Killeen not to contest

chucken1

Clareman wrote: »

I'd say Sinn Fein could make a run this time, although I'd be surprised if James Breen doesn't make it back in this time.

http://geographyspecialinterestgroup.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/sfcandsge2011/

No news there on Sinn Fein. It seems a bit odd to me that they're not ready yet for a lot of constituencies.

Or is there going to be a big surprise?

CptSternn

Shapey Fiend wrote: »

Preach! I wouldn't have gone near voting for Sinn Fein in the past but they seem to be the only ones even contemplating default. However I've a suspicion it's them just being populist because they'll never be in a position to actually do it.

Bleh.. I wish Fine Gael would show some fighting spirit. They would have been in 2 years ago if the current lot weren't so cackhanded.

Good news and bad news.

The good news is SF is planning to default on the bank loans. The entire SF budget plan revolves around this. I could go into detail, but I'll save that for a proper thread (or see the one on politics.ie).

That's the good news. The bad news is there is no SF in Clare right now. Due to some issues the party stood down all the structures and replaced them with a 'working group' which has no real power in the party and cannot put forth any candidates for elections, meaning there will be no SF candidates in Clare for some time.

Nevermind_

I'd have to agree with Shapey fiend in that I think SF are just saying what they think people want to hear and being populist without any semblance of understanding what the hell it would mean.

Also taking a totally clare view of things, the SF people I've come into contact with in this county over the years could only be described as scumbags.
One in particular has a penchant for picket lines outside construction projects on behalf of his "union". They will only leave after a cash payment has been made. Ask any builder in clare about this (the ones that are left). Its blackmail.
Also the same SF person has a very close relative who is heavily involved in the drugs trade.

For the above reasons they'll be getting fcuk all votes from me

User Friendly

Nevermind_ wrote: »

I'd have to agree with Shapey fiend in that I think SF are just saying what they think people want to hear and being populist without any semblance of understanding what the hell it would mean.

Also taking a totally clare view of things, the SF people I've come into contact with in this county over the years could only be described as scumbags.
One in particular has a penchant for picket lines outside construction projects on behalf of his "union". They will only leave after a cash payment has been made. Ask any builder in clare about this (the ones that are left). Its blackmail.
Also the same SF person has a very close relative who is heavily involved in the drugs trade.

For the above reasons they'll be getting fcuk all votes from me

The person you are referring to is not a member of SF and thats a fact.

" " " " " " is not responsible for his relative,he actually detests drugs.i cant see what you hope to gain out of mentioning this:(

The person you are referring to was secretary of a Union and was entitled to by law to place pickets on sites who employed work methods(and people who were non members of the union) that left Union members unemployed.

CptSternn

User Friendly wrote: »

The person you are referring to is not a member of SF and thats a fact.

" " " " " " is not responsible for his relative,he actually detests drugs.i cant see what you hope to gain out of mentioning this:(

The person you are referring to was secretary of a Union and was entitled to by law to place pickets on sites who employed work methods(and people who were non members of the union) that left Union members unemployed.

+1

Get your facts straight before coming into a forum and slandering anyone.

First, the person in question is in Republican Sinn Féin, NOT Sinn Féin. Huge difference there. Accusing SF of having ties to drug dealers when you are referring to a totally different political party not only shows your own stupidity, it shows you have no clue whats going on in your own community or even what political parties are out there.

dr.fuzzenstein

Maybe a case can be made for anyone who wants to become a politician to be arrested and thrown in prison.
It's a bit like someone applying for a gun licence.
You will get turned down on the basis that if you actually want a gun, you should never, ever be allowed to have one.
Same with power. If you seek it out there's something wrong with you.:)
That of course makes selecting the right candidate a bit tricky, since anyone who puts himself forward will be automatically disqualified for that reason and you can't force people to stand who would be qualified but won't come forward...

5h4mr0(k

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Maybe a case can be made for anyone who wants to become a politician to be arrested and thrown in prison.
It's a bit like someone applying for a gun licence.
You will get turned down on the basis that if you actually want a gun, you should never, ever be allowed to have one.
Same with power. If you seek it out there's something wrong with you.:)
That of course makes selecting the right candidate a bit tricky, since anyone who puts himself forward will be automatically disqualified for that reason and you can't force people to stand who would be qualified but won't come forward...

If a candidate is there looking for power, then they are the wrong choice. The power is, supposedly, with the people in a democracy. Unfortunately our supposed public representatives are instead, party representatives that do what the party wants - not what the people who elected them want.

