How long will the current gov last?

newfrontier

With a nasty budget ahead and people being pushed closer to the edge , unemployment staying stubbornly high,, the current gov parties promises(lies) blatently broken, What lies ahead.. I think we are looking at a new gov in 12-18 months time..What will it look like ( hopefully not the same faces again ...will there be a real change in this country...what are your thoughts ?

Wider Road

newfrontier wrote: »

With a nasty budget ahead and people being pushed closer to the edge , unemployment staying stubbornly high,, the current gov parties promises(lies) blatently broken, What lies ahead.. I think we are looking at a new gov in 12-18 months time..What will it look like ( hopefully not the same faces again ...will there be a real change in this country...what are your thoughts ?

6 months ago I said this govt would fall in 2012.
Anyone disagree?

muletide

I disagree

newfrontier

newfrontier wrote: »

What lies ahead.. I think we are looking at a new gov in 12-18 months time..What will it look like ( hopefully not the same faces again ...will there be a real change in this country...what are your thoughts ?

More pain and a lot of it. This upcoming budget will see an increase in carbon tax, an increase in VAT, the new €100 household charge, your looking at €600 there coming out of your pocket for a start and then your looking at cuts in welfare and god only knows what else is coming. This upcoming budget will be the final nail in the coffin for a lot of families here and it will only drive more people to shop up north.

I didn't vote for this current government nor did I vote for FF, but the way things are heading this crowd we have in now seem to be worse than the last. They don't care about the "ordinary Joe and his family", this country is nothing but a safe haven for the rich and the criminals. I can't see this government lasting too long to be honest.
The sooner the people of Ireland wake up and are no longer willing to take anymore nonsense from these overpaid fat cat politicians and take to the streets the better.

nesf

I think enough people know that we're stuck between a rock and a hard place with respect to our Budgets that FG/Lab won't get kicked out anytime soon. From talking to people, the majority know and accept that we're in for austerity and don't at all believe that voting in the likes of SF or the ULA will change this.

Our choice comes down to either leaving the EU or facing austerity and from what I've seen the overwhelming majority of people want to be in the EU and in the Eurozone. It's very rare to meet people who genuinely believe that we'd be better off outside of the EU. This is mirrored by our anti-EU parties (SF etc) casting their position as arguing a better deal from the EU rather than leaving the EU.

denlaw

it's labour i'm most disappointed in , my father was a staunch labour man . he'd spin in his grave if he heard or saw gilmore or burton , champagne socialists , these people have NO CONNECTION whatsoever with a blue collared working class man or woman who have or are working on the factory floor ..

nesf

denlaw wrote: »

it's labour i'm most disappointed in , my father was a staunch labour man . he'd spin in his grave if he heard or saw gilmore or burton , champagne socialists , these people have NO CONNECTION whatsoever with a blue collared working class man or woman who have or are working on the factory floor ..

To be fair to Labour, they moved to the right because most of the populace moved to the right. You get some bit of debate over whether we should have a wealth tax but the vast majority of working class and middle class people want lower taxes. Mostly because of a belief that our tax money isn't spent efficiently right now. We pumped billions into health and education and gotten relatively little in return (mostly because much of that extra money was eaten up by wages etc).

Right now, what makes Labour stand out is that it is the only one of the big 3 to be socially liberal. I think you'll find more people joining Labour in college for this reason rather than a stance on economic issues.

nesf

nesf wrote: »

from what I've seen the overwhelming majority of people want to be in the EU and in the Eurozone.

The way things are at present there may not be a Eurozone for much longer. Personally I think the Euro here was a bad thing, we were screwed from day one of the switch over from Punt to Euro.

nesf

nesf wrote: »

We pumped billions into health and education and gotten relatively little in return (mostly because much of that extra money was eaten up by wages etc).

As far as education goes your partly right, Ireland may not be getting much in return of late but other countries have in the form of our educated emigrants!

hallelujajordan

With such a healthy majority, this government can be unpopular for a couple of years and still survive. Then, closer to the end of its term, they will dial back on the austerity measures a little, declare economic victory and get reelected.

