FF's promises ....

ando

http://www.electricnews.net/news.html?code=7355538

Did'nt have a chance to read it fully yet, but look like FF are spreading more rumors !

Cork

At least FF brought in the communications bill. What has the Labour Party or Fine Gael done?

What has Dick Spring done??

I know we need flat rate internet access - but this government has done more than most.

More to be done - Lobby politicians

Don't slag them "FF are spreading more rumors !"

Do you think Michael Noonan will do better?

Fat Chance

Jorinn

And it took them 5 years to get it done?

Dsl and Flaterate weren't really an issue for previous governments

Jorinn

Originally posted by Cork
At least FF brought in the communications bill. What has the Labour Party or Fine Gael done?

What has Dick Spring done??

I know we need flat rate internet access - but this government has done more than most.

More to be done - Lobby politicians

Don't slag them "FF are spreading more rumors !"

Do you think Michael Noonan will do better?

Fat Chance

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Spot the FF/PD supporter.

dahamsta

I'm just trying to figure out what Dick Spring's got to do with the price of eggs, because I don't think it was meant ironically. Ironically.

adam

sceptre

Interesting turnaround on opinion on the Comms Bill since
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=434377#post434377

(comment on Irish parliament shouldn't be awaiting EU legislation)

Looks like battle lines are being drawn by at least one person in Cork NorthWest.

Moving this to General Election - if it gets back to the ENN story it can be moved back here.

Victor

Public Enterprise Minister Mary O'Rourke announced Fianna Fail's pre-election IT and technology policy which included a number of promises, including a pledge to provide free, always-on high-speed broadband connectivity to every large school in the country within three years.

Free? And who is going to provide it free?

/me runs off to update my 'assassination as a political tool' paper.

Xterminator

Just to add my opinion, It is very easy to make promises in opposition.
Because you dont have anything to lose. And your manefesto's are just paper.

To me the oppisition are promising every discontented group everything to gain power. But once they get there, they will be faced with the same econimic realities the current govnment faces. THERE IS ONLY SO MUCH MONEY IN THE KITTY.
And some of the promises will have to go unfilled.
EG. Eircom share 'losers', Taxi License purchasers, <insert your aggrived group name here \>


But the current government did do concrete work in communications, epaically in the infrastructure, and enabling works.

In my opinion the ISP's bear more blame that there is no friaco than the government.
Esat and anyone else can demand a price for frico from eircom tomorrow, and if they dont get one, OTSR would be obliged to intervene. Why has this not happened?
Esat vcan unbundle local loops themselves, as could others if they expressed some interest! Why havent they?

The only blame i would put on the gov here, was that they didnt give the Odtr enough of a whip to wield, but to be fair I dont think many people could have forseen the arrogance of Eircom stalling ADSL, and saying there was no demand for friaco etc.
And the gov have rectified the situation with the communications bill.

Yoda

Originally posted by Cork
At least FF brought in the communications bill. What has the Labour Party or Fine Gael done?

What has Dick Spring done??

I know we need flat rate internet access - but this government has done more than most.

More to be done - Lobby politicians

Don't slag them "FF are spreading more rumors !"

Do you think Michael Noonan will do better?

Fat Chance

1. Fine Gael and the Labour Party tried to get the bill amended so that the telecoms regulator would have the power to actually compel Eircom to offer flat-rate internet access. Fianna Fáil did not allow this amendment.

2. I don't know what you are referring to.

3. That's a baldface lie. And I have the phone bills to prove it.

4. I can find in myself no respect for Fianna Fáil. I watched their Ard-Fheis. It was jingoistic and filled with self-congratulation. I watched the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis. It was marked by insightful discussion of the problems we face in this country and how we can overcome them.

5. I certainly do. Personally I would rather see Ruairí Quinn as Taoiseach and Michael Noonan as Tánaiste, but I imagine that it will be the other way round.

6. Fianna Fáil is responsible for the deeply ridiculous situation we are in, having two competing plurals for our national currency. How did this come about? By not having the wit to think about the English language in a sensible fashion.

Cork

Was not Dick Spring (labour) on the board of Eircom?
What did he do?

Did the rainbow government sell a stake of Telecom Eireann to KPN & Talia?
Was this the sum total of their interest in telecommunications?

Did they not issue the third mobile telephone licene - but thats another story.

aLL pARTYS NEED lobbying. Saying one party is better or worse than others is futile

Cork

6. Fianna Fáil is responsible for the deeply ridiculous situation we are in, having two competing plurals for our national currency. How did this come about? By not having the wit to think about the English language in a sensible fashion.

The country must be flying when this is the biggest moan people are coming up with.

Euro
Euros

Wow - Which one. We need direction from our government.

