Ireland badly needs a new centre-right party - Here's my proposal

FG? They're still a little bit liberal socially, but have gone full neo-liberal economically over the last couple of decades. Privatise, cut back, subsidise big business, outsource services. Economically, though, there's very little between FF and FG at all. Do they have any major policy differences?

First of all welfare is the way it is in this country because we have always had trouble creating sustainable work over long periods for our citizens and any party that would be in favour of severely cutting welfare would really only appeal to the nasty minded bitter cunts on this island of which, I'm sorry to say, there are a number. The fact of the matter is, however, is that we need a decent functioning welfare system because our job creation has always been pants.

So even our centre right conservative party, Fine Gael, won't be in favour of touching that too hard cos they know it would mean disaster at the polls for them. The nasty minded bitter cunts may wank themselves to sleep at night over such a thing, but the reality is that our political parties will be loath to do anything too radical in that regard as it would be detrimental to their power aspirations.

The nonsense that is carbon tax is something that most political parties would be in favour of, because it brings in revenue. There may be pretence about being against it from certain quarters but its largely a charade. A carbon tax is annoying, but it's going to come in in some form or another no matter who is at the wheel.

We have no real "far left" or "far right" entities in this country. Certainly not ones that will ever make an impact and the destruction of the National Party at the election time is proof of that. Such silly terms are only used when clowns want to try and score points but it always just sounds ridiculous. What also sounds ridiculous is someone calling FG a "left wing" party because they don't extol the same extremist views that that person may hold.

We are stuck with carbon tax but it needs to be ring-fenced for flood defences and other weather related stuff, any use for any other purpose should result in serious jail time for the politicians and public servants who misuse the money,

What's happening at the moment is the hse is paying high rents to landlords to house homeless people, I read this is much more expensive than say building 5000 units a year for social housing, but the government has spending limits set by the EU, it cannot just borrow unlimited billions to build social housing eg it makes no sense for the hse to be renting a house for 10 years i.m not an economist so I don't know if there's an solution to this problem this is a long term problem after the 90s dublin City Council sold off 90 per cent of its housing units to tenants who could buy them at a bargain price

Cap children's allowance ... in a time where people are having fewer and fewer children and we're getting ready to face a demographic crisis.

Proof again that what's considered "Right" by most people in Ireland is actually short term selfish neoliberalism.

Average rent creeping towards €2k/month in Dublin. €24k/year, €240k over ten years. Rent going to private sector investment funds. FFG councillors proposing giveaways of public land to developers to build social housing... It makes zero economic sense for councils to avoid building social housing, yet that's where we are. The tribunals in 20 to 30 years time will be something else.

Bah, Trots in name only.

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Agreed. Sadly it will fall upon the deaf ears of the eternal bootlicks who are only interested in punching down on their "lessers".

Is the system perfect? Jesus, no. There is always room for improvement, sometimes room for massive improvement. Right now, though, the prices being quoted for social and affordable homes that it's proposed we (the taxpayer) acquire by gifting public land to developers then renting back the houses they build, are crazy. The very concept of that is crazy!

At one point, though, we were able to build social housing for reasonable prices. No reason we can't return to that. It's harder, though, when council officials greet such proposals with a sharp intake of breath and a "Oh, I dunno about that, we used to have project managers and quantity surveyors and architects, but they all died of consumption in the 1970s!"

Maintenance is absolutely an issue. The practice of restoring a council house to a basic 'standard fit-out' (i.e., literally ripping out tenant-installed improvements and replacing them with an old spec) when it becomes vacant is blatantly self-defeating, and should obviously be scrapped in favour of a certification system. That's just council regulations, though, and they can be changed.

They'll end up having to subsidise rent for people on €40k a year, some of the MNCs already paying part of rent for employees,

Build the houses/flats, freeing up the private stock, prices fall

Begs the question, what is "far left?" I suppose it depends on where you are on the spectrum yourself. People can't agree on what left-wing is not to mention right-wing. As far as I can tell from looking at most left and right wingers the only difference is one is nationalist whilst the other is internationalist.

Could use Africa's excess population t prop up Europe's, that should keep everyone happy.

dcc tenants pay the rent at a post office, i think hap,rent allowance is usually paid directly to the landlord .i heard of a woman with 4 kids who owes the dcc 3 years rent ,she lives in a council house.

You heard of a woman? Who owes rent? No, really?!

Yeah, people get into rent arrears, and mortgage arrears, and get declared bankrupt... Sure there's this Ronan guy who was into NAMA for €400 million a few years ago and I see his name back on building sites all over the city now.

That's ok though, yeah?