The only thing that can bring down the government would be a major rift between FG and LAB . . . Given that they seem to be two sides to the one coin and the moment and that Labour have abandoned the left for the sake of power I dont see that happening any time soon . .

lugha

I doubt if the left wing block of SF & ULA could have any hope of having the numbers to form a government for many years (and I suspect they are as relived as many of the rest of us at this reality).

So the alternative to FG and Lab will be FF (or whatever replaces them, which now looks like being FF!) in a coalition. Labour would appear to be obvious partner if FF are seen to be sufficiently detoxed by the next election. Of course the most sensible, if least likely possibility, is that FF and FG would coalesce.

I think the upcoming budget will bring a rapid conclusion to the honeymoon period of the current government and the political landscape will be a lot clearer in the new year. Still, at this time, I would say two terms for the current government.

caddy2

well im sure no one actually believed fine gael with all their promises. the whole government system is so tight and they all think in exactly the same way that nothing will ever change.
think the government should be run by a model where anyone who would like to be considered for a position to run the country should have to do a job interview and like in a company have to declare their goals and what they want to achieve and then at the end of a 6 month period have to go through performance achievement scrutiny and oust the lads that are not achieving and like people who are self employed - dont give them even social welfare not to mind the ludacrious benefits they get.

irishh_bob

nesf wrote: »

I think enough people know that we're stuck between a rock and a hard place with respect to our Budgets that FG/Lab won't get kicked out anytime soon. From talking to people, the majority know and accept that we're in for austerity and don't at all believe that voting in the likes of SF or the ULA will change this.

Our choice comes down to either leaving the EU or facing austerity and from what I've seen the overwhelming majority of people want to be in the EU and in the Eurozone. It's very rare to meet people who genuinely believe that we'd be better off outside of the EU. This is mirrored by our anti-EU parties (SF etc) casting their position as arguing a better deal from the EU rather than leaving the EU.

i think we would be better outside the euro ( with the way the eu is moving ) but i accept we need to endure much more austerity and we will regardless of who is in power

RichardAnd

We have to remember one thing about the current government, they weren't elected in a normal election. what I mean by this is that the majority of voters didn't go to the polls in February with the intention of voting for the candidates that they had decided were best for Ireland, they went with misguided (though very understandable) desire to punish FF. Thus, FG and Labour weren't given the reins because they are much more competent, they got the power because they are the default back up choice, the other side of the coin.

Now, for a while after the election, there was a honeymoon period where everyone was just happy to have new faces on RTE news saying more or less the same thing. I believe that the first slip towards unpopularity came with the jobs budget. In campaign mode, this had been hyped up hugely and I seem to recall hearing things like "50k new jobs!" being mentioned more than once. What did we get? A few building jobs roofing schools and a government sanctioned internship scheme that has seen unpaid work entrenching itself nicely in the jobs. For a party claiming to be socialists, I think Labour might have been doing sloppy work when the very rudimentary concept of paid work was dropped.

Thus we arrive in late 2011 and what has changed. Well it can be said that things have not gotten incredibly worse since this time last year but equally, little to nothing has improved. At the end of it all, it doesn't really matter who sits in Enda's chair because the people with the real power aren't elected.

The Waltzing Consumer

Anyone who thought that within 12 months of a new government, that everything would suddenly become peachy, is really not very bright.

Also, anyone who thought a coalition would allow promises made during election campaign to all be fulfilled, is also not very bright.

It will be a slow and steady road to prosperity, and to be fair, the current Government have made some progress.

Of course if we had listened to and voted in SF and the ULA, everything would be perfect by now, everyone would have jobs, no cuts whatsoever, the workers in the factory floor :rolleyes: would be rolling in the cash or, in all likelihood, ULA and SF would have been reactionary governments and we would be in an even more messy situation then Greece, who the ULA wished we followed.

Nothing is perfect, you go with the Government who is most likely to improve the situation, you are an absolute idiot if you think any party has all the magic tricks up the sleeve to make everything perfect in the blink of an eye.

Son Of A Vidic

OP I have no doubt they will last the whole term, because unfortunately such is the nature of the Irish political sleeveen and their power lust.

