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Is it not time EVERYONE considers not voting for FF or FG in the upcoming election
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Field east wrote: »You seem to be making the assumption that some ministers are inherently bad from the outset and behave badly while being a minister. That is a very big stretch of the imagination. Would you not accept that of the 15 ministerial portfolios , one or two of them might get it wrong some of the time and NOT on purpose. Take the voting machines or the land bought for , was it 15millon and in Co Meath by Minister Ml McDowell at the time , for a new prison for example. These were cabinet approved decisions but did not turn out well. At the time the line ministers thought that they were good ideas. The whole fiasco in both cases, IMO , does not make them bad ministers. I am sure that they did some good things while in government as well and also contributed to debate/decisions on other gov programmers by other ministers that turned out to be the right thing to do
McDowell is a racist. He railed against the Direct Provision system and the amount of supposedly false asylum claims. Now people might back that mode of thinking but we as a country have done very little for the people in war torn Syria for example. He was the class A example of disconnected self entitled elite that run the system for themselves.0 -
Lonesomerhodes wrote: »We don't have a right wing proper alternative.
For example
Fianna Fail
Fine Gael
Sinn Fein
People before profit
Socialist party
Solidarity
etc etc
ALL LEFT parties.
Only real right party in Ireland is the National party and they are tiny and marginalized due to their leader.
Really is a joke no right alternative AT ALL in Ireland.
I am voting for the IFP candidate in Clare and voted for their candidate in the Euros too.0 -
Deleted User wrote: »They'd probably get a vote off me, if they had someone running in my constituency - Waterford City. Not a solitary candidate in the whole south-east.
I don't think there's a more poorly organised party in the country.
Even badly organized as they may be they are running 20 candidates and the harsh reality is that it takes time and effort to grow a small party and to get canidates to step forward.
20 SD's elected is 20 less FF/FG TD's then I am all for that.darklighter wrote: »it really is a sad state of affairs when that's whats on offer from the 2 main parties.
while I wouldn't vote for anyone on the loony left normally, those 3 would make one think very hard about it :eek:
What is so "looney" about wanting a one tier universal health care model and our taxes put to more affordable and social housing?
We really need to drop this "looney left" rhetoric because it is doing no favours (only to keep FF and FG in power).Yes this country does have pensioners, children, disabled and unemployed (but our unemployment rate is far less than most countries). Even these pay considerable amounts of taxes in VAT, levies, LPT, fuel taxes and other stealth charges in proportion to what they receive.
I dont thinks its width of the tax band thats the problem. I think it is that certain groups pay a disproportionate amount of tax. But the only way to fix that is to tax the extremely wealthy more (single income of €120k for arguments sake) so that the stress is removed from the middle. You cant tax the pensioners, disabled, children or the unemployed any more unless you are prepared that their benefits increase somehow, which defeats the whole point.
The problem is far too many people buy into this madness that claims if you tax the extremely wealthy that the jobs will disappear. This logic is just lunacy but suits the wealthier and interested parties to propagate. Personal taxes on income are not and never will be taxes on business.
The biggest problem this country has is that we have a civil service, state agencies and other bodies that simply do not get best value for money. They are spending state money, which equates to them as someone else's money, so they simply do not care. Our competitive tendering is a joke, if every company overcharges (as they do) when tendering there will never be good value. Also its very apparent that our biggest services and agencies are extremely lazy when it comes to tendering. We have a children's hospital tendered at a certain price and suddenly its now nearly double. No penalty clauses, no fixed price tendering, no time limits, no legal stipulation, in fact nothing that a typical private sector corporation or business would ensure were in place before they put pen to contract. personally I would like to see a system similar to a dutch auction put in place where the state offers a price and the first business that accepts that price (as long as all conditions of the tender are met), gets the contract. If no provider accepts then simply go another round.
We also have absolutely no incentive whatsoever for these agencies to save money. If they save 50 million this year, the result is next years budget is reduced by that amount. Having worked for a company that did a lot of work for state bodies and county councils I can tell you that the sales guys cleaned up every year simply calling them a few weeks before their financial year was up, as the managers of these agencies were keen to ensure their entire budget was used and any surplus spent.
Nail on the head. The public sector waste is quite literally criminal and a beady eye needs to be cast over it to see where the massive savings can (and quite easily) be made. However I bet the unions would quash this fairly lively
ChikiChiki wrote: »This old chestnut. Maybe if the current tax we pay was not wasted in so many areas then people would happily pay more tax.
That is all anyone wants isn't it? Honestly, just to see better services for my tax bill.0 -
McDowell is a racist. He railed against the Direct Provision system and the amount of supposedly false asylum claims. Now people might back that mode of thinking but we as a country have done very little for the people in war torn Syria for example. He was the class A example of disconnected self entitled elite that run the system for themselves.
Most AS are bogus, that is well known and established.
It is not racist to say so.
The Syrian refugees are genuine.0 -
Field east wrote: »You seem to be making the assumption that some ministers are inherently bad from the outset and behave badly while being a minister. That is a very big stretch of the imagination. Would you not accept that of the 15 ministerial portfolios , one or two of them might get it wrong some of the time and NOT on purpose. Take the voting machines or the land bought for , was it 15millon and in Co Meath by Minister Ml McDowell at the time , for a new prison for example. These were cabinet approved decisions but did not turn out well. At the time the line ministers thought that they were good ideas. The whole fiasco in both cases, IMO , does not make them bad ministers. I am sure that they did some good things while in government as well and also contributed to debate/decisions on other gov programmers by other ministers that turned out to be the right thing to do
I never said all TD's or ministers are bad.
What is bad is that invariably other ministers or a Taoiseach will make no end of excuses and promises to cover up or absolve simple bad management or performance.