Maybe people ought to ring Joe Duffy

Elmo

Yoda nice too see you still on the battle for Euros to rule the english lanuage lol

anyway


Dick Spring did alot for this country I dont think that everytime a labour candidate comes on the air that talk just about the Rainbow Years, They were also in the government that started the peace process with Albert Renolds.

The idea of free internet access to schools is a nice idea, but only an idea.

Its like John Brutons plans to give RTE land in Meath for free so that we could see RTE's land in Donnybrook. (Yeah that makes sence).

I'd like to see a Labour AND FF government again.

or A Labour lead FG government.

GoneShootin

i thought ani sigs were banned by our facist regime ?
[Victor]They are.[Victor]

Yoda

Originally posted by Cork
The country must be flying when this is the biggest moan people are coming up with.

Euro
Euros

Wow - Which one. We need direction from our government.

It's not my biggest moan. My biggest moans are Housing, Transport, Internet Access, Healthcare, and Partnership legislation.

Regarding "direction from our government", the Fianna Fáil government totally fumbled and there are now two plurals of our currency, which is utterly absurd, particularly as the ungrammatical one (which no one else in the English-speaking world will be using) has been forced on RTÉ by the Fianna Fáil government. I had a reply from McCreevy by the way. Will post about that on Business/Finance in due course.

It's refreshing to see that in recent years the whole Fianna Fáil/FG/Lab. arguments are now on policies and what they have and haven't done.

I will remember till I go to my Grave a conversation on South East Radio between a Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Supporter.
Admittedly they were both quite old -but it ended up in a shouting match.
The Fianna Fáil supporter roared at the FG Guy"Where were your family during the civil war????....I'll tell ya where they were....They were under the bed...Like all the other blueshirts...!"
Crazy...But some people still think that way, rather than putting some thought into solving problems.

For what it's worth, my two cent on the FF policies thing is this: I think that they are under no obligation to impliment everything in their manifesto, if they go into Coalition.
Then they are only obligated(loosely) to impliment what ever makes it's way into the programme for government.

They therefore like all parties can put all the nice things they can think of, into their manifesto and use the programme for government to put the more unrealistic items on the long back burner.
The opposite applies if they have a majority.
mm

Cork

The Blueshirts were an ugly organisation.

It is hillarious seeing the socialists in france supporting Cherac.

He makes Charlie Haughy look like the holiest saint of them all.

Where does our socialist party - The labour party stand about jacques.

Does Dick Sping have an openion?
Does he have an openion on FGs proposal to compansate eircom investors?
Does he have an openion on FGs proposal to compansate taxi drivers?
Lets hope champage socialisim is dead. When the socialist family is supporting jacques - I think that it probably is.

Victor

Does "Cork" only have questions and rhetoric and no ability to debate?

Cork, can you keep it somewhat on topic? Attack the policies, not the people.

Cork

Attack the policies, not the people

Does the Labour Party have policies?

They a bit of a joke.


Do you think Mr Quinn as a potential rotating taoiseach?

Do you think Mr Noonan as a taoiseach?

FF have their faults - but I think that Bertie should be the next taoiseach.

We need Flat Rate internet access. Lobby Canvassors people

dahamsta

Do you think Mr Quinn as a potential rotating taoiseach?

Until recently I didn't, but I saw a piece on Quinn recently and he really seems to believe in what he does. I'm going to look into him a bit more because of that, maybe he deserves a little more respect than he gets. And let's not forget that Bertie was a right knacker when he became Taoiseach. Went around in anoraks with an atrocious Dooblin accent. Appearances can be deceiving. Personally, I like the guy, I just think he's lost the plot.

Do you think Mr Noonan as a taoiseach?

If it was just Fine Gael in power, no. Not because of who he is particularly - Bertie has already demonstrated that you can grow into statesmanship - but because he doesn't have the support of his party. If Fine Gael got into power the internal struggles would be detrimental to the country. Fine Gael and Labour in coalition, now that would be another story.

FF have their faults - but I think that Bertie should be the next taoiseach. We need Flat Rate internet access. Lobby Canvassors people

Well, if we take the topic you want to concentrate on, Bertie is the wrong Taoiseach and FF is the wrong party. FF won't mandate flat-rate Internet access because they are too susceptible to pressure from Eircom. And Eircom won't do it without a mandate. The other parties will be susceptible too, but Eircom will have to start lobbying all over again, and the parties are in a better position to make it difficult for them.

By the way Cork, you never explained your mention of Dick Spring (always sounded like a porn star to me) to us adequately. Please explain, I'm fascinated.

adam

gandalf

ROFLOL this government have done didley squat for Communications in Ireland. The Comms bill should have been sorted years ago and when it did come before the Dail and FG tried to amend it to allow the "little people" get the same deal the rest of Europe get, Mary O'Rourke (FF) hobbled it.

