Local Elections 2014: What issues will you be raising with candidates on the door?

Hughjarse1

But the electorate voted big time for the Independents and Sinn Fein. They did not vote for the political dinosaurs of FG and FF . That is why so many people are rightly upset with so called "independents" joining the ranks of FG and FF. Tom Fortune put it so elegantly when he described it as disgusting.

Annasopra

DazMarz wrote: »

Fair enough, 4 "independents" (Fox, Murphy, Nolan, Ruttle) voted with FF/FG on the first meeting.

On the other side of that coin, 5 "independents" voted with SF/Green on the first meeting (Cullen, Fortune, Kavanagh, Thornhill, Whitmore). Are they no longer independent? They voted with parties.

The only independent councillor who sided with nobody and went his own way during the first meeting was Joe Behan. All the rest of them voted to work with either of the two factions.

I would also add that some of the "opposition" choices for certain positions was farcial:

-For the position of Cathaoirleach (chairperson), the two candidates were Christopher Fox and Pat Kavanagh. Let's be brutally honest here; the logical choice is clear. Fox is a councillor with over 10 years' experience in WCC, is well liked and well respected across the board and is a fair and decent man. Pat Kavanagh had been on WCC for roughly 2 weeks. Even Joe Behan voted for Christopher Fox.

-For the chair of various SPC's (Strategic Policy Committees), again, it came down to experience and seniority in many cases, as well as the personal popularity of the councillors in question.
-Economic Development & Enterprise was between Pat Casey and Tom Fortune. While both have been on the council since 2004, it is well known that Tom Fortune has ruffled more than a few feathers in his time and Casey has not. Simple.
-Community, Cultural & Social Development was between Jim Ruttle and Pat Kavanagh. Jim Ruttle has been a councillor since the early 1990's and was a Senator in the 1980's. Experience and reliability. Kavanagh, as mentioned before, had only been a councillor for about a fortnight.
-Housing & Corporate Estate was uncontested. John Snell was the only nomination. As this was seen as the "poisoned chalice" SPC, nobody else wanted it. Snell accepted it, and is seen by all sides as a pragmatic, realistic and safe Chairperson. He is a great councillor, but he has his work cut out for him here.
-Transportation & Environment was between Derek Mitchell and Jennifer Whitmore. Again, experience was the big one here. Whitmore was only a councillor for about 2 weeks. Mitchell has been a councillor since 1999. It is also interesting to note that Pat Doran was also interested in chairing this (due to massive roadworks that will be taking place in his district in the coming years), so he will be chairing this SPC from 2017. Again, Doran has been there since 1999 and experience told.
-Planning was between Vincent Blake and Stephen Matthews. Having a Green Party councillor over planning did not sit well with a lot of people, particularly the rural councillors (as the Green Party opposes one-off houses being built in rural areas). Also, Matthews had only been a county councillor for 2 weeks before this AGM. Blake has been there since 1991. Syl Bourke will take over from Blake in 2017, as he has an avid interest in this SPC due to construction works in Arklow, and Bourke has been a councillor since 1999.

Had the candidates been better, they may have snuck in. But the fact is that they put up candidates who were so inexperienced or who were undesirable to other councillors (due to policy or personal reasons) that it was never going to work.

I would also add that a lot of the rage is pretty illogical. FG/FF control 15 of the 32 seats on WCC. SF/GP only have 7. For sure, SF got a huge amount of votes, but they only ran 7 candidates and only 6 of them got elected. FG/FF may not have gotten a huge vote, but they ran a lot of candidates and 15 of them managed to get elected (some by the bones of their arse, but whether you top the poll or squeak in is all the same; a seat on the council is a seat on the council, regardless of how it is won). Enough people voted for FG/FF, hence why they have a near majority of the seats.

Also, are people who voted for the likes of Jennifer Whitmore (who seems like a wonderful, likeable, intelligent, pragmatic and realistic person) REALLY happy that she has apparently gotten into bed with Sinn Féin/Green Party? I know the alternative was get into bed with Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil... Jesus, that's like asking: "Who would you prefer shagged your girlfriend? Your brother or your best friend?".

Add to that, this was only the first meeting. There's a long, long way to go yet. A lot of people and a certain website are raging, but there's a long way to go yet. 5 years to be exact. Let's judge all these councillors over the next 5 years, see what they do... and if they did good work, vote for them. If they were fúcking useless, turf them out via the ballot box. It's that simple.

Very interesting post. I have to say I find some of your comments very objectionable though.
1 Personal popularity should be used to determine who should get a job - really? Should popularity be used ahead of capability?
2 Experience - honestly I found your posts on "experience" incredibly dismissive - you seem to think only experience served as a County Councillor matters - thats frankly insulting to a lot of new councillors - Does Cllr Kavanagh and Cllr Matthews previous town council experience mean nothing? Does the experience of Cllr Fortune as a managerial consultant mean nothing? Does Cllr Whitmores experience in the environmental sector mean nothing?
3 Yes men - basically what you are saying is that it was predecided that anyone who was given a position should be a yes man (literally) - that they shouldn't ever question things or ruffle any feathers.