I accept everyone, including TD's and ministers and yes even myself, will and do make mistakes from time to time. The difference though is when you make a mistake at work, do you acknowledge the mistake, do you take action to resolve the problem? or do you expect your colleagues to hide it and carry on regardless.
Would your company management find it acceptable that no action was taken to resolve a mistake you had made, or accept excuses and bluster. We both know they certainly would not. If they find an employee incapable of doing a job, or seriously fecking up, they would remove that employ completely, or reassign them to a job more suited to them.
Why should it be different for any TD or Minister?
But it seems there is very much a culture in recent Irish governments where incompetence or those responsible for terrible decision making are not only left continue, but never face any kind of sanction, and worse actually promoted.
If FF had been genuinely remorseful for the calamity they caused our country, they would at the very least have removed ministers deeply involved in those decisions and mismanagement from their front bench. Instead what did we see, not only were they left as is without any sanction or action taken, but worse one of them being appointed leader of the party.
Surely you are not telling me that were not sufficient competent FF TD's that could have replaced those that had been so disastrous at their jobs. Had FF done that, and made it very clear why they were cleaning shop and removing certain TD's or ministers from their front benches, then I am certain they would have done far far better in the last general election and probably would be winning this election by a landslide and having a clear Dail majority where the need for a coalition partner might not even be necessary.
The same could be said of a few current FG ministers. Simon Harris has been less than stellar in health, so too has their housing minister, Zappone also. Instead of removing them and replacing them with someone who was more competent for those roles instead we have had sound bite after sound bite making excuses for incompetence.
The same applies for FG as I have said for FF. I dont believe that they do not have competent alternatives for these positions, but instead of accepting fault or attempting to correct a problem, they continue on as if nothing has happened. They would be far more trusted and be doing far better in this election had they done so.
As stated in my opening post. I am not advocating any party, I simply find it appalling that we the electorate are supposed to accept incompetence and mediocrity at every single election and there never is any willingness to accept wrong or correct wrong by government parties.
If political parties are not willing to clean up their shop then surely we should be by refusing to vote for those who were incompetent no matter which party we might want to support.0 -
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It certainly is. We must always consider all options available to us in order to vote responsibly.
But at the moment, sensible people will, in the main, conclude that FF and FG are the best options available to them, and so vote for them.
Irish politics presents few genuine political option to the voter - because the voter doesnt want them - the options available represent the very homogenious desires of those voters. The political spectrum is very narrow. The quality and capability of the people of most parties is essentially all the same, apart from SF, whose members are supporters of murder and illegality. So a business as usual government will be returned whatever, and thoughtful voters will be satisfied.
The only disfunction in the system at the moment is that of independents, whose numbers have grown from an insignificant handful of curios and novelty acts, to an arithmatically troubling gumming up of the Dail. Some clearly havent the capability to vote even in their own interest, but given the scale of the problem, this surely cannot count for all voters for indendents. Its hard to know how to deal with this problem.0 -
The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »It certainly is. We must always consider all options available to us in order to vote responsibly.
But at the moment, sensible people will, in the main, conclude that FF and FG are the best options available to them, and so vote for them.
Irish politics presents few genuine political option to the voter - because the voter doesnt want them - the options available represent the very homogenious desires of those voters. The political spectrum is very narrow. The quality and capability of the people is essentially all the same, apart from SF, whose members are supporters of murder and illegality. So a business as usual government will be returned whatever, and thoughtful voters will be satisfied.
The only disfunction in the system at the moment is that of independence, whose numbers have grown from an insignificant handful of curios and novelty acts, to an arithmatically troubling gumming up of the Dail. Some clearly havent the capability to vote even in their own interest, but given the scale of the problem, this surely cannot count for all voters for indendents. Its hard to know how to deal with this problem.
But I'm not even suggesting that people do not vote for a party that they wish to support.
All it would need is NOT to give a first preference to any candidate that has performed badly in government. You still can give that party a preference vote if you wanted to support it or vote for another candidate for that particular party.
The party tally men would quickly realise what was happening and you could be sure the party would take action if only for self interest.
I think an awful lot of those considering voting for SF would take offence that you suggest that they support murder and illegality, and rightly too. Maybe many choosing SF are doing so because they have got totally sick of the FF/FG merry-go-round where nothing improves and incompetence is perfectly acceptable simply because FF/FG feel they cannot be dislodged no matter what they do.0 -
Would your company management find it acceptable that no action was taken to resolve a mistake you had made, or accept excuses and bluster. We both know they certainly would not. If they find an employee incapable of doing a job, or seriously fecking up, they would remove that employ completely, or reassign them to a job more suited to them.
When I make a mistake at work I generally am dealing with a rational manager and customer who understand mistakes happen and give me leeway to rectify mistakes. We can then adjust processes and procedures to avoid the issue happening again. The customer understands that even in one of the best rated companies in the world on almost every metric, can still make mistakes from time to time, and it's just part of how the world works. Every detail of the mistake doesn't need to be plastered across the face of every media outlet in the country.
In the world of politics this leeway doesn't exist. Well certainly among the segments of the electorate and opposition who jump and attack given a hint of opportunity. No leeway is given to correct mistakes. Even admitting mistakes will turn into soundbites for the opposition to use and attack futher.
When is the last time you have seen a party like Sinn Fein actually give FG credit for doing something good. Is it possible that despite not being perfect FG have actually managed to achieve some good. Anything FG do good, SF will claim was one of their ideas anyways. This is true for all parties, and will continue to be true regardless of who we elect. It's this type of culture and attitude that makes it very difficult for ministers and governments to public discuss their own failures.