Candidates should be putting the country first, then their electoral area. They certainly shouldn't be trying to get potholes in their local area fixed. If they want to go down that road (excuse the pun) then they should run the council.

Every TD is a member of the government - not just the FF and Green members. Unfortunately it's the cabinet table that has the all the power, mostly because the back benchers are spineless.

We need a system where, along with elected the TDs, we also get to elect the cabinet members. So people that can do the job properly can get in there, and not be worried about party politics.

Of course, if they don't change the system now, before the election is called, then it won't get changed (same goes for reducing the number of TDs).

Clareman

Folks, this thread was originally about a sitting TD no longer standing, it is now going onto debate on a wide ranging number of topics, either stay on topic or start a new thread debating the virtues of the other topics you want to discuss

ger664

Typical FF cowards afraid to face the people.

As regards the pension whatever party will introduce legilation that only pays out pensions to public servents once they reach the retirment age 6667 will get my vote. This basically means i will not be voting next time round.

dr.fuzzenstein

Clareman wrote: »

Folks, this thread was originally about a sitting TD no longer standing,

Is he lying down now?:D

OldGuysRule

Good luck to him, would not envy anyone being a politician.

As regards the pension whatever party will introduce legilation that only pays out pensions to public servents once they reach the retirment age 6667 will get my vote. This basically means i will not be voting next time round.

Hope that is not the only basis that someone would vote, we have much bigger problems than that.

ger664

OldGuysRule wrote: »

Good luck to him, would not envy anyone being a politician.



Hope that is not the only basis that someone would vote, we have much bigger problems than that.

Yes we have but if a politician is not prepared to address the perks and benefits that the higher public servants enjoy then he wont have the courage to fix the other problems in the right manner.

FWIW there is a certain TD on the other side who will get an earful with regard to his expenses been higher then that of Mr Killeen, and he is supposed to be part of the fix from FG/LAB/Others.

Our problems stem from a corrupt political/judicial system that favors those with enough finical resources to take advantage of it.

CptSternn

Speaking of the other side, it looks like everything is swinging towards FG in the next election, but has everyone already forgotten about the relationship between FG and Michael O'Flynn?

He had golf with top FG members, then transfered A BILLION IN ASSETS into NAMA. Today he still is living in the lap of luxury while we the tax-payers pay for a BILLION in losses thanks to him, NAMA, and FG.

This was last summer! Has everyone forgotten this?

FG are no better than FF.

golfball37

This weeks Clare Champion is an absolute disgrace. Not one critique about Tony Killeen. Reading their analysis of his career you'd think he was Ghandi or Mandela?

They completely glossed over his vote on SNN/Heathrow and his downgrading of Ennis hospital. In fact they quoted Killeen in an agreeable way by claiming the Ennis hospital marches were politcally motivated and not done for local health services reasons.

I won't be buying it again. They had 6 pages devoted to the internal workings of FF ffs. Party before country even in the local papers it seems.

Lady Chatterton

golfball37 wrote: »

This weeks Clare Champion is an absolute disgrace. Not one critique about Tony Killeen. Reading their analysis of his career you'd think he was Ghandi or Mandela?

They completely glossed over his vote on SNN/Heathrow and his downgrading of Ennis hospital. In fact they quoted Killeen in an agreeable way by claiming the Ennis hospital marches were politcally motivated and not done for local health services reasons.

I won't be buying it again. They had 6 pages devoted to the internal workings of FF ffs. Party before country even in the local papers it seems.

I'm not a Tony Killeen or a FF supporter and I definitely won't be voting FF in the forthcoming election. However, I think your analysis of the Champion's coverage is a bit unfair. I've read the coverage and on page ten, the lead story refers to probably Killeen's greatest political embarrassment - i.e making representations on behalf of a prisoner convicted of the abusing of children. It could have and in my view should have finished Killeen's career and the paper were not shy in highlighting this. The article also refers to representations he made on behalf of a convicted murder. Is this really a glory piece?

BnB

Clareman wrote: »

When I heard that this morning the first thing I thought was "f**k it anyway, that's Dooley in", whatever about FF holding onto their 2 seats in Clare, they aren't going to drop to 0 seats whatsoever, there are too many hardliners that will vote FF no matter what.

I don't know about Timmy. He got in last time round on a wave of votes from East Clare. I don't think he will get anything even close to it this time. He had little to no public profile during his few years in office and any time we did see him, it was to just rattle off some standard FF line.