I tend to be pragmatic on this as a whole but I really do find it objectionable that jobs could only goto MEN who were either A personally popular, B experienced in the sole area of being a County Councillor or C Yes Men.

Hughjarse1

Jobs for the old boys as stated by the Wicklow Times.
The underhand behind the scenes actions of FG/FF to dish out the jobs among themselves is typical of the corrupt and arrogant mentality of these two parties. There is plenty of talent among the independents and Sinn Fein for them to be given chairmanships of committees. The previous post trying to justify this stroke politics is just more propaganda from the FF/ FG people.

DazMarz

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

Very interesting post. I have to say I find some of your comments very objectionable though.
1 Personal popularity should be used to determine who should get a job - really? Should popularity be used ahead of capability?
2 Experience - honestly I found your posts on "experience" incredibly dismissive - you seem to think only experience served as a County Councillor matters - thats frankly insulting to a lot of new councillors - Does Cllr Kavanagh and Cllr Matthews previous town council experience mean nothing? Does the experience of Cllr Fortune as a managerial consultant mean nothing? Does Cllr Whitmores experience in the environmental sector mean nothing?
3 Yes men - basically what you are saying is that it was predecided that anyone who was given a position should be a yes man (literally) - that they shouldn't ever question things or ruffle any feathers.

I tend to be pragmatic on this as a whole but I really do find it objectionable that jobs could only goto MEN who were either A personally popular, B experienced in the sole area of being a County Councillor or C Yes Men.

I agree, there are some arguments to be made against what I said... no doubt. But that is what is refreshing about debate.

I would say that no, personal popularity should NOT be a bearing on who gets a job. But, unfortunately, it does have a bearing. Charismatic, charming and personable people generally fare better in all walks of life as opposed to opinionated, less-charismatic and more fire-brand people. But nowhere moreso in politics. It is bad that if you are a popular person that you will get further in life, but that is the sad reality of it. That said, not only is someone like Christopher Fox popular, he is also highly competent and an excellent councillor who fully deserves the post he finds himself in.

Also, consider the case of Brian Crowley, MEP. A lot of moaning and groaning from people when he gets elected. People ask "Why?! How?!". Simple. As someone who has met him a couple of times, I can safely say he is the most charismatic and charming man I've ever met. He controls a room like nobody else. When he speaks, people listen. He could tell a person to "Fúck off", and they would be looking forward to the journey. People don't look past the surface; he charms them, speaks to them and they listen and think "What a great guy!" and they vote for him, based on his charm and charisma. Sure, he also does good work, but (and not deliberately bashing him; the man has medical issues) his attendance in the European Parliament has been poor enough of late and so on. People question his ability to work. But he has charmed the pants off enough people to ensure a good vote. He's Ireland's version of Bill Clinton in terms of charisma.

It's that simple. Charisma, charm and personality count for a lot with the voters.

Maybe I was overly dismissive of other councillors for lacking experience. But I do believe that having experience at a town council level and a county council level are two different things and a county councillor is a bigger and more demanding job. I understand that maybe I ran down the qualifications of certain councillors more than I should have, but I stand by what I said. I believe that the more experienced heads should get the jobs that their experience will be advantageous in.

That said, experience does not necessarily mean "good at their job". But I'd be more inclined to trust people who have been around the block a few times in the arena of politics. Maybe that makes me naive, but it's just how I am.

I think it is less about being a yes-man than being pragmatic, realistic and being open to working with others. Some of the independents and some Sinn Féin councillors have a real siege mentality going on and are absolutely opposed to working with others under any circumstances. This is not conducive to running a county council.

This also leads, however, to a "same old, same old" vibe; the same guys getting the cream jobs while many get left out in the cold. But at the back of it all, if the "opposition" cannot form a cohesive unit to effectively wrest control of the council from the old guard, surely the blame lies with them? Surely they should have done more, fought harder and worked their absolute butts off to make sure things swung in the way they wanted. I don't think they worked enough. SF/GP had a golden opportunity to get control of the council, but they blew it. Unfortunately, we will never know how much better things may have been with them in control. But ultimate blame must also lie at their door for failing in their negotiating abilities.

Politics is all about negotiation, compromise and cooperation. And they failed in that regard.