If you look back over the years, you will find that many ministers have actually being removed from their posts. Even recently Frances Fitzgerald and Alan Shatter left the role of Minister for Justice or are our memories so short? In my company, I would hope that at the first sign of making a mistake I wouldn't be fired from my role, or forced to resign.0 -
When I make a mistake at work I generally am dealing with a rational manager and customer who understand mistakes happen and give me leeway to rectify mistakes. We can then adjust processes and procedures to avoid the issue happening again. The customer understands that even in one of the best rated companies in the world on almost every metric, can still make mistakes from time to time, and it's just part of how the world works. Every detail of the mistake doesn't need to be plastered across the face of every media outlet in the country.
In the world of politics this leeway doesn't exist. Well certainly among the segments of the electorate and opposition who jump and attack given a hint of opportunity. No leeway is given to correct mistakes. Even admitting mistakes will turn into soundbites for the opposition to use and attack futher.
When is the last time you have seen a party like Sinn Fein actually give FG credit for doing something good. Is it possible that despite not being perfect FG have actually managed to achieve some good. Anything FG do good, SF will claim was one of their ideas anyways. This is true for all parties, and will continue to be true regardless of who we elect. It's this type of culture and attitude that makes it very difficult for ministers and governments to public discuss their own failures.
If you look back over the years, you will find that many ministers have actually being removed from their posts. Even recently Frances Fitzgerald and Alan Shatter left the role of Minister for Justice or are our memories so short? In my company, I would hope that at the first sign of making a mistake I wouldn't be fired from my role, or forced to resign.
Where do I even begin.
So you agree that you will do everything possible to rectify a mistake that you freely admit to while at work. Management are happy with that because they see you doing your job to the best of your ability and keep you customers happy. The mistake or feck up is rectified but never simply ignored or allowed to continue in which case there is no need for management to take more drastic action.
A Taoiseach has every ability to correct a mistake made by a minister. There's loads of leeway and to say otherwise is totally false. Typically there can be days and weeks before the media catch wind of a story. I do take it that the leaders of recent governments had weekly or frequent meetings with their ministers and were made aware of potential issues and so it would have been very simple to either adjust policy, adjust budgets, or organise an orderly replacement as soon as issues were known about.
Sadly for Alan Shatter and Frances Fitzgerald it was more a case of political expediency or necessity not incompetence, because a Taoiseach tried to bluster and lie to the electorate and was actually caught blatantly lying to the Dail. Had he taken action immediately things started going south I'm sure the whole thing would have blown over in a few days. What were the media going to say, 'minister fecks up but issue resolved' in the more party friendly publications, at worst the feck up would have been lambasted by the unfriendly publications but the story would very quickly have lost traction because both the media and the electorate would have recognised action had been taken and there's no further story in that.
The simple fact is we have far too many ministers in this country that go into their jobs full of ideas, but not having the skills or management experience to carry out their roles. Yet I could guarantee that in virtually every party there are TD's those with those skills who never get promoted to the front bench. The front benchers will circle the wagons and protect themselves and each other as much as possible even if that prevents the talented members of their party ever being promoted. There are far to many gombeens on the front benches of every party who will look after themselves and their own kind rather than do what is right for the party and the country.0 -
There is an obvious pattern emerging from last night's debate.
Whoever is the biggest party between ff/fg will be supported by the the smaller party in the event that an even smaller party like the greens or labour doesn't have the numbers to coalesce.
So it's really fg/fg v the rest.0 -
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How do you figure that? There isn't a chance in hell of 'the rest' forming a coalition.Mongfinder General wrote: »
So it's really fg/fg v the rest.
It'll be either FG with FF or a coalition led by one of those parties.0 -
Mary lou mcdonald and SF leading our country, no thanks. We criticise the bits and Americans for trump and Boris, we be in same boat letting them in.
Remember it's easy to be the opposition saying everything is ****e, harder when in power.0 -
Larsso30 wrote:Mary lou mcdonald and SF leading our country, no thanks. We criticise the bits and Americans for trump and Boris, we be in same boat letting them in.
I wouldn't worry about it, sf won't be in government after this ge, but in saying that, they're no where near as bad as trump or johnson0 -
Wanderer78 wrote: »I wouldn't worry about it, sf won't be in government after this ge, but in saying that, they're no where near as bad as trump or johnson
It's a catchy slogan for SF:
"Vótáil Sinn Féin - we're not as bad as Trump or Johnson"0 -
A number of points:-Where do I even begin.
So you agree that you will do everything possible to rectify a mistake that you freely admit to while at work. Management are happy with that because they see you doing your job to the best of your ability and keep you customers happy. The mistake or feck up is rectified but never simply ignored or allowed to continue in which case there is no need for management to take more drastic action.
A Taoiseach has every ability to correct a mistake made by a minister. There's loads of leeway and to say otherwise is totally false. Typically there can be days and weeks before the media catch wind of a story. I do take it that the leaders of recent governments had weekly or frequent meetings with their ministers and were made aware of potential issues and so it would have been very simple to either adjust policy, adjust budgets, or organise an orderly replacement as soon as issues were known about.
Sadly for Alan Shatter and Frances Fitzgerald it was more a case of political expediency or necessity not incompetence, because a Taoiseach tried to bluster and lie to the electorate and was actually caught blatantly lying to the Dail. Had he taken action immediately things started going south I'm sure the whole thing would have blown over in a few days. What were the media going to say, 'minister fecks up but issue resolved' in the more party friendly publications, at worst the feck up would have been lambasted by the unfriendly publications but the story would very quickly have lost traction because both the media and the electorate would have recognised action had been taken and there's no further story in that.
The simple fact is we have far too many ministers in this country that go into their jobs full of ideas, but not having the skills or management experience to carry out their roles. Yet I could guarantee that in virtually every party there are TD's those with those skills who never get promoted to the front bench. The front benchers will circle the wagons and protect themselves and each other as much as possible even if that prevents the talented members of their party ever being promoted. There are far to many gombeens on the front benches of every party who will look after themselves and their own kind rather than do what is right for the party and the country.
