The year 2020 boards.ie property thread.

tootsy70

Where will we be with property sales,prices and even the econemy. Will we be looking back thinking that fcuk that is all over us or will be be still going through some sort of madness.

I know nothing about the property market tbh but one thing i know is that we are in a bad state or even a good state concerning what way you look at it because one person is sitting with all the stresses that comes with negative equity and falling house prices or we have a person whos loving these drops because it means now that they will be able to afford to buy something that was way out of reach in the boom years.

Can anyone see any return to construction work in this year ie- building new houses all over again thou at a slow pace.

IMO even thou were going through a bad patch at the moment, we'll be back to where we were with houses selling quite fast once this next generation comes along.

GetWithIt

tootsy70 wrote: »

IMO even thou were going through a bad patch at the moment, we'll be back to where we were with houses selling quite fast once this next generation comes along.

Which generation would that be? The ones currently living in Australia or the ones heading off soon to Canada?

Scortho

House prices rising in line with inflation will be what we should see by then.

EricPraline

GetWithIt wrote: »

Which generation would that be? The ones currently living in Australia or the ones heading off soon to Canada?

By 2020 they may have returned from Canada:

Loose credit fuelled the boom, analysts say, but a correction is coming

A recent report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development that revealed Canada has the third most overvalued real estate in the developed world offered few surprises for analysts who say the market is heading for a price correction.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/06/06/housing-market-prices-overvalued.html

RATM

Trying to predict where we'll be in 2020 is an impossible exercise. Except to say that the Irish nation is somewhere in the region of €220 billion in debt. Our debt is getting larger by the day as we spend more on public services than we take in with taxation. The budget probably won't be balanced until 2015 or 2016. At that stage we can finally get around to paying off our €220 billion debt. That's if it hasn't grown even further if we need a second bailout and recapitalisation of the banks due to the raft of mortgage defaults, some are saying a further €16 billion will need to be borrowed.

So in the end we might need to repay around €240 billion. To do that we have the taxes of 1.6 million people working who also have to fund the public services and pensions of another million plus people and the social welfare of another 500,000 who are either not working or classed as having a disability. All of this is against a backdrop of demographics getting older and future added pressure on hospitals with a baby boom simultaneously underway and the extra pressures that will bring to fund schools and universities.

To be fair the question should be whether or not we'll be out of this mess by 2030, not 2020.

StillWaters

Interesting question, I think we will be entering or soon to enter the contraction part of the cycle, having had strong growth.

tootsy70

RATM wrote: »

Trying to predict where we'll be in 2020 is an impossible exercise. Except to say that the Irish nation is somewhere in the region of €220 billion in debt. Our debt is getting larger by the day as we spend more on public services than we take in with taxation. The budget probably won't be balanced until 2015 or 2016. At that stage we can finally get around to paying off our €220 billion debt. That's if it hasn't grown even further if we need a second bailout and recapitalisation of the banks due to the raft of mortgage defaults, some are saying a further €16 billion will need to be borrowed.

So in the end we might need to repay around €240 billion. To do that we have the taxes of 1.6 million people working who also have to fund the public services and pensions of another million plus people and the social welfare of another 500,000 who are either not working or classed as having a disability. All of this is against a backdrop of demographics getting older and future added pressure on hospitals with a baby boom simultaneously underway and the extra pressures that will bring to fund schools and universities.

To be fair the question should be whether or not we'll be out of this mess by 2030, not 2020.

How much is it we are expected to pay each year and isnt it possible to grow our way out of the payments. For example-I remember reading somewhere a few years ago that the uk government was only after paying off its final payment for loans that were needed for the 1st or 2nd world war. The repayments were highish back then but with inflation, they ended up very small repayments. Wouldnt these loans be similar ?

Atlantic Dawn

The cheap money tap needs to be turned back on from overseas banks supplying money to Irish banks and the people who ran our banks during the boom need to be brought back in, neither of which will ever happen again.

The_Conductor

StillWaters wrote: »

I think we will be entering or soon to enter the contraction part of the cycle, having had strong growth.