This present Government have been a shambles, they said they'd sort out crime yet the streets of Dublin and almost every town and city in Ireland are more dangerous now that they were when they cam into power.

They mismanaged a extremely healthy economy so that now the next government will be faced with an extremely unhealthy situation.

As for the Health service my God that is a mess. I have first hand experience of it. Before Christmas my father had a heart attack. I had to rush him into hospital at 4am. He was on a trolley in Casualty for 12 hours before they could get him a bed. This was not the medical staffs fault they were excellent, it was the fault of the politicians who are not doing there jobs properly in this country and FF are the worst of them. FF have been in power 5 years and the health service is in the worst state that I have ever experienced it to be in.

They had the opportunity to drop Dual Mandate where a counciller could not also be a TD, they bottled this. The reason we are in a mess is because we have a pack of gombeens who are in the National Assembly (where you are suppost to be providing national policy) working locally, that should be the jobs of the councillers.

What is needed is a dramitic change to the Dail. Halve the number of seats, outlaw dual mandate, outlaw corporate donations & make all political parties books public.

Gandalf.

sceptre

I have to admit I haven't been a fan of FF or the PDs over the past five years.

But then I've a completely different view on how to handle the economy to the FF idea. Rather than spending like crazy when the economy is doing well and lowering taxes, I've been of the opinion for quite a few years that the opposite should be the case:

Economy booming - raise taxes
Economy in a rut - lower taxes.

This has the effect of lessening a recession where one exists and slowing the economy down where it's in danger of overheating. I've a feeling that it's something like this that has been the policy in Sweden over the past thirty years. Admittedly, Sweden has seen reasonably unspectacular GDP growth of about 3-3.5% pa, but it's always been steady growth - never below, rarely above. While a country has control over its own taxes (and even under EMU we do), taxation is the only major control over the economy a government has (assuming that control over the money supply can't be used to change growth in the short term - and I don't think it can - at any rate, we no longer have this control)

It's a simple philosophy. And I happen to think its the correct one. Every government we've had over the past thirty years has followed an opposite economic strategy, leading to boom and bust economics.

And in general, FF are spenders, FG are savers.

We've had an opportunity over the past five years to raise taxes, even slightly, and use the money to pay for a better health service. Government reaction - lower taxes, bugger the health service. With my vote, I can't let this go on any longer. The government have relied on the VHI for too long as an optional health tax - again especially over the past five years when they had the power (and the finances) to change this and provide a better health service for those who can't afford the VHI (or just for all, as a universal service). Opportunity not taken. Based on performance only (I'm not a mamber of any political party and owe none of them anything - in other words, I'm not going to vote a particular way just because of my great-grandfather's opinions on "The Treaty"), I can't possibly vote for FF. And before anyone says - "well, that's because of your own financial situation", I thought the same when I was paying 800 quid a month in taxes and then found myself financially better off in successive budgets (not that that makes much difference now - as a student, I paid no tax whatever last year). It IS the economy (stupid:)) - trying to buy voters like me off is bad economics. I'm too bright to be fooled by a small cheque when in the long run I'll be worse off (and so will most other people).

Now, the Communications Bill. What Fianna Fail introduced was essentially a crippled Bill. Apart from the regulatory issues, it gives very little to the consumer - it doesn't mandate flat-rate, it leaves the ODTR in a position where they can ignore the steps carried out by the Italian telecoms regulator (who have viewed the EU regulations as a mandate for flat-rate) and has left Ireland in the same position it was in five years ago. When a decent amendment was proposed that would have given the Telecoms regulator the power to mandate flat-rate and force Eircom to introduce a flat-rate product, the Minister fudged the issue and put it off for another few months. The EU regulations she referred to will not come into effect for over a year and will then still not give the power to the Telecoms Regulator that she claimed they would (whoch in my view is a clear case of the Minister misleading the Dail)

That's all for now (but I'm not finished -and I'm glad I moved this here from the IOFFL forum - it's more of a grneral electino issue in any case the way the thread was developing - and I can be more forthright here than I can as moderator there)

Cork

Dick Spring was a dirctor of Eircom.
What did he do?
Maybe Comrade Quinn might know.
What directorships does he curreently hold?
He he still involved with Fexco?

Whatever hope we have to get flat rate internet access with FF - We have none with the Labour Party.

Hard Labour More likely

Tax & Spend

Socialists even Champagne socialists are known for it.

He he not stay at the Waldorlf ASTORIA HOHEL IN NEW YORK?

Still the French socialists will all be out voting for Cherac today.