I would also point out that yes, it is true, Independents and Sinn Féin received a huge percentage of the votes in the election. But they did not receive a huge percentage of the seats, especially Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin only held 6 seats of 32. Independents held 10 seats. Add in Stephen Matthews of the Green Party and that gave the Ind/SF/GP "coalition" 17 seats. However, the independents were not a hive mind and did not see eye-to-eye on all the issues (this being the very essence of being an independent politician). Add in, many rural-based councillors were not comfortable with the Green Party being anywhere near the controls due to differences of opinion over issues regarding the way of life in rural areas.

By contrast, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, despite not getting as many votes as the others, got a huge percentage of the seats. 15 of 32 between them. While a "coalition" between Ind/SF/GP was very fragile and very dependent upon a lot of cooperation between contrasting views and personalities, a working group of FG/FF and 2 independents (all that was needed to form a majority) was always going to be much more "stable" (seeing as FG/FF think along the same lines on most things). The FG/FF group only needed to "lure" 2 members to their side. They had 10 independents and possibly Stephen Matthews to choose from. They only needed 2 from 11 to swing, so they always had a very, very good chance of succeeding.

I would also call into question the capacity of the negotiating skills of certain SF members and of "leaders" of the Independents; if they were unable to get the cooperation and support of all the independents (too much uncertainty in what they were offering/proposing), I would question their ability to lead and to follow through on a "mandate" that was allegedly given to them.

This is the intrinsic problem with the PR system; yes, a lot of people gave their first preferences to Independents or Sinn Féin... but it was their further preferences, the 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, etc. that saw votes transfer to FG/FF and allow more of them to get elected. Whether they intended this or not is irrelevant. It is what happened. They may have given their 2/3/4/5 to an Independent or something, but as more and more candidates got elected/eliminated, the lower preferences of 7/8/9/10/etc came increasingly into play. People probably though that a 10 preference would not make a difference. With a huge pool of candidates, a #10 could be as crucial as a #1 in later counts.

Take, as examples, the huge 1st Preference votes received by Jennifer Whitmore and John Brady. They had nearly enough votes to take 2 seats. But the reality is that they can only take 1. Their massive surpluses transferred to other candidates. Fair enough, Brady's surplus transferred mostly to Oliver O'Brien, but enough would have transferred further down the line to the likes of John Ryan or Pat Vance. Jennifer Whitmore's transfers would have helped in getting Mitchell, McLoughlin or Walsh elected.

Sinn Féin only ran 7 candidates, of whom 6 were elected. Only 6. Had Sinn Féin gotten more candidates elected, they would have been in a position to lead the council. But their transfer toxicity and a lack of Sinn Féin running mates in Baltinglass, Arklow and Greystones meant that they did not have a lot of opportunities to get more candidates elected. And if they had run more candidates, they probably would have split their vote and gotten less elected.

Wicklow LEA was a good example of Independents scuppering their own chances; so many Independents ran here, especially around Wicklow Town, that the vote was split way too many ways to allow a huge amount of them to get elected. Also, geographical issues meant that seats were almost "destined" to go to certain candidates, based on the catchment area that they lived in.

Pat Casey was always going to take a huge vote from around Laragh/Moneystown/Annamoe/Trooperstown/Glendalough/Roundwood. Cullen was going to get a huge vote from Roundwood/Newtown/Moneystown/Annamoe. Nolan was always going to get the big vote from Newtown/Kilpedder/Roundwood/Ashford. Snell was going to clean up in Rathnew/Glenealy/Ashford/Wicklow Town. They were the local candidates in those areas and if they got the local people out, they were always going to do well. And they did. Those 4 candidates topped the poll and were never in any real danger of not being elected after the first count (John Snell was elected on the first count). While the quota was 1470 in Wicklow, once a candidate got circa 1100 first preferences on the first count, they were as good as elected.

But in Wicklow town, the votes went crazy everywhere. There were simply too many candidates for there to be a hope for many independents to get elected. The transferring of votes was insane. All the major parties were also represented in Wicklow Town and there were at least 5 Independents. Irene Winters was always going to get elected, so that cut the potential seats for Wicklow Town for an independent down to 1. It also looked like, for a long time, that Gail Dunne (FF) would take the final seat. But transfers from Goodman/Kinsella/Morrison got Kavanagh over the line on the final counts, leapfrogging Dunne into the 6th and final seat.

I can see why some of the electorate are pissed, they probably voted for Independents and so on as their FIRST preference... forgetting that giving any kind of a preference to a Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil candidate could have HUGE repercussions on the final make up of the council. I'm sure many people who gave, say, Brady their first in Bray didn't think that sticking a 10 next to Pat Vance would have a huge bearing. But in all likelihood, it did. Vance only beat David Grant to the final seat in Bray by a handful of votes. Ditto Tom Curran losing out in Arklow was only by less than a dozen votes to Mary McDonald.

Those preferences down the list make a HUGE difference, and people forget that. Sure, you may have voted #1 for John Brady. But because he had such a huge surplus and had so many votes to distribute over so many counts, if you had put John Ryan or Pat Vance in ANYWHERE on that ballot paper, there's a very big chance that you helped them get elected, despite not wanting to.