Pete_Cavan

The Waltzing Consumer wrote: »

Also, anyone who thought a coalition would allow promises made during election campaign to all be fulfilled, is also not very bright.

For me, this is the main problem with the current government. People talk about broken election promises but how can they keep their promises when, before any decision is made, they have to check with the coalition partners to make sure it wont be too unpopular with their support base. I hope the coalition does not last the full term as all we will get are watered-down, meet half way and achieve nothing policies.

What we needed was a strong single party government with a mandate to implement their policies, instead we got an ill-conceived coalition a mandate to compromise on their election manifestos to create a programme for government.

nesf

irishh_bob wrote: »

i think we would be better outside the euro ( with the way the eu is moving ) but i accept we need to endure much more austerity and we will regardless of who is in power

We'd be butchered outside of the Euro right now. Our currency would be seriously devalued, which while good for exports, would be very nasty in terms of an increase in the cost of living for most people. We'd also not have the ECB to buy up bonds to keep borrowing rates lower and we'd not have the European Stabilisation Fund to keep us from having a truly savage budget this year.

Being outside the Euro is only really a relevant option if you have a strong currency to begin with, we don't.

serfboard

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

before any decision is made, they have to check with the coalition partners to make sure it wont be too unpopular with their support base. I hope the coalition does not last the full term as all we will get are watered-down, meet half way and achieve nothing policies.

What we needed was a strong single party government with a mandate to implement their policies, instead we got an ill-conceived coalition a mandate to compromise on their election manifestos to create a programme for government.

Before any decision is made the government has to check with the troika to see if, pretty please, we can spend our pocket money in this way or that.

And that would have been the case regardless of what form of government we had.

meglome

serfboard wrote: »

Before any decision is made the government has to check with the troika to see if, pretty please, we can spend our pocket money in this way or that.

And that would have been the case regardless of what form of government we had.

Pity we acted like children and put ourselves in that position.

irishh_bob

nesf wrote: »

We'd be butchered outside of the Euro right now. Our currency would be seriously devalued, which while good for exports, would be very nasty in terms of an increase in the cost of living for most people. We'd also not have the ECB to buy up bonds to keep borrowing rates lower and we'd not have the European Stabilisation Fund to keep us from having a truly savage budget this year.

Being outside the Euro is only really a relevant option if you have a strong currency to begin with, we don't.

leaving the euro would be hell for several years but would be worth it in the long term from the point of view of being able to decide our own future on matters taxation and spending let alone other soverign matters , the only way the single currency can survive is if peripheral countrys cede more soverignty to the centre , this will inevitabley result in ireland having no minister for finance , we can kiss our corporation tax rate goodbye and wage and wellfare levels wont be immune either , what im saying is that we are facing hardship no matter whether we are inside our outside the eurozone , that said if thier is a referendum on whether we want to continue inside the eurozone , i have no doubt that the likes of public servants , pensioners and wellfare recipients will vote yes as they would be the ones worst hit by a euro exit

denlaw

nesf wrote: »

To be fair to Labour, they moved to the right because most of the populace moved to the right. You get some bit of debate over whether we should have a wealth tax but the vast majority of working class and middle class people want lower taxes. Mostly because of a belief that our tax money isn't spent efficiently right now. We pumped billions into health and education and gotten relatively little in return (mostly because much of that extra money was eaten up by wages etc).

Right now, what makes Labour stand out is that it is the only one of the big 3 to be socially liberal. I think you'll find more people joining Labour in college for this reason rather than a stance on economic issues.

tbh nesf , i'd settle for some good old fashion fair play , the promise's made at election time are sadly todays toilet paper especially from labour , don't get me wrong , i'm a labour man and have always voted so ...i'm just disappointed in them thats all ..

hangon

No sarcasm intended,every day i meet people who give out stink about the new(ish) Govt.
by that i mean in 'real life'.
i have to wonder did they not realise what the IMF coming in meant in the first place?

OP, i think it will be full term unless Europe falls.