That guy makes CJH look like a saint.

Cork

Why did Jim Higgins point this out in the Dail?
The opposition partys are a joke.

Mary O Rourke could have them for breakfast.

Has anybody been canvassed by Mary O Rourke?

This is the time to lobby - not to moan or sob or admit defeat.

Cork

Bertie was crucial in authoring the Good Friday agreement.
FG and Labour doubled the national debt in the 1980s - from 12 billion to 24 billion.
This is their biggest achievement.
Rembember High taxes - Remember Hard Labour

Did you see Comrade Evil on xit poll?

Yoda

Rubbish, Cork. Labour and Fine Gael tried, and tried very hard, to get the Telecoms bill amended. I was there watching the debate, along with two other members of IrelandOFFLine.

It is Fianna Fáil which, for no good reason and despite the cogent and obvious arguments Labour and Fine Gael gave during the debate, denied any possibility of amending the bill.

Most of the rest of what you've said above is just plain blather. But if you like scandalous questions, ask yourself about that Bertie Bowl. Why is Fianna Fáil so interested? Is it, possibly, because so many of them made their money in the building industry? Hm?

Cork

First, We need a proper national stadium in Ireland - we needed it years ago.

What did Dick Spring do when he was a director of Eircom?
He had opportunity.
He had motive.
What was his renumeration?

Fine Gael and labour sold off a stake of TE to KPN & Talia - What did this achieve??

The Communications bill is a start. We need to lobby. I have brought it up to canvassors and I will again. What has happened has happened. We need to Lobby Lobby & Lobby. In the next 12 days - we need to Lobby.

Moaning & Cribing will not achieve anything.

Oh Labour (Dick Spring included)
Could you try and tell me how much does the labour party get from trade unions?
Should FF, FG or Sinn Fein get some of this money?
Gerry Adams and Mary Harney and debating on TV3’s Agenda next week.
Bertie is debating with Mr. Noonan on Primetime.

Is Rory Quinn debating with anybody?

Yoda

Originally posted by Victor
Does "Cork" only have questions and rhetoric and no ability to debate?

Apparently so.

gandalf

Cork tell me what FF have done to improve the Health service, they have opened their mouths alot and expelled hot air.

Maybe you should ask our King oh Sorry I mean Bertie & his Firstlady what the hell they were doing having a private party in Farmleigh last Christmas.

As regards the National Stadium I would rather have the 600 Million spent on sorting out the Health Service rather than pander to Bertie Aherns overinflated ego.

At least with Labour we know that they are receiving backing from the Unions and what their agenda is, with FF we don't know who has backed them in the past and their agendas and shrouded in secrecy.

As regards the Comms bill we already did but your almighty Mary O'Rourke didn't listen to us, I have a feeling she listened to someone with more cash than us "little people". Thanks to her the chances for small businesses and consumers to get the same prices and opportunities that our European competitors and counterparts get has been held back for another year at least.

BTW Cork afaik RTE only ask the present Taoiseach and the leader of the largest opposition party to debate and don't invite any others.

Come on Cork convience me that the Health service is better now than 5 years ago, go on try I really want to see you try.

Gandalf.

Cork

Come on Cork convience me that the Health service is better now than 5 years ago,

Well - They doubled Health Spending. Michael Martin has also deleloped a Health Stratergy. This government has done a good job on health. Much more needs to be done. I would spend more in reseach as well as hopitals. But I think Michael Martin has done well.


Doubling the spend on health - was necessary because of years of under funding.But the Health Stratergy was also needed.

This is more constructive than the labour partys mantra that their pledge card will do magic in the ballot box.

Magic never cured anybody.



Flat Rate internet access - The local loop is being unbundled. Why then is flat rate not being offered?

I can't see how Eircom are getting away with it.

Broadband in the UK is £27 - they are moaning about thhe cost.
I think we need to lobby politicians, Thats what I 'll be dfoing - I hope to meet a TD tomorrow.

Cork

what the hell they were doing having a private party in Farmleigh

Mulled Wine And Mince Pies - A Party? Not by Cork Standards

It was a tour.

If this is the best the opposition can come up with.

Bertie delivered the Good Friday agreement,

Do you remember what the IRA was doing 5 years ago,

Credit where Credit is due.

Cork

As regards the Comms bill we already did but your almighty Mary O'Rourke didn't listen to us, I have a feeling she listened to someone with more cash than us "little people". .

Mary O'Rourke is a decent politician.

I have not much in the bank - I do not consider myself to be "little people".

We need to highlight the whole situation in Comsumer magazines.

Name & Shame.

You can't regulate for competition.

This market has been liberalised for years. So, What cards do Eircom hold??