Strong growth between now and 2020?
We have more punitive direct and indirect taxes thrundling down the road. The groups most affected by the recession are the 20 to 40 year olds- and if you have children- even more so.

I can see clamouring for schemes to encourage pensioners to downsize and free up family friendly housing- at the moment there is just no incentive for them to move.

I don't see people returning from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, The US etc- as their economies improve- I imagine even more people will leave here, as they will see the better lives they can lead elsewhere.

The way politics is structured in Ireland- there is very little incentive for good people to think of Ireland as a whole, instead they are forced to pander to the whims of their constituents- and their constituents play cannibalistic pump parish politics.

Personally I blame the GAA- and the way the country is carved up- politics mirrors their grassroots- as indeed their attitudes.

Us Irish have always been bloody brilliant at tearing lumps out of one another- but not so good at working together. I can't see that changing, now, or ever.

jmayo

tootsy70 wrote: »

Where will we be with property sales,prices and even the econemy. Will we be looking back thinking that fcuk that is all over us or will be be still going through some sort of madness.

I know nothing about the property market tbh but one thing i know is that we are in a bad state or even a good state concerning what way you look at it because one person is sitting with all the stresses that comes with negative equity and falling house prices or we have a person whos loving these drops because it means now that they will be able to afford to buy something that was way out of reach in the boom years.

Can anyone see any return to construction work in this year ie- building new houses all over again thou at a slow pace.

IMO even thou were going through a bad patch at the moment, we'll be back to where we were with houses selling quite fast once this next generation comes along.

To answer your last paragraph first.
We will NEVER be back to where we were during the bubble.

Forget about the bubble and put all thoughts out of your mind that property prices, relative to earnings, will be as high or that the property market will be as fast moving.

Even if we could try and recreate our own bad lending practices, pi*s poor governance and lunatic behaviour, our own banks will never be able to furnish the necessary credit, foreign banks won't trust us again, there isn't the grand tide of worldwide cheap credit, the Eurozone will be run a lot tigher and the troika will have ensured that property ownership entails extra taxes/costs which makes property ownership no longer the good bet.

When you try to work out anything in our economic future just always remember that both our soverign and personal debt levels are going to be massive for, at the very least, the next couple of decades .

RATM

smccarrick wrote: »

The way politics is structured in Ireland- there is very little incentive for good people to think of Ireland as a whole, instead they are forced to pander to the whims of their constituents- and their constituents play cannibalistic pump parish politics.

Personally I blame the GAA- and the way the country is carved up- politics mirrors their grassroots- as indeed their attitudes.

Us Irish have always been bloody brilliant at tearing lumps out of one another- but not so good at working together. I can't see that changing, now, or ever.

Interesting that you brought up the GAA as a factor as I've always thought along the same lines. As a game it is great and brings a community together but beyond that I actually see it as having a destructive force in Irish socio-economic affairs. Teaching people to hate their neighbours rather seeing them as someone to work with for the overall common good is not conducive to a healthy society. When I say 'hate' I don't mean it in a sectarian sense but more so that culturally the GAA has instilled individualism rather than collectivism into thousands of parishes across the country. Add into that our PR-STV voting system which favours the actions of gombeen politicans and gombeen voters who reward incompetency and aspire to mediocrity and what you end up with is an economic situation like we've got right now.

As an aside I have always wondered about the way FF-FG are so tightly intermingled with the GAA, the cross over of membership of each organisations is huge, yet despite the same people being in FF and FG showing themselves to be largely corrupt then how have we never had a major corruption scandal within the GAA ? Do the FF/FG'er wipe their dirty feet at the doorstep ? Somehow I doubt it, it is more likely no journalist has ever had the balls to write about corruption within the GAA.

StillWaters

I'm no fan of the GAA, seeing them as a force for parochial conservatism, but I do think as the country becomes more liberal and urban the influence of the GAA and their fraternal partner, the IFA will wane. We are seeing the largest shake up of local government in the history of the State which will force people to vote more intelligently.

The_Conductor

StillWaters wrote: »

We are seeing the largest shake up of local government in the history of the State which will force people to vote more intelligently.

