Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Virtue signalling gobdaw Michael Higgins puts his foot in it again

Options
1…456810

Comments

  • Options
    #212
    donaghs
    Registered Users Posts: 2,738 ✭✭✭donaghs


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119213278#Comment_119213278

    Some of the Nigerian church victims funerals are on today. Perhaps he could make some more follow-up statements on what climate change did to them?

    Or he could just apologise, and reasonable people would move on.



  • Options
    #213
    elperello
    Registered Users Posts: 14,899 ✭✭✭✭elperello


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119213895#Comment_119213895

    It's already been pointed out several times that the young adults were students and were given the statutory notice.

    Students move around in university cities all the time.

    No drama, no hypocrisy.



  • Options
    #214
    elperello
    Registered Users Posts: 14,899 ✭✭✭✭elperello


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119213774#Comment_119213774

    It started badly anyway with a coat trailing OP about religon and climate change and quickly became just another beat up on MDH fest.

    After his victory in 2018 it should be no surprise that even on Boards he has some fans.

    Bad poetry indeed, if only that was the worst we could accuse our politicians of.



  • Options
    #215
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119213081#Comment_119213081

    Sadly, I'm not qualified as a remedial teacher.



  • Options
    #216
    growleaves
    Registered Users Posts: 7,857 ✭✭✭growleaves


    I don't think giving someone four months notice to leave is "making them homeless".

    There's a bit of scraping the barrel here.

    I find him too political overall.

    Now any future President can create a running political commentary and that might not be to the taste of MDH defenders if it's political viewpoints they happen to disagree with. Goose, gander and all that.



  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #217
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119214393#Comment_119214393

    Those red herrings are beginning to rot. The issue here isn't that Twee the property owner evicted his tenants. It's that Twee the Property Speculator has repeatedly criticised property speculation from the lofty heights of his presidential soapbox (hopefully you won't require the services of a remedial teacher to understand that one).



  • Options
    #218
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]



    Spot on from Irish Times commentator Mark Paul in today's Irish Times:


    "Few have a political proboscis as sharp as the one possessed by President Michael D Higgins. He demonstrated this yet again on Tuesday when he decried the Government’s policy approach to housing, citing the results of it as a “disaster” and a “great, great failure”. He knew what he was at.

    Just 24 hours previously, the President was heavily criticised by a Nigerian bishop for bizarrely linking an Islamist massacre in a church there to climate change. The bishop accused him of “deflecting from the truth”. He was under pressure and facing real scrutiny. So could it be that Higgins stuck his ample political schnozzle in the air, twitched it a few times, and drew into his lungs the hot anger of a generation of young people who cannot buy homes or find affordable ones to rent?

    He let it all out in a crowd-pleasing speech in Naas at the opening of a new facility for young homeless people. Suddenly nobody was talking anymore about his botched comments on Nigeria. Instead, many people were praising him for his forthrightness and valour, while the rest, including Government Ministers, fumed impotently at his partisan tendencies. Higgins would have known the reaction. He is an ace marketeer, even if such a compliment might make him recoil."


    https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2022/06/17/higgins-may-be-a-poet-but-his-economics-rarely-rhyme/ (subscriber only)



  • Options
    #219
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 6,192 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119214393#Comment_119214393

    Except of course it is hypocrisy,he put them out to avail of tax relief on the sale....while simutaneously "speaking out" on the housing crisis


    He can hide behind all statutory nonsense he wants,looks clear cut enough to me anyway,what went on there



  • Options
    #220
    VillageIdiot71
    Registered Users Posts: 578 ✭✭✭VillageIdiot71


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119214552#Comment_119214552

    "Suddenly nobody was talking anymore about his botched comments on Nigeria."

    And here there's a story worth pursuing. How does the line "That such an attack was made in a place of worship is a source of particular condemnation, as is any attempt to scapegoat pastoral