If the two were running, I think Killeen would have had a better chance of holding his seat.

Very difficult to see who will get in. There is definately a backlash towards FF, but the other parties just don't seem to have the canditates to take advantage of it.

chucken1

BnB wrote: »

I don't know about Timmy. He got in last time round on a wave of votes from East Clare. I don't think he will get anything even close to it this time. He had little to no public profile during his few years in office and any time we did see him, it was to just rattle off some standard FF line.

If the two were running, I think Killeen would have had a better chance of holding his seat.

Very difficult to see who will get in. There is definately a backlash towards FF, but the other parties just don't seem to have the canditates to take advantage of it.

I said it in a different thread (Clareman tidied it up,thanks by the way,I was ranting) I never laid eyes on Timmy Dooley until October,when he turned up at my door asking if I needed anything :eek:.
I certainly didnt vote for him in the last election!

Ive lived my life in East Clare for my 46 years so Im no spring chicken,but Im fed up to the back teeth of the parish pump mentality.

Ive always been a closet rebel so Im praying we get a Sinn Fein Candidate, its not looking that way but Id vote for them this time.
I wouldnt care if they were based in Kilbaha... I just feel this is the last bit of energy I can muster to shake things up and shows those "in power" that I am not going to be taken for a ride anymore.

Lady Chatterton

Chucken1, What about your fellow East Clare man - Michael McNamara - Human Rights Lawyer and farmer?

golfball37

Mrs 007- They put down that letter to an administrative mistake, well certainly Tony Killeen does. The decisions he was faced with that directly affected his constituents in a big way were the Aer Lingus vote and the Ennis hospital downgrading vote.

I just think it’s pretty suspicious that they failed to mention either of these when analysing his career? I’m not the only one saying it either btw.

Lady Chatterton

Golfball37 - Maybe you should write to the paper and make your opinions known. Do you think John Hillery will take the seat vacated by Tony Killeen?

CptSternn

Ok, I know I railed on Killeen before, but this time he really has gone too far.

He announced with the other cabinet ministers his resignation.

Ye do know what this means?

He was minister for a few months and now will walk away with a huge ministerial pension, and whoever replaces him will get the same when they leave office in a few weeks.

The same goes for whoever replaces those other ministers. They will be in office for a matter of weeks and be able to claim what? €95,000 a year for the rest of their lives? Because they were appointed as a minister for a few weeks before an election? Talk about a scam. Forget what people say about the Travelling community, FF takes the cake when it comes to ripping off hard working people.

User Friendly

I stand corrected but i dont think it works like that.If a new minister is appointed that isnt a junior minister or held the office of a minister previously then no pension will be awarded. they need to be in the job a couple of hundred days i think.

Hawk Wing 2

CptSternn wrote: »

Ok, I know I railed on Killeen before, but this time he really has gone too far.

He announced with the other cabinet ministers his resignation.

Ye do know what this means?

He was minister for a few months and now will walk away with a huge ministerial pension, and whoever replaces him will get the same when they leave office in a few weeks.

The same goes for whoever replaces those other ministers. They will be in office for a matter of weeks and be able to claim what? €95,000 a year for the rest of their lives? Because they were appointed as a minister for a few weeks before an election? Talk about a scam. Forget what people say about the Travelling community, FF takes the cake when it comes to ripping off hard working people.

Sure with all these "medical problems" the likes of Dermot Aherne, Dempsey and Killeen had, you'd wonder how they manages to struggle on at all for the last few years

golfball37

User Friendly wrote: »

I stand corrected but i dont think it works like that.If a new minister is appointed that isnt a junior minister or held the office of a minister previously then no pension will be awarded. they need to be in the job a couple of hundred days i think.

2 years to get the full ministerial pension. They are however entitled to a generous severence package. Mary Harney is getting 310k for her troubles of our money. Her replacement who will be in the job 2 months will get 2 times their pension entitlements for 1 month, on exit as compensation.

The average TD pension is 72k lets say, they will get 26k pay off when the election is called... All this whilst the blind and carers get cut.

You get the government you deserve. Sadly in Clare we will return candidates from FF or FG who are not in favour of changing this gravy train.

Clareman

Folks, I've had enough of this thread going continously off topic, if you wish to discuss outing TDs/Ministers pensions/severence package, the merits of Ministers who are not going to contest their seat next time around stepping down, or any other aspects of Irish politics, please use the politics forum