I really really hope that what you're saying happens- however look at some of the characters who perennially are elected to the Oireachtas- how does this tally with intelligent voting? As long as a TD represents a particular geographical area, and not the country as a whole- we are doomed to parochial politics. Whatever about people voting intelligently- as a people, we most certainly do not. We are our own worst enemies.

jmayo

Even though I am not huge fan of everything about the GAA, I think it is unfair posters are trying to lay the blame about who we elect and the way the electorate vote at the hands of the GAA and even more surprisingly the IFA.

If we are going to start blaming organisations then the Catholic church, SIPTU, ICTU, CFI are way ahead in the firing line for blame.

Yes the GAA is based on a parochial breakdown and does to an extend foster parish versus parish.
But then how do they manage to unite all those parishes to get behind a county.
The GAA has had lots of issues not least it's close alliance with the catholic church or distrust and downright hatred of anything seen as foreign or more particularly British.
But I don't think they can be blamed for getting people to vote for gansters, shysters, gombeens and cute hoors.

And even though some very high profile GAA heads came out in support of very unethical and questionable people like the quinns, a lot of ordinary GAA people were not so enamoured of their behaviour and see them for the leeches that they really are.

The bigger issue is that lots of Irish people still think they are ruled by this mythical "system" which is fair game to be screwed over.
And anyone that gets one ovr the system is lauded by some.
How many times have you hear someone say "fair fooks to him" when they are told about some guy screwing over the Social Welfare, the Taxman, the County Council, etc.

It is probably a throw back to being ruled by the British and we as a nation have not copped onto the fact we are now, or upto a few years ago, totally ruling ourselves.

And before anyone says it is a country thing where people always mentions those in Dublin and the medja, etc, please check out how some of Ireland's greatest political gansters hailed from the capital.

As for politicans looking after their area, it happens in every country I would say.
Ever hear of Pork Barrell Politics in the US ?
The way to alleviate it is to make sure that local decisions like planning representations, etc are taken out of the hands of the national parliamentarians.

c_man

I hear the GAA members eat babies myself. No journalist has had the guts to investigate it, but it probably happens.

khards

Scortho wrote: »

House prices rising in line with inflation will be what we should see by then.

Are you talking about rising with wage inflation or price inflation?

You do know if you have price inflation without wage inflation that property prices will fall as the amount you can afford to spend on repayments each year becomes less.

The_Conductor

And since 2007 we've had significant wage deflation across the board, both public and private sectors. Some small increases are now occurring in the private sector- however this is unlikely to be replicated in the public sector for a long long time.

RATM

c_man wrote: »

I hear the GAA members eat babies myself. No journalist has had the guts to investigate it, but it probably happens.

I presume that was a dig at my point earlier about how the GAA is full of FF and FG people yet there has never been a major corruption scandal.

If you think there is no corruption in the GAA and that journalists have nothing to report then why was it Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness who revealed corruption in the GAA during the 2011 Presidential election ? If a Shinner like McGuinness knew about GAA corruption you can rest assured that journalists also did but refused to use the scoop- they just didn't have the balls to report on it as amongst a certain sect in this country criticism of the GAA is seen to being akin to treason on the Irish state. You are free to criticise British sports organisations like the FAI or IRFU all you want but the GAA is sacrosanct is the attitude that prevails in the media.

At the end of the day humans are humans and corruption exists everywhere and in all walks of life. If you tell me that there isn't a small percentage of people in the GAA who are on the take and lining their pockets then I can only say you're being naive to the extreme. We already know about the GAA corruption linked with Sean Gallagher- are you seriously telling me there isn't more similar cases to be reported on ?

We all know that the FF/FG modus operandi is to sweep scandals under the carpet and bury their heads in the sand and pretend they don't exist. Rather than have the scandal aired in public and make those responsible accountable and make their organisation stronger in the long term they instead choose to pretend the problem doesn't exist. The same feature can be found right across Irish life- the Catholic Church were the pioneers of burying their heads in the sand and culturally it has infected the body politic. We see corruption and scandal in the Church, FF & FG with the GAA being the common thread that links all three organisations with a huge cross over of membership yet somehow the GAA has no corruption within it at all ?

jmayo

RATM wrote: »

I presume that was a dig at my point earlier about how the GAA is full of FF and FG people yet there has never been a major corruption scandal.