(1) IMO you base your argument on pure technical and narrow basis. Eg. those responsible for the printer debacle should have been sacked/ demoted. How do you think the unions would react. Would the affected staff challenge the decision in court / LABOUR RELATIONS Commission, etc. how would such action affect staff moral. Would it put a serious dent in trust between the general staff and their management. Would staff get ‘much more careful’ in future decision making and things might much more bureaucratic and slower.
What I am saying is that your suggested action could have very wide implicationS and unintended consequences - so , as they say, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.
(2) you are looking at a bad minister as if everything he/she has done is bad. Would they also have done some reasonably good things? Also there are approx 25 + minister/junior ministerial positions. Would you not accept that Gov should be very happy if the majority of them do a very/reasonably good job and will bear -for the short term at least- a poor performance a minister or two that is underperforming ?
(3) in addition to not giving your vote5 to ‘ a bad minister’ as you are suggesting there are other processes also that come into play when a minister is perceived as ‘bad’/ underperforming ministers, such as :-
(A) minister can be moved in a reshuffle to a dept that would be better suited to them
(B) Audio/visual media , along with opposition can oust a minister/staff member - even on false grounds - think Francis Fitzgerald, A Shatter, O Broin (?) HSE) manager, Angela Kearny’s.
(C) if voted back in they may not necessarily be given a ministerial portfolio
(D) the bad minister is not allowed to ‘continue on being bad’ precisely because of the instant media systems that are now out there . Nobody, including ministers, have hardly any down time. They can be photographed, videoed or/and recorded almost at any time ant information can be instantly made available to the public at large. So they can be fairly instantly pulled up be the public and would be mad not to take on board what information that is out there about their actions. Remember the power of the proverbial ‘mobile phone’ during the water charges marches, the. Old age pensioners march re the medical cards
And the results that were achieved0 -
Field east wrote: »A number of points:-
(1) IMO you base your argument on pure technical and narrow basis. Eg. those responsible for the printer debacle should have been sacked/ demoted. How do you think the unions would react. Would the affected staff challenge the decision in court / LABOUR RELATIONS Commission, etc. how would such action affect staff moral. Would it put a serious dent in trust between the general staff and their management. Would staff get ‘much more careful’ in future decision making and things might much more bureaucratic and slower.
What I am saying is that your suggested action could have very wide implicationS and unintended consequences - so , as they say, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.
(2) you are looking at a bad minister as if everything he/she has done is bad. Would they also have done some reasonably good things? Also there are approx 25 + minister/junior ministerial positions. Would you not accept that Gov should be very happy if the majority of them do a very/reasonably good job and will bear -for the short term at least- a poor performance a minister or two that is underperforming ?
(3) in addition to not giving your vote5 to ‘ a bad minister’ as you are suggesting there are other processes also that come into play when a minister is perceived as ‘bad’/ underperforming ministers, such as :-
(A) minister can be moved in a reshuffle to a dept that would be better suited to them
(B) Audio/visual media , along with opposition can oust a minister/staff member - even on false grounds - think Francis Fitzgerald, A Shatter, O Broin (?) HSE) manager, Angela Kearny’s.
(C) if voted back in they may not necessarily be given a ministerial portfolio
(D) the bad minister is not allowed to ‘continue on being bad’ precisely because of the instant media systems that are now out there . Nobody, including ministers, have hardly any down time. They can be photographed, videoed or/and recorded almost at any time ant information can be instantly made available to the public at large. So they can be fairly instantly pulled up be the public and would be mad not to take on board what information that is out there about their actions. Remember the power of the proverbial ‘mobile phone’ during the water charges marches, the. Old age pensioners march re the medical cards
And the results that were achieved
Yes I kept it more technical and general because I didn't want to be slinging mud and call out names, there's far too much of that already. I preferred to try keep it as general as possible.
But being that that seems to be what you want and you cant see the difference between a probably very junior civil service worker and a person responsible for hundred of millions of spending I will be very specific for you
Simple questions YES/NO, you can elaborate after giving a YES/NO if you wish
Has Eoghan Murphy, the housing minister, done his job well?
Has Eoghan Murphy actually been been so poor that Leo should have considered replacing him many many months ago with someone more capable?
Have Eoghan Murphy's actions, or maybe his inaction, damaged the FG party?
Could the housing crisis have been better handled by FG leadership and the minister if action was taken sooner, errors corrected, policies altered or budget allocation altered with Eoghan Murphy remaining in his position?
Now as stated in my initial post, it was not my intention to target a political party or for me to promote any political party. I was hoping to keep this discussion as general as possible and get away form the general mudslinging and jingoism that goes on.0 -
Mary lou mcdonald and SF leading our country, no thanks. We criticise the bits and Americans for trump and Boris, we be in same boat letting them in.
Remember it's easy to be the opposition saying everything is ****e, harder when in power.
Eh? Their policies are diametrically opposed to those of Trump and Johnston.Gigs '24 - Ben Ottewell and Ian Ball (Gomez), The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Smashing Pumpkins/Weezer, Pearl Jam, Green Day, Stendhal Festival, Forest Fest, Electric Picnic, PJ Harvey, Pixies, Ride, Public Service Broadcasting, Therapy?, IDLES(x2)
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If you are struggling to figure out which party best represents your interests, try this - https://ireland.isidewith.com/
A terrible little quiz. Vague stuff like "illegal drugs" and "the rich".
No thanks.0 -
A terrible little quiz. Vague stuff like "illegal drugs" and "the rich".
No thanks.
