm going to sick my neck out and say that Brendan Kenneally will top the poll in Waterford. And this is coming from a man who despises him.