If you think there is no corruption in the GAA and that journalists have nothing to report then why was it Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness who revealed corruption in the GAA during the 2011 Presidential election ? If a Shinner like McGuinness knew about GAA corruption you can rest assured that journalists also did but refused to use the scoop- they just didn't have the balls to report on it as amongst a certain sect in this country criticism of the GAA is seen to being akin to treason on the Irish state. You are free to criticise British sports organisations like the FAI or IRFU all you want but the GAA is sacrosanct is the attitude that prevails in the media.

Ehh you do know that the FAI is the Republic of Ireland football association and IRFU is a rugby union association covering the island of Ireland.
Neither of them are British.
And if it is fact you see those sports as British then Dev is calling.

RATM wrote: »

At the end of the day humans are humans and corruption exists everywhere and in all walks of life. If you tell me that there isn't a small percentage of people in the GAA who are on the take and lining their pockets then I can only say you're being naive to the extreme. We already know about the GAA corruption linked with Sean Gallagher- are you seriously telling me there isn't more similar cases to be reported on ?

Who said the GAA hasn't corruption ?

RATM wrote: »

We all know that the FF/FG modus operandi is to sweep scandals under the carpet and bury their heads in the sand and pretend they don't exist.

Can I ask why you singled out just those two parties ?
Or perhaps are you a supporter of one of the other major parties ?

RATM wrote: »

Rather than have the scandal aired in public and make those responsible accountable and make their organisation stronger in the long term they instead choose to pretend the problem doesn't exist. The same feature can be found right across Irish life- the Catholic Church were the pioneers of burying their heads in the sand and culturally it has infected the body politic. We see corruption and scandal in the Church, FF & FG with the GAA being the common thread that links all three organisations with a huge cross over of membership yet somehow the GAA has no corruption within it at all ?

I take exception to the fact you just continously mention just two parties, albeit the largest two, but I think you will find GAA members who are members of other parties (particularly in certain areas of this island).
And those other parties do have their own chequered history and are not averse to their own brand of corruption.
And I not just looking at one primarily based in NI before you come back with that rebuttal.

And once again who has said the GAA hasn't had corruption ?
I think you are the only one claiming that.
There are lots of shady goings on, payment for managers being one.

My argument above is that some posters trying to lay all the blame for election of parish pump gombeen politicans at the feet of the GAA is not altogether fair.
The GAA mindset is determined by the Irish mindset not the other way around I would counter.
Our electoral choices are not just down to an organisation headquartered near Jones Road.

OMD

The_Conductor wrote: »

And since 2007 we've had significant wage deflation across the board, both public and private sectors. Some small increases are now occurring in the private sector- however this is unlikely to be replicated in the public sector for a long long time.

Are you serious?
Public Sector hourly wages rose 1.5% last year alone. Private sector rose slightly more at 2.5%. This is an above inflation increase for both secters.
Since 2008 average wages have only fallen by about 0.5% for both public and private sector. Remember during this time we have had either very low inflation or periods of deflation.

jgh_

EricPraline wrote: »

By 2020 they may have returned from Canada:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/06/06/housing-market-prices-overvalued.html

Just the third-most? It's cheaper to buy a house less than a block from the beach in San Diego than it is to buy a house in the Greater Toronto Area.

RATM

jmayo wrote: »

Ehh you do know that the FAI is the Republic of Ireland football association and IRFU is a rugby union association covering the island of Ireland.
Neither of them are British.
And if it is fact you see those sports as British then Dev is calling.

I'm calling the sports British from a GAA standpoint, not the organistations. I should have instead used the colloquial term 'foreign games', a term which was essentially code within the GAA for the British born sports of football and rugby, which were often called garrison games by GAA supporters in a mocking reference to the British military who played them. When the term 'foreign games' was referred to in the GAA it was always known that it referred to sports associated with the British Emplre, the very fact that the GAA had no problems with American Football being played in Croker long before the 'foreign games' ban was uplifted speaks volumes into what 'foreign games' really meant.