The lesson? It defeats the purpose of the PR system, but if you want to be sure that the candidates/parties you DON'T like don't get elected... don't even give them a preference anywhere on the ballot sheet. It will prevent your vote travelling to them at any time. You may not think it, but a 10 or 11 could have a huge bearing on the final counts of the election if the field of candidates is big.

Zoo4m8

Look..any chance this post could be elevated to 'sticky' status on its own..then all the 'it's not fair, cute hoor, stroke, jobs for the boys ' posters could be referred to it...
This, more or less, is how it works, like it or not .. As said, without a cohesive opposition to sling out the established people this is how it will continue to work...simple
I remember being told by an old hand long ago if you want 'Joe Bloggs' in put 1 beside his name and put the paper in the box..again, simple..
Giving yer man down the road your number 12 just cos he was at school with your brother in law is giving him your vote...so don't whinge when he gets elected on the 6th count .

Hughjarse1

It was a great pity that people gave their lower preferences to the rogues in the FF/FG parties rather than just Independent and Sinn Fein. This is a big lesson for us all in the forthcoming General Election. However when we vote Independent we don't mean undercover FF/FG. Tom Fortune is right when he describes this treachery as wrong and and the secret deals to buy their support as disgusting.

MouseTail

Who led the negotiations for the Indo/SF grouping? It was always going to be difficult for them to get a coherent grouping, but they were totally out manouvered on this.

Hughjarse1

MouseTail wrote: »

Who led the negotiations for the Indo/SF grouping? It was always going to be difficult for them to get a coherent grouping, but they were totally out manouvered on this.

Years and years of stroke politics and corrupt dirty activities from FF/FG. I am afraid came into play . Our people need to think like these bousies and fight fire with fire. I see the latest stroke politics from Kenny and FG to fix the outcome of the banking enquiry has resulted in Stephen Donnelly resigning from the committee. Kenny is now like a 1930's dictator making up the rules to suit himself. The sheer arrogance and contempt these people have for the Irush people is frightening and alarming.

Annasopra

Hughjarse1 wrote: »

It was a great pity that people gave their lower preferences to the rogues in the FF/FG parties rather than just Independent and Sinn Fein. This is a big lesson for us all in the forthcoming General Election. However when we vote Independent we don't mean undercover FF/FG. Tom Fortune is right when he describes this treachery as wrong and and the secret deals to buy their support as disgusting.

I can't take Tom Fortune seriously on this tbh.

He benefited from deals with FF and FG in the past.

Annasopra

DazMarz wrote: »

This also leads, however, to a "same old, same old" vibe; the same guys getting the cream jobs while many get left out in the cold. But at the back of it all, if the "opposition" cannot form a cohesive unit to effectively wrest control of the council from the old guard, surely the blame lies with them? Surely they should have done more, fought harder and worked their absolute butts off to make sure things swung in the way they wanted. I don't think they worked enough. SF/GP had a golden opportunity to get control of the council, but they blew it. Unfortunately, we will never know how much better things may have been with them in control. But ultimate blame must also lie at their door for failing in their negotiating abilities.

I think it's naive to believe they all actually wanted control. Some of the Shinners and Independents just like being in opposition and posturing and complaining from the sidelines. It suits them politically.

zoobizoo

I'm sure many of the Independents would object to doing deals with SF.

Just because they're not for FF/FG doesn't mean they'll necessarily align themselves with the Shinners.

Hughjarse1

At this stage Sinn Fein have more political credibility than FG and FF. At least they are not shackled by the austerity policies of the right wing parties who continue to persecute to pay off the rich bond holders.

DazMarz

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

I can't take Tom Fortune seriously on this tbh.

He benefited from deals with FF and FG in the past.

This.

I have an awful lot of time for Tom Fortune. I think he is a decent man and does a lot for his local area.

But in the past, people forget, he was a part of an agreement with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to snooker Independents out of key positions to ensure his own position as Chairman. He succeeded in snookering a lot of people out of key positions, and never complained. But now, because he was on the "losing" side of the fight, he is up in arms and throwing the toys from the pram. Anyone who heard him talk on East-Coast FM earlier in the week... he sounded so bitter about it, but was crucified by Declan Meehan over his previous dealings in 2009 to secure the chair for himself.

Hughjarse1

Tom Fortune an outstanding community politician. He is not under the control of the party whip system which makes the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil people do what they are told by the shady vested interests who control the actions of these parties. Tom was superb on the Declan Meehan and was not given a hard time by him. Bogus independent Fox was given a very hard time by Meehan for his betrayal of the independent cause.

LEIN

Since the elections are well over, further discussion can take place in the political forums.