Bertie's mature reflections....

AlekSmart

Does Bertie Aherne have any credible points here....?

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/im-sorry-for-the-bubble-sorrier-for-when-it-burst-30785002.html

We had only a million people working at the end of the 1980s. By 2007 we had almost 2.1 million people working. We had really strong improvements in productivity and growth averaging 6.3pc. I felt very pleased when I was in government in my last full year, the debt to GDP ratio was 24pc and the interest we paid as a percentage of GDP was 1pc. The amount of interest as a percentage of all the taxes we were paying was only 2.8pc and we had €22bn in the pension reserve fund. Even back when I was leader of the opposition the debt to GDP ratio was 79pc, the interest to GDP was over 5pc and the interest as a percentage of all the taxes was almost 14pc.

"So whatever the criticisms of some of these people who say 'well, you should have stopped'. Stopped what? We didn't stop exporting. We didn't stop Google. Why do we have Google and Cisco and all of these companies here? Even if there hadn't been a global economic crisis, we still would have a problem with property; I'm not denying that. But I think the exceptional economic growth allowed us to achieve what was the envy of politicians around the world. There were very few criticising it. We were on a catch-up period. The mistake we made? We didn't identify the point when the catch-up period ended."

Doubtless,the passage of time will as it always does,allow for hindsight and revision,but as with CJH before him,are we capable of looking back and seeing a positive aspect of those times ?

andrew

AlekSmart wrote: »

Even if there hadn't been a global economic crisis, we still would have a problem with property"

Absolute bull****. No we wouldn't, and one of the main reasons we had the problem with property was 1) the tax incentives which made building property attractive and 2) pro-cyclical tax policy, like stamp duty.

The mistake we made? We didn't identify the point when the catch-up period ended

Again, absolute bollocks. People did identify that the catch-up period had ended, but nobody in government listened.

Gloomtastic!

Caving in to the trade unions' every demand is where Ahern really ****ed this country over......

Dannyboy83

andrew wrote: »

Again, absolute bollocks. People did identify that the catch-up period had ended, but nobody in government listened.

x2

Bertie should know these distortions are no longer possible due to the internet serving as a permanent record.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/reprimand-for-german-envoy-over-his-coarse-irish-speech-26318339.html
THE German Embassy in Ireland has moved to defuse a diplomatic row after the German Ambassador described Ireland as 'coarse' and criticised our public service system.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/yourview/here-we-ago-again-look-as-foolish-as-you-can-and-call-every-man-sir-137475.html
The German ambassador was rebuked by the Irish government in all its preening glory and was subsequently recalled to his own country. The truth often hurts in a country where then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern once told us we’d be the laughing-stock of the world if we continued to use pencils to cast our votes. So that we wouldn’t become laughing stocks, Martin Cullen ordered some shiny new toys in the form of evoting machines.

http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1015213.shtml
The Sunday Independent reported yesterday that an IDA survey report, which was obtained by Fine Gael TD Leo Varadkar, under Freedom of Information Act, shows that the majority (61 per cent) of the sample of companies would locate in Eastern Europe instead, while almost a quarter (23 per cent) would go to India.

The mainly US and European companies, which employ tens of thousands of people here, have cited the high cost of doing business in Ireland and poor infrastructure as among their reasons.

I recall people talking about Dell's plan to leave Limerick back in 2006

Dell sends 400 Poles for training to Limerick

Senator Joe O'Toole told primary teachers' union activists that getting an increase from the benchmarking body was the equivalent of walking up to an ATM machine.

At the time, the INTO leader was rubbishing the attempt of the secondary teachers union, ASTI, to achieve a catch-up pay rise of 30pc outside of benchmarking. But the phrase summed up the view of the public sector of the benchmarking exercise as a means merely to get a wage rise -- not fundamental changes of work practices.

The benchmarking awards were supposed to be made in return for major reforms.

The programme provided wage increases of an average of 9pc in 2002, costing the taxpayer €1.1bn per annum.

It wasn't a once-off payment. It was a permanent increase.

But the individual reform plans were so watery, they showed contempt for the taxpayers' outlay.

The public sector wanted to be paid the same as the private sector, but without the same terms and conditions, while retaining their job security and pension entitlements.

Fine Gael's Richard Bruton drew the opprobrium of the public sector upon himself when he stated the payments should be withheld until the reforms were specified and verified. The Government ignored his claims, but history has proven him right.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan now appears to be admitting the influence of social partnership and major spending programmes like benchmarking was damaging.

Scofflaw

Impressive opening bid by the Indo stable in the campaign to whitewash FF in advance of the next general election...

cynically,
Scofflaw

Potatoeman

Im no Bertie or FF fan but people voted for him during the tribunal and no one seemed to care until things went wrong. He is very responsible but voters need to look at themselves too.

Rob Thomas

Potatoeman wrote: »

Im no Bertie or FF fan but people voted for him during the tribunal and no one seemed to care until things went wrong. He is very responsible but voters need to look at themselves too.

Completely agree with this. Of course Fianna Fáil drove headlong into this crisis but all Bertie was ever concerned about was keeping the influential unions onside and giving the voting majority exactly what they wanted. That ensured continued power for FF.