Who said the GAA hasn't corruption ?

Nobody says jack about it yet I reckon it is present and any news of it is typically hush hush- that is my whole point

Can I ask why you singled out just those two parties ?
Or perhaps are you a supporter of one of the other major parties ?

Now you're making wrong assumptions, I support no party and am a floating voter. Throw Labour & Sinn Fein in there too if you want but my guess is that if you did a survey of every GAA club committee in the country to find out the overlap of serving County Councillors or TD's on those GAA committees then you would find that the vast majority of the overlap is due to FF and FG members with no other party coming anywhere near as close to them in terms of figures. As a political party Labour barely exist in Ireland outside of the main cities, so their overlap would be no-where near as strong as that of FF-FG , Labour tend to get votes in areas where football or rugby is more likely to be the sport of choice amongst kids and their parents.

My guess is that if you counted the overlap of councillors who are also on GAA club committees then FG-FF politicians would make up at least 50% of the overlap and possible as high as 60-70%. That is why I mention FF-FG as being inextricably linked with the GAA.

And once again who has said the GAA hasn't had corruption ?
I think you are the only one claiming that.
There are lots of shady goings on, payment for managers being one.

Again I think you're misunderstanding me- I am not saying anyone said that the GAA hasn't got corruption within, I am saying that virtually nobody or no journalist has reported that they do with concrete examples. I feel that a factor in this is that the culture of the GAA is at one with the culture of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael- and the political culture of those two parties has always been that when it comes to an internal scandal the modus operandi is to to deny the public transparency, attempt to change the subject and look the other way. We saw this only just two weeks ago with the Garda penalty points scandal- Official Ireland benefited from the lifting of points and then just covered the whole thing up by having an internal investigation rather than giving it to the pesky Garda Ombudsman, whose job it actually is to investigate Garda corruption. As soon as an internal sniff of scandal is about within FF or FG ranks everyone plays it down or pretends its not there, it is not inconcievable that the GAA operates much the same and rather than leak the scandal it is dealt with in house and swept underneath the carpet. I also feel that journalists are very aware of corruption within the GAA but for local papers in rural areas their editors are most likely very wary of upsetting the apple cart.

If you're not convinced that the media have radio silence on GAA scandals then think about this for one just one moment- in Ireland there are 2,500 odd GAA clubs and a huge amount of these clubs fund raise using a weekly lottery. As far as I know GAA clubs have been running these lotteries since around the time that the National Lottery came into existence, so somewhere around 1988 or 89, about 25 years in total. Now lets be fair and say that 50% of all GAA clubs run a weekly lottery, so 1,250. And let's be fair and say that 99% of GAA members who run and adjudicate these lotteries are straight up honest people and carry out their task diligently. But 1% aren't and are on the fiddle, they might be on the fiddle by stealing money or by fixing the lottery itself to ensure a friend of theirs wins the jackpot on offer. Maybe you might think that is a far flung story but let me tell you from personal experience of working in the pub/hotel game for a decade that I have seen pub Christmas draws fixed to favour regular customers and a draw that was in aid of charity also toyed with (unsold tickets added to the pot to ensure some prizes weren't won and then distributed to the volunteers at end of the night). It is not unusual and it does go on as does lotteries being fixed - the Singapore National Lottery was fixed for years as was the Pennsylvania State lottery and a huge amount of others at some stage or another. Yet in 25 years of more than a 1,250 GAA clubs having lotteries not once have the general public seen a media story about a lottery being fixed. Is it that journalists haven't heard of it happening or is it that they have but the editor decided running such a story could be detrimental to advertising revenue ?

My argument above is that some posters trying to lay all the blame for election of parish pump gombeen politicans at the feet of the GAA is not altogether fair.
The GAA mindset is determined by the Irish mindset not the other way around I would counter.
Our electoral choices are not just down to an organisation headquartered near Jones Road.