If it were more specific, fewer people would be inclined to complete it. It's an overview of policies, not a word by word dissemination.Gigs '24 - Ben Ottewell and Ian Ball (Gomez), The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Smashing Pumpkins/Weezer, Pearl Jam, Green Day, Stendhal Festival, Forest Fest, Electric Picnic, PJ Harvey, Pixies, Ride, Public Service Broadcasting, Therapy?, IDLES(x2)
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I am not avoiding answering your questions by not answering yes or no to each and here is why:-Yes I kept it more technical and general because I didn't want to be slinging mud and call out names, there's far too much of that already. I preferred to try keep it as general as possible.
But being that that seems to be what you want and you cant see the difference between a probably very junior civil service worker and a person responsible for hundred of millions of spending I will be very specific for you
Simple questions YES/NO, you can elaborate after giving a YES/NO if you wish
Has Eoghan Murphy, the housing minister, done his job well?
Has Eoghan Murphy actually been been so poor that Leo should have considered replacing him many many months ago with someone more capable?
Have Eoghan Murphy's actions, or maybe his inaction, damaged the FG party?
Could the housing crisis have been better handled by FG leadership and the minister if action was taken sooner, errors corrected, policies altered or budget allocation altered with Eoghan Murphy remaining in his position?
Now as stated in my initial post, it was not my intention to target a political party or for me to promote any political party. I was hoping to keep this discussion as general as possible and get away form the general mudslinging and jingoism that goes on.
(1) the only information that I, and the voting public have, about the housing situation is what the media - via mobile , publications and radio- is reporting and what the opposition -including FF - is saying about it . The opposition has ‘skin in the game’ because it continually tries to pick holes in government policy actions so as to present it in the worst possible light in the hope that the minister will be forced to resign, hope of a successful ‘no confidence motion’ , keep the issue high in the minds of the electorate approaching election time in the hope of garnering more votes.
The media has ‘skin in the game’ because it sells papers , fills space and as you said in one of your earlier posts there are ‘ unfriendly publications ‘ out there. Again the media - especially the print media- have its own hidden agenda as to what spin it wants to give an issue. It is obvious that one particular circulation must meet every Monday morning as to what will be the ‘anchor’ topic for the following Sunday and the overall slant to take. And then you find opinion pieces by most of the main journalists taking different angles of the same line
(2) nobody has analyzed the ‘makeup of the 10500 odd that are aledgedly really homeless. These are not single independent individuals. Some may be. But if there are circa 3500 of these children , then with fathers and mothers, would it be possible that we are talking about the housing of circa 3500 families. There is a big difference between 10500 houses needed and 3500 houses needed. Apparently also a lot of the homeless are separated / divorced individuals . Unless on of the marriage partners has a baring order there is technically a house there that they can live in but chose to declare homeless instead. How many of the homeless are foreign nationals - arriving here , with little or no English, and finding it hard to survive / get work. Maybe their objective is to come to ireland and get on the homeless list ASAP with a view to be given a house? A significant % of those on the homeless/ housing list refuse accommodation being offered because it is not near their parents , etc.
The housing agencies also spin the homeless crisis to their advantage to embarrase the government, to get more finance, to justify their existence, etc etc. this particular area is now an industry big business. There is a lot of overlap between them and without exception none of them are prepared to amalgamate.
(3) I wonder if RTE would go ‘ behind the scene’ and do an ‘RTE Investigates’ programme on the actual make up of the 10500 homeless , their background, existing relatives, what lead to they becoming homeless, their lifestyle in the past, where they are from , etc, etc, etc,etc , etc. We live in hope. There is no reason why RTE could not do it but in the eyes of certain sectors it would be totally unacceptable - in case it would burst a few bubble, etc
(4) without too much thinking we get the impression that the same 10,500 are still without accommodation month on month. That is not the case. A number of homeless move off the homeless list every month but they are replaced by people that have recently become homeless. It’s of interest that E Murphy is the minister to go after and not the minister who is in charge of the banks / building societies that are calling in their mortgages. If there were no new additions to the list then it would reduce month by month.
(4) some homeless provide a n extremely challenge to house them because of particular behavior problems. Home homeless want to remain homeless.
(5) I understand that there are a number of housing projects up and running and others in the forward planning stage so another year or two would be a better time to ask the same questions
In summary, it is a very complex situation and ‘ one size definitely does not suit all’. As Brian Cowen said ‘ the HSE is like Angola’. Apparently E . Murphy’s department is not far behind - as far as the media and opposition is concerned.
So I cannot answer your questions until I know ‘the full story’ or close to it anyway.0 -
Field east wrote: »I am not avoiding answering your questions by not answering yes or no to each and here is why:-
(1) the only information that I, and the voting public have, about the housing situation is what the media - via mobile , publications and radio- is reporting and what the opposition -including FF - is saying about it . The opposition has ‘skin in the game’ because it continually tries to pick holes in government policy actions so as to present it in the worst possible light in the hope that the minister will be forced to resign, hope of a successful ‘no confidence motion’ , keep the issue high in the minds of the electorate approaching election time in the hope of garnering more votes.
The media has ‘skin in the game’ because it sells papers , fills space and as you said in one of your earlier posts there are ‘ unfriendly publications ‘ out there. Again the media - especially the print media- have its own hidden agenda as to what spin it wants to give an issue. It is obvious that one particular circulation must meet every Monday morning as to what will be the ‘anchor’ topic for the following Sunday and the overall slant to take. And then you find opinion pieces by most of the main journalists taking different angles of the same line
(2) nobody has analyzed the ‘makeup of the 10500 odd that are aledgedly really homeless. These are not single independent individuals. Some may be. But if there are circa 3500 of these children , then with fathers and mothers, would it be possible that we are talking about the housing of circa 3500 families. There is a big difference between 10500 houses needed and 3500 houses needed. Apparently also a lot of the homeless are separated / divorced individuals . Unless on of the marriage partners has a baring order there is technically a house there that they can live in but chose to declare homeless instead. How many of the homeless are foreign nationals - arriving here , with little or no English, and finding it hard to survive / get work. Maybe their objective is to come to ireland and get on the homeless list ASAP with a view to be given a house? A significant % of those on the homeless/ housing list refuse accommodation being offered because it is not near their parents , etc.