Lockstep

denlaw wrote: »

it's labour i'm most disappointed in , my father was a staunch labour man . he'd spin in his grave if he heard or saw gilmore or burton , champagne socialists , these people have NO CONNECTION whatsoever with a blue collared working class man or woman who have or are working on the factory floor ..

Not many people in Ireland work on factory floors anymore. Modern Western society is much more complicated than the bosses at the top and proletarians slaving away in mines for their minimum subsistence.

Fulton Crown

hellboy99 wrote: »

The way things are at present there may not be a Eurozone for much longer. Personally I think the Euro here was a bad thing, we were screwed from day one of the switch over from Punt to Euro.

What a load of rubbish...how were we screwed. ?

Makes me laugh when I hear people bemoaning our "loss of financial independance".

I would certainly trust Sarkozy and Merkel ahead of the shower of turnips in the Dept of Finance who can't even count straight and refuse to accept any accountability.

Get real pal.......

Fulton Crown

serfboard wrote: »

Before any decision is made the government has to check with the troika to see if, pretty please, we can spend our pocket money in this way or that..

And thanks be to fuck the do have to !

Your memory is short pal...have you forgotten the reaming Ahern,McCreevey and their cronys gave to the country ?

The only reason Big Brother is here is that our boys made a complete and utter bollox of it and have to be hand held for the forseeable future.

Joined up thinking dude...you should try it sometime ...

hangon

Fulton Crown wrote: »

What a load of rubbish...how were we screwed. ?

Makes me laugh when I hear people bemoaning our "loss of financial independance".

I would certainly trust Sarkozy and Merkel

ahead of the shower of turnips in the Dept of Finance who can't even count straight and refuse to accept any accountability.
Get real pal.......

You would trust Sarkozy and Merkel?
the two who have had the most power to stop this now runaway train and have spoken down to the rest of europe since it all began?
Sarkozy is almost powerless now and Merkel not far behind.
they did not tackle this crisis,they escalated it by cowardice and indecision with one eye on their Electorate.

get real about them and their bungling bullying incompetent ways.

Fulton Crown

hangon wrote: »

You would trust Sarkozy and Merkel?
the two who have had the most power to stop this now runaway train and have spoken down to the rest of europe since it all began?
Sarkozy is almost powerless now and Merkel not far behind.
they did not tackle this crisis,they escalated it by cowardice and indecision with one eye on their Electorate.

get real about them and their bungling bullying incompetent ways.

How do you mean "spoken down" .

Greece has been living beyond its means for many years..unrealistic retirement age,bloated public service and a blatent disregard for the necessary collection of taxes.

So they go fuckin bust !

And they are given shedloads of money as a bailout.

And they are told to get their house in order.

Thats "speakin down" :? confused:

Heeeeey man....whoa !!:D

nesf

irishh_bob wrote: »

leaving the euro would be hell for several years but would be worth it in the long term from the point of view of being able to decide our own future on matters taxation and spending let alone other soverign matters , the only way the single currency can survive is if peripheral countrys cede more soverignty to the centre , this will inevitabley result in ireland having no minister for finance , we can kiss our corporation tax rate goodbye and wage and wellfare levels wont be immune either , what im saying is that we are facing hardship no matter whether we are inside our outside the eurozone , that said if thier is a referendum on whether we want to continue inside the eurozone , i have no doubt that the likes of public servants , pensioners and wellfare recipients will vote yes as they would be the ones worst hit by a euro exit

We'd all be badly hit by a euro exit to be fair. Seeing your savings suddenly become pitiful because the Punt nua is worth a fraction of what a Euro was worth when we left.

There are also advantages to a single currency, we benefit from it in all our European trading partners.

irishh_bob

nesf wrote: »

We'd all be badly hit by a euro exit to be fair. Seeing your savings suddenly become pitiful because the Punt nua is worth a fraction of what a Euro was worth when we left.

There are also advantages to a single currency, we benefit from it in all our European trading partners.

when it comes to the EU ,something tells me the word partner wont apply to countrys like ireland for much longer if it even does right now in any sense

nesf

irishh_bob wrote: »

when it comes to the EU ,something tells me the word partner wont apply to countrys like ireland for much longer if it even does right now in any sense

Eh, I don't think the EU has anything against Ireland really. We're cleaning up our own mess like a bunch of mature adults while the Greeks are rioting like toddlers throwing toys out of the pram.

harrythehat

I see no reason why the current government won't last its term and probably beyond.