I take your point that not all GAA members are card carrying FF and FG members. But my point is that you have to look deeper and look at who actually has their hands on the levers of power within the GAA, i.e. who is serving on club committees, who is serving on county boards, provincial councils, central council, etc and then look at what are their political allegiances. These are the people who have influence within the GAA and are by and large responsible for the current culture of that organisation. I'm making the point that culturally the GAA and FG-FF are very close and given that over the last 30 years we have seen remarkable corruption endemic especially in Fianna Fail it is nothing short of unusual that the GAA has never had any major corruption scandal, especially given the cross--over of members.

I am not saying that the GAA is responsible for the way people vote. But if you're thinking of standing as a politician in the hope of getting elected as a councillor and later as a TD and you are based rurally in Ireland then your two main choices are either FF or FG. After you've chosen which party to allingn with there are a few bases that it would be advisable for you to touch in order to be successful in an election. One of these bases is to get yourself on the board of the local primary or secondary school, another is to get on the local GAA club committee and a third is to have some involvement with either a church group or charity of some description. Politicians know that ticking these boxes gives them a better chance of being elected so therefore politicians (and their band of supporters) are attracted to these organisations in the hope that they can manouvre themselves into a position of responsibility which will help get them elected at local or national level.

StillWaters

And then there is the less than transparent manner in which national lottery money is divied out to sports clubs, and the influence local TDs have on the process.

Balmed Out

RATM wrote: »

I'm calling the sports British from a GAA standpoint,

Im not aware of anybody who does this in the GAA in the current century.

RATM wrote: »

As a political party Labour barely exist in Ireland outside of the main cities

Completely false. They may not return many rural tds but we come from a country whereby up till recently 2 partys got the vast majority of seats. They do have an extensive party machinery etc in any rural area im familiar with. They certainly do in west cork and I know my dads family were heavily involved in the party in North Cork. In Cork alone im pretty sure there are rural tds from west, north and east cork.

RATM wrote: »

Labour tend to get votes in areas where football or rugby is more likely to be the sport of choice amongst kids and their parents.

I think not outside of Limerick. Other then the 20 something yearold taking their time to end their teenage rebellion I dont think labour get many rugby votes. FG and once upon a time the PD's would be the parties of choice.

RATM wrote: »

My guess is that if you counted the overlap of councillors who are also on GAA club committees then FG-FF politicians would make up at least 50% of the overlap and possible as high as 60-70%. That is why I mention FF-FG as being inextricably linked with the GAA.

No idea if any of thats true but when you think about it why is that high? Surely of the age these people are then that would be nearly under representative.

RATM wrote: »

Again I think you're misunderstanding me- I am not saying anyone said that the GAA hasn't got corruption within, I am saying that virtually nobody or no journalist has reported that they do with concrete examples. I feel that a factor in this is that the culture of the GAA is at one with the culture of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael- and the political culture of those two parties has always been that when it comes to an internal scandal the modus operandi is to to deny the public transparency, attempt to change the subject and look the other way.

Are you saying that journalists tend not to report on FF or FG scandals? The GAA is a voluntary body as such I would think its players deserve more privacy then that of a professional athlete.

RATM wrote: »

If you're not convinced that the media have radio silence on GAA scandals then think about this for one just one moment- in Ireland there are 2,500 odd GAA clubs and a huge amount of these clubs fund raise using a weekly lottery.

There have been fixed GAA lotterys that have been reported. A small lottery scandal in ballygobackwords isnt really going to get much national press coverage.


Im sorry but I dont think youre being very fair to the GAA and I think your making an awful lot of points on rural Ireland that are, at least in my experience, very wide of the mark.

Ireland was always a country whereby 2 parties got 70% plus of the votes. Independants were always party members who had lost the whip or whatever but were still very much ff/fg men. The boards of gaa / soccer / swimming / golg etc clubs would all have been full of people with an allegiance to one of those parties.