The housing agencies also spin the homeless crisis to their advantage to embarrase the government, to get more finance, to justify their existence, etc etc. this particular area is now an industry big business. There is a lot of overlap between them and without exception none of them are prepared to amalgamate.
(3) I wonder if RTE would go ‘ behind the scene’ and do an ‘RTE Investigates’ programme on the actual make up of the 10500 homeless , their background, existing relatives, what lead to they becoming homeless, their lifestyle in the past, where they are from , etc, etc, etc,etc , etc. We live in hope. There is no reason why RTE could not do it but in the eyes of certain sectors it would be totally unacceptable - in case it would burst a few bubble, etc
(4) without too much thinking we get the impression that the same 10,500 are still without accommodation month on month. That is not the case. A number of homeless move off the homeless list every month but they are replaced by people that have recently become homeless. It’s of interest that E Murphy is the minister to go after and not the minister who is in charge of the banks / building societies that are calling in their mortgages. If there were no new additions to the list then it would reduce month by month.
(4) some homeless provide a n extremely challenge to house them because of particular behavior problems. Home homeless want to remain homeless.
(5) I understand that there are a number of housing projects up and running and others in the forward planning stage so another year or two would be a better time to ask the same questions
In summary, it is a very complex situation and ‘ one size definitely does not suit all’. As Brian Cowen said ‘ the HSE is like Angola’. Apparently E . Murphy’s department is not far behind - as far as the media and opposition is concerned.
So I cannot answer your questions until I know ‘the full story’ or close to it anyway.
You make some good points, but why the insistence and emphasis on the 10,550 homeless? They are a very very small fraction of those affected.
You do realise that there are currently in excess of 73,000 individuals or families currently on council waiting lists, of which over 18,000 have been on the list with no allocation for over 7 years.
Now add to that a further 30,000+ ( these estimates range from 15,000 to close to 60,000 so lets be conservative) that cannot find a property to rent, or cannot get on a housing list (mostly because they temporarily moved in with a relative after losing their previous rented home but the councils now deem these people as housed even if they are sleeping on a couch, or are working and do not meet the council income requirements)
I'm certain there many more that have not even been counted for one reason or another.
Straight away we are talking at a total of in excess of 113,500 (10,550+73,00+30,000)
that are desperately looking for somewhere to live and I can assure you the vast majority are neither vagabonds, or living on the dole.
You do realise that the homeless list is only the tip of an iceberg?
Many like myself have worked their entire lives, never drawn the dole (well thats a lie I think I signed-on for 3 or 4 weeks back in the early 90's) and lost their homes due to landlords 'extensive renovations' but somehow not so extensive as the same property was back on the rental market a few weeks later at a very significantly increased rent. Never having married meant was never able to qualify for a mortgage even though holding a good job with what at the time was fairly decent pay but the banks said no (IT security and server administration). There are literally tens of thousands out there in a very similar position to me. We can forget about the housing list no council has homes for single occupancy, and certainly not for those that had to move in with their parents and therefore according to the government and council do not require housing. Can you imagine what that is like at 50+ years of age, having worked all you life?
I'm fortunate enough to be able to move to the family home I suppose, many dont even have this option, so many work all week sleep in cars and visit the friends or family down the country at the weekends.
Many more lost their homes, when they lost their jobs in the banking crash. Yes they are working now but its too late, the house was repossessed before they had a chance to recover.
The point I am trying to make here is the numbers involved here are many times the number of those that are homeless and the vast majority somehow manage to keep a job.
I wonder if RTE would go ‘ behind the scene’ and do an ‘RTE Investigates’ programme on the actual make up of those neither qualifying for the housing list or able to rent an affordable property despite earning an income?
FG built less than 5000 homes last year, its a ridiculously low number considering the size of the crisis
I notice you did not even try to answer any question regarding the taoiseach and housing ministers. May be you are a FG supporter and dont want to criticise them. I can assure you I would be making the same statement and asking the same questions whether it was SF, FF or any other party that was in government.
The plain truth is that no government has taken housing seriously in the last 20 years, most governments have been totally and utterly incompetent with regards housing policy and delivery, have simply ignored the problem, and built a tiny fraction of the homes required and then they cant even control the rental market (that they think somehow will be the solution) for gods sake something that a large number of EU countries have been doing for decades
The best that FG can do is build less than 5000 homes and that is appalling, especially when it is recognised as a national crisis.
Its less than half that require for those who are officially homeless.
Its less than 7.2% that is required to to meet council waiting lists demand
In fact it doesnt come close to even meeting the additional demand on council housing list each year.
It doesnt even keep pace with families who have had their homes repossessed.
Most of which are working but the vulture funds want their money today not tomorrow or are simply not prepared to negotiate or extend the mortgages they have snapped up for bargain prices. Again something the government could easily have dealt with by ensuring people kept their homes but the lender got their money one way or another.
It doesnt help in any way the literally thousand of people (no accurate figures but estimates have varied from 15,000 to 60,000) who through no fault of their own loose tenancy in private rental properties and cant afford or find any other rental property even though a very larges section of these people, if not indeed the majority, are working and earn an income. Many are currently sleeping in cars despite having jobs.