Enda Kenny has high satisfaction ratings.

We know that the budget will be harsh but that will be the case no matter who is in Government. For some time it looked like we were going the same way as Greece, but in fact most commentators, the IMF and EU are praising Ireland for its fiscal measures.

The most immediate question that springs to mind in answering your post is this - who would take over? Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein and Independents?? There's a recipe for a stable government.

Bergkamp 10

Enda Kenny has high satisfaction ratings ?? My backside he has. I'm yet to meet a person who doesnt think he is an incompetent buffoon.

I knew this current government would be more of the same. I for one cannot wait for this government to collapse and these arrogant government politicians brought back down to earth.

The job-bridge scheme says it all. Just look at their jobs forum on here to see the sickening behaviour these days that is encouraging slave labour.

That scheme shows the complete disregard this government has for the welfare of its people. Kenny and co dont care as long as they get the plaudits from their German and French masters and that fat cheque for a wage.

This country sadly is going to the dogs quickly, no matter who is elected, because our system doesnt work.

Pride Fighter

It will last until 2015/2016 and will probably get re-elected but with a much reduced majority. Fianna Fail will become the second largest party in that election unless Sinn Fein move to the centre, and ditch the old guard.

harrythehat

Bergkamp 10 wrote: »

Enda Kenny has high satisfaction ratings ?? My backside he has. I'm yet to meet a person who doesnt think he is an incompetent buffoon.

Irish Times frontpage, July 21, 2011. Just over three months ago. I'm not sure if there are more recent figures available. You stand corrected.

Mr Kenny’s satisfaction rating has jumped 16 points to 53 per cent since the last poll in February. It is the highest rating he has achieved since taking over as Fine Gael leader nine years ago.

Bergkamp 10

What would have to happen for another election next year?

We all know how long it took FF to give the country its democratic right and even then it was the greens who done it.

Bergkamp 10

harrythehat wrote: »

Irish Times frontpage, July 21, 2011. Just over three months ago. I'm not sure if there are more recent figures available. You stand corrected.

Lets wait and see now in a few weeks what his satisfaction rating is.

He hasnt made one budget yet. But he has introduced slave labour in the form of job bridge, hasnt abolished the seanad and isnt willing to makde excess admin staff on over 100k redundant in the public sector because he is afraid of the CPA.

He may well sore down after this budget, because things are not looking good at all.

harrythehat

No, they aren't.


Under whose leadership do you think the outlook would be sunshine, lollipops and rainbows?

nesf

harrythehat wrote: »

Irish Times frontpage, July 21, 2011. Just over three months ago. I'm not sure if there are more recent figures available. You stand corrected.

There was a more recent poll taken and if I can remember correctly Enda Kenny was still doing the best out of all the leaders. I can't remember which poll it was though off the top of my head.

Bergkamp 10

I'm not surprised hes doing best out of all the leaders.

Lets be honest he has no competition there, Higgins isnt most peoples cup of tea and the same can be said of Adams. Martin will not be ever popular outside Cork again hopefully.

That just leaves Gilmore, and they are basically the same. The satisfaction rating after Christmas will be interesting though.

Godge

This government will be in power for the guts of five years. Their objective is clear to a blind man. Get the budget deficit sorted so we can go back to the markets and get rid of the IMF/EU.

That means that they go to the electorate saying FF brought in the IMF/EU, we had to take the tough decisions to sort it out, now that is done we deserve a chance to implement our policies. They will be re-elected albeit with a smaller majority to do just that and they may even get a third term if they do something constructive with their second term.

Look at the opposition they will face at the next election:

FF, who caused the IMF/EU to be brought in, that took four years to sort out
SF, who many people will still despise
ULA, a collection of deluded people whose role model in Greece will be a basket case
???? - a new centre-right party?

There is no way we will see an election next year barring a plane crash with the FG party in it.