How has any of this got anything to do with the property market?

jmayo

RATM wrote: »

I'm calling the sports British from a GAA standpoint, not the organistations. I should have instead used the colloquial term 'foreign games', a term which was essentially code within the GAA for the British born sports of football and rugby, which were often called garrison games by GAA supporters in a mocking reference to the British military who played them. When the term 'foreign games' was referred to in the GAA it was always known that it referred to sports associated with the British Emplre, the very fact that the GAA had no problems with American Football being played in Croker long before the 'foreign games' ban was uplifted speaks volumes into what 'foreign games' really meant.

I agree how some have viewed British originated sports, but I think finally the normal members and fans got their way and some of the neanderthals are dying out.
Thre is probably still more of this mindset in the North due to the political/cultural makeup and the history.

RATM wrote: »

Nobody says jack about it yet I reckon it is present and any news of it is typically hush hush- that is my whole point

There is corruption throughout our society and it is only over the last couple of decades that it has been aired.
AFAIK a journalist was run out of Ireland in the 70s for daring to say that ray "the theive" burke was bent.
People knew about the catholic church long before it's dispicable history started coming out into the limelight in the 90s.
Look at the scandals in some of the charity organisations in this country.
Look at scandals in public institutions.
And yes it is time the lid was blown on underhand transactions in the GAA.
One that is often mentioned by GAA members themselves is the the expenses payments to managers, physios, etc.

RATM wrote: »

Now you're making wrong assumptions, I support no party and am a floating voter. Throw Labour & Sinn Fein in there too if you want but my guess is that if you did a survey of every GAA club committee in the country to find out the overlap of serving County Councillors or TD's on those GAA committees then you would find that the vast majority of the overlap is due to FF and FG members with no other party coming anywhere near as close to them in terms of figures. As a political party Labour barely exist in Ireland outside of the main cities, so their overlap would be no-where near as strong as that of FF-FG , Labour tend to get votes in areas where football or rugby is more likely to be the sport of choice amongst kids and their parents.

It is like any other big organisation, politically motivated members often try to rise through the ranks and use the organisation to further their politcal careers.
See how ex IFA president tom parlon made the jump into politics.
And then see how ex GAA president Sean Kelly made the jump into politics.
They both used their national profiles to get exposure.
In the past you would find a lot of union officals involved with the Labour party.

And yes there is history of players (jack lynch, Jimmy Dennighan, Henry Kenny, Dan Spring) and managers (John O'Mahony) jumping into politics.
They have a local profile and can thus attract voters.
It also happens in other countries where even actors make the jump.

RATM wrote: »

If you're not convinced that the media have radio silence on GAA scandals then think about this for one just one moment- in Ireland there are 2,500 odd GAA clubs and a huge amount of these clubs fund raise using a weekly lottery. As far as I know GAA clubs have been running these lotteries since around the time that the National Lottery came into existence, so somewhere around 1988 or 89, about 25 years in total. Now lets be fair and say that 50% of all GAA clubs run a weekly lottery, so 1,250. And let's be fair and say that 99% of GAA members who run and adjudicate these lotteries are straight up honest people and carry out their task diligently. But 1% aren't and are on the fiddle, they might be on the fiddle by stealing money or by fixing the lottery itself to ensure a friend of theirs wins the jackpot on offer.

Of course that might happen where some dodgy type(s) decided to siphon off a few quid but fixing the draws is another thing.
Trust me local people would soon cop on and believe me the whole thing would soon fall apart.
It might work in an urban area, but in small towns and rural areas there is no way people wouldn't figure it out.

I think it is a bit of an insult to both the GAA and Fine Gael, or indeed any of the other parties, to continously link them with ff.
They have proven to stand apart in terms of the levels of fraud, corruption and highly unethical behaviour that not alone to they tolerate but have actively promoted.

The sad thing is that every organisation in Ireland has questionable histories.
It is not limited to one particular organisation and frankly I think that is down to fact they all are Irish.
We tolerate a lot of shyte and we often deal in shades of grey.
That can have advatages but the disadvantage is that peope can use it for unethical or dodgy behaviour.

Some if not most it seems are finally moving on, but there is still lots of work to do.

Anyway back to topic I think in 2020 we will still be feeling the after affects of our big bubble.