Now it could be fairly argued that no government was ever going to build enough homes to ever deal with the crisis we are facing now in such a short time, and thats a reasonable argument . But only 5000, you seriously do not expect me to believe that you agree that that is reasonable or an appropriate response given that the majority seeking homes are actually working
What is worse, is although the government could never have been expected to build and deliver 100,000 home in less than 4 years, they certainly could see a huge bubble growing in the rental market that would only increase the demand for social housing. It was perfectly within the government capabilities to have controlled rent to some degree that still allowed a reasonable profit to be made for professional landlords. Rents are increasing nearly 10% year on year. Dont tell me you think that that is reasonable or that Eoghan Murphy should not have stepped in and called a halt. if that is what you think after reading what I have written shame on you.0 -
It is clear we need to end the FF/FG cartel.
Please vote for anyone except FF/FG.
Hopefully FF/FG will merge together and we can get a credible opposition from somewhere.
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Yes I kept it more technical and general because I didn't want to be slinging mud and call out names, there's far too much of that already. I preferred to try keep it as general as possible.
But being that that seems to be what you want and you cant see the difference between a probably very junior civil service worker and a person responsible for hundred of millions of spending I will be very specific for you
Simple questions YES/NO, you can elaborate after giving a YES/NO if you wish
Has Eoghan Murphy, the housing minister, done his job well?
Has Eoghan Murphy actually been been so poor that Leo should have considered replacing him many many months ago with someone more capable?
Have Eoghan Murphy's actions, or maybe his inaction, damaged the FG party?
Could the housing crisis have been better handled by FG leadership and the minister if action was taken sooner, errors corrected, policies altered or budget allocation altered with Eoghan Murphy remaining in his position?
Now as stated in my initial post, it was not my intention to target a political party or for me to promote any political party. I was hoping to keep this discussion as general as possible and get away form the general mudslinging and jingoism that goes on.
The planning guidelines have been changed to allow for high-rise and high-density building in cities. Anyone walking around Dublin City will see the positive effect that this has had.
The number of houses being built is at the highest in a decade, as is the number of social housing being built.
Murphy has been stymied by the slow pace of action of local authorities, another year and we would have seen a real difference.0 -
The planning guidelines have been changed to allow for high-rise and high-density building in cities. Anyone walking around Dublin City will see the positive effect that this has had.
The number of houses being built is at the highest in a decade, as is the number of social housing being built.
Murphy has been stymied by the slow pace of action of local authorities, another year and we would have seen a real difference.
About time higher density housing was introduced. Was in some lovely flats in Germany, and actually preferred it. As long as they are not the monstrosities like in Ballymun.
The number of houses built is an utter disgrace and no excuses can be made about that.
Highest number of houses being built in a decade would be a simple task, 10 years ago this country didnt have a cent to spend after the crash, and it took 4 or 5 years to recover from that so I seriously doubt that 5000 is above normal figures.
But 5000, seriously? we are supposed to find that acceptable, even by the governments admission we are facing a nation crisis.
Does the taiseach and housing minister have to go running for permission to county councils to take instruction or get their approval? I think not
Had the government offered 4 or 5 green field sites, tendered for a contractor to build a 500 homes on each of them and just got on with it why would the councils be involved at all? That would have been a 50% increase on the 5000 without hardly breaking a sweat.
There's acres upon acres of land surrounding Dublin and Cork had they offered a reasonable market rate I'm sure there's plenty of poor farmers (somehow they are always poor) that would have snapped the hands of them. If the farmer will not play ball for the national good then start writing CPO's.
They could even have been cute hoors and bought up a few farms that were up for auction and then re-designated the land from agricultural to residential saving a fortune.
Its a national crisis they are dealing with, not something that will magically disappear next week. The rental market is shot, thats no longer part of the solution.
That means urgency, problem solving, a bit of vigour and if laws have to be pushed through to get the job done I could hardly see the opposition interfering with them. They would look very stupid and foolish if they tried.
Are you seriously telling me this government is doing everything it can. I dont believe it for a single second.
They had a chance to control rents which would have alleviated some of the problem they havent.
They could give a 12 month amnesty on VAT and Stamp duty for newly built homes in the next 12 months, You would see homes flying up all over the country. Yes it would be expensive, But is keeping thousands of people in hotel rooms not very expensive and at the end of it nothing to show for it.
Start a design competition for architect firms to design homes that would cost no more than €180,000 per unit. I'm sure it could be done, they wont be as big as normal houses, they might not have a garden just somewhere to park a car, but are you telling me that young couples wouldn't snap them up as starter homes. Once a design, or a few designs had been selected, 1 bed, 2 bed, 3 bed,they could get those designs pre-approved by the planning authority.
That would mean that any developer that built that type of home to those specifications and plans could be fast tracked as only the suitability of the site for that particular home need be approved and if it was a totally green field site I'm sure the government could find a way to fast track that aspect too.
I'm sure there lots of solutions probably far more than we would imagine. I'm no housing or construction expert but there's a few without much thought. Some of them might turn out not to be practical, but I'm certain that if the government were really keen on pumping out houses like never before it could be achieved in a very short time span. They have access to the people with the knowledge and capability to get that done, they should just get on with it, and stop the lame excuses.0 -
I agree with this. But they may well pay for the glacial manner in which it was dealt with. The pathetic councils trying to block as much development as possible for years.The planning guidelines have been changed to allow for high-rise and high-density building in cities. Anyone walking around Dublin City will see the positive effect that this has had.
The number of houses being built is at the highest in a decade, as is the number of social housing being built.
Murphy has been stymied by the slow pace of action of local authorities, another year and we would have seen a real difference.0 -
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Field east wrote: »A number of points:-
(1) IMO you base your argument on pure technical and narrow basis. Eg. those responsible for the printer debacle should have been sacked/ demoted. How do you think the unions would react. Would the affected staff challenge the decision in court / LABOUR RELATIONS Commission, etc. how would such action affect staff moral. Would it put a serious dent in trust between the general staff and their management. Would staff get ‘much more careful’ in future decision making and things might much more bureaucratic and slower.