Absolutely, there were some dissenters saying our property obsession was madness but most people were very quiet when FF were handing out wage increases and tax breaks and SSIAs and were quite happy to ride on the coat-tails.

Our attitude to debt changed and, unlike our parents, many people decided that they wanted a higher standard of living but didn't want to wait to save for it. People lived on the never-never and if FF didn't give it to them, they would have voted for the people who would have given it to them.

I remember Shane Ross and others being on the last word years ago saying that people who didn't put money into irish Bank shares were crazy, these were global institutions showing all the other Banks how it was done. And I remember FG and the socialists telling Charlie McCreevy and Cowen that they were not giving enought away in the budgets. Opposition is just that, promoting the opposite of what the government is doing and it changes when the narrative demands.

It might not be at the next election, but you can be sure that, sooner or later, those saying that FF are the devils children who ruined the country etc and all that will vote for them again in their droves.

All politics is local and it's all about what the voter personally get out of it. That's why Lowry, Healy Rae and Willie O'Dea a always top their local polls. No one really cares what they do as long as they deliver for them.

Scofflaw

Potatoeman wrote: »

Im no Bertie or FF fan but people voted for him during the tribunal and no one seemed to care until things went wrong. He is very responsible but voters need to look at themselves too.

It always impressed me that even though 42% voted FF in the 2007 election, by 2011 you couldn't find a soul who was apparently one of that number. It's sort of the opposite of the GPO in 1916.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Voltex

What amazes me is that we can chatter about the effects of the pro-cyclical budgets..yet how would we have honestly voted if told that when times are good we are going be taxed more and spending cut?

We are collectively responsible as a Nation for voting in a Government that gave us what we wanted...more spending and less tax.

Dannyboy83

Potatoeman wrote: »

Im no Bertie or FF fan but people voted for him during the tribunal and no one seemed to care until things went wrong. He is very responsible but voters need to look at themselves too.

Many voters don't even know that they ought to look at themselves tho.
The problem was, you had people like me voting for them.

I don't think I voted in 2007, but I definitely voted for Michael Martin before that.

Before I began participating in this forum in 2008, I didn't have what I would now consider a prerequisite understanding of Irish politics yet I still had the ability to vote.
We had no political education whatsoever in school - just what I had picked up on the fly, like most Irish people and I've come across grown men who don't even know who the Prime Minister is, yet they can still vote.

I can see clearly now that it was insanity that I was allowed to vote but unless I had began participating in this forum, I would have never realised how ignorant I was and would never have took it upon myself to actually read up and educate myself.

When I think of all the people who joined the rugby or soccer forum instead of the politics one, many probably still don't realise how clueless they are, they're probably still voting for a tribe not a policy (if there is still a tribe to follow in Irish politics that is....)
It makes me question whether one should have to sit a Theory Test to get a license to vote.

Voltex

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Many voters don't even know that they ought to look at themselves tho.
The problem was, you had people like me voting for them.

I don't think I voted in 2007, but I definitely voted for Michael Martin before that.

Before I began participating in this forum in 2008, I didn't have what I would now consider a prerequisite understanding of Irish politics yet I still had the ability to vote.
We had no political education whatsoever in school - just what I had picked up on the fly, like most Irish people and I've come across grown men who don't even know who the Prime Minister is, yet they can still vote.

I can see clearly now that it was insanity that I was allowed to vote but unless I had began participating in this forum, I would have never realised how ignorant I was and would never have took it upon myself to actually read up and educate myself.

When I think of all the people who joined the rugby or soccer forum instead of the politics one, many probably still don't realise how clueless they are, they're probably still voting for a tribe not a policy (if there is still a tribe to follow in Irish politics that is....)
It makes me question whether one should have to sit a Theory Test to get a license to vote.

Many years ago I used to think like this. Listening to the gob****es going on about how great the Shinners are and what a marvellous fellow Joe Higgins was. I used to think that maybe we shouldn't allow fools the right to vote, that maybe we should restrict the right to vote in general elections to people who held degrees. The silly, childish view I had ended when I saw this:

Idbatterim

Many voters don't even know that they ought to look at themselves tho.
The problem was, you had people like me voting for them.

Yeah, when I was leaving school, one tutor always said it is your responsibility to vote, people died so that you can etc. Seamus Brennan was a local FF TD and I voted for him, he was one of the better ones though in my opinion.

I used to think that maybe we shouldn't allow fools the right to vote, that maybe we should restrict the right to vote in general elections to people who held degrees. The silly, childish view I had ended when I saw this:

I would say the better educated you are, the better your knowledge on a host of topics. But my mates with degrees wouldnt know any more on this subject than those without one. Their knowledge on the economy and different parties is very poor. The every little hurts from Labour etc last time round, got them a lot of votes, the propaganda is so simple, yet so effective.

Its simplistic in the extreme, but most of the electorates view of politics and economics is too... If I were to discuss say the next election with neighbours or mates, if what they have to say on the subject was posted here, people would assume it was trolling, and thats in Dublin 14...