What I am saying is that your suggested action could have very wide implicationS and unintended consequences - so , as they say, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.
(2) you are looking at a bad minister as if everything he/she has done is bad. Would they also have done some reasonably good things? Also there are approx 25 + minister/junior ministerial positions. Would you not accept that Gov should be very happy if the majority of them do a very/reasonably good job and will bear -for the short term at least- a poor performance a minister or two that is underperforming ?
(3) in addition to not giving your vote5 to ‘ a bad minister’ as you are suggesting there are other processes also that come into play when a minister is perceived as ‘bad’/ underperforming ministers, such as :-
(A) minister can be moved in a reshuffle to a dept that would be better suited to them
(B) Audio/visual media , along with opposition can oust a minister/staff member - even on false grounds - think Francis Fitzgerald, A Shatter, O Broin (?) HSE) manager, Angela Kearny’s.
(C) if voted back in they may not necessarily be given a ministerial portfolio
(D) the bad minister is not allowed to ‘continue on being bad’ precisely because of the instant media systems that are now out there . Nobody, including ministers, have hardly any down time. They can be photographed, videoed or/and recorded almost at any time ant information can be instantly made available to the public at large. So they can be fairly instantly pulled up be the public and would be mad not to take on board what information that is out there about their actions. Remember the power of the proverbial ‘mobile phone’ during the water charges marches, the. Old age pensioners march re the medical cards
And the results that were achieved
This attitude, as far as I'm concerned, is pretty much everything that's wrong with Ireland at the moment. Yes, people who monumentally f*ck up in their jobs should indeed be fired. No, that shouldn't result in any kind of successful challenge in the labour court. No, it shouldn't matter that the unions would throw a hissy fit - if they're defending people who have f*cked up their jobs at a gigantic cost to society, then they can go f*ck themselves.
If the current legislative regime favours those who have been fired for f*cking up, and not those who have made the decision to fire the f*ck-ups, then the legislation itself is the problem and should be changed. And that's down to a prospective government to do, but no one is offering that as a policy position.
It's the same as the insurance issue - what actually needs to be done is that the law on liability needs an overhaul to place far more emphasis on personal responsibility and far less on business owners - IE, unless you can prove direct involvement of the business in sustaining an injury, it's on you if you hurt yourself - but nobody is talking about actually reforming the legislation.
I could point to a dozen other examples, but the central point here is that root and branch overhaul of pre-existing legislation is something politicians in Ireland balk at - they'd literally always rather introduce a patchwork of laws which solve symptoms of problems or deal with them at their periphery, but it's not enough. To take your example, if the basis of current employment law currently places too much power in the hands of people who were fired for good, justified reasons to make trouble about it, then the entire employment law regime needs to be rewritten from the ground up and entirely replaced with entirely new legislation. Likewise, the legislation on injury liability doesn't need "reform" - it needs to be taken off the statute books and replaced with an entirely new law which makes no reference to the past ones.
Is this a labour-intensive and time consuming process, to write legislation from scratch because the old legislation is too fundamentally f*cked up to be rescued or reformed? Of course it is. But that's literally what we're paying these people for! If they don't want to put in that kind of hard work required to run a country in this manner, they should find another job and stop standing in the way of fixing problems. It's that simple.
I'm not suggesting that what you've pointed out isn't currently a problem - of course it is. But the answer isn't to work within that sh!tty framework and just "put up with it" - this is a democracy, and governments can change the law any time they like by passing new legislation. So if the current legal regime in a particular area is hamstringing Ireland from making the changes necessary to solve systemic problems of mismanagement, then the solution is extremely straightforward - throw out all of the relevant legislation entirely and write new legislation from scratch which does not contain the problems the original legislation contained.
This is one reason, incidentally, that I will always be rooting for a hung Dáil or minority government. Legislation which is arrogantly bludgeoned through the Oireachtas by the force of party whips and dominant parties refusing to allow proper committee debate or amendments tends to be legislation which ultimately causes an entire train wreck of problems soon after it gets implemented. If it takes five years to legislate properly, then so be it. Better than taking one year to pass a bill which, due to not being given enough scrutiny from our elected representatives on foot of a guillotine, is crappily written and full of holes.
I just feel there's a learned helplessness to a lot of these issues. People seem to forget that in a democracy, the government of the day is not limited to following current legislation outside of constitutional issues, they can toss current legislation and write new legislation at the drop of a hat if they so desire. And even if there's a constitutional issue, that's what we have referendums for. There's an inertia, a "this is too complicated or too much work to change so we'll just learn to live with it" about Irish politics which drives me absolutely insane - if they're not up for the gruelling work of working through complex issues and spending hours trying to get legislation right, then they're unsuited to the job of legislating in the first place and should, quite frankly, f*ck off the next time there's an election so that someone who is up for the job might be able to take their seat instead.
And we, the Irish public, need to start demanding that. Come what may.0 -
Snow Garden wrote: »It is clear we need to end the FF/FG cartel.
Please vote for anyone except FF/FG.
Hopefully FF/FG will merge together and we can get a credible opposition from somewhere.
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Must be a really, really sh!t opposition if they have to wait for other parties to reassemble themselves before they can organise something.
Why should FF and FG merge? To suit your political opinions of them?0 -
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Winning_Stroke wrote: »Must be a really, really sh!t opposition if they have to wait for other parties to reassemble themselves before they can organise something.
Why should FF and FG merge? To suit your political opinions of them?
There isn't much difference between them at this stage ,many people would agree there isn't. They may aswell merge. Them being in opposition to each other has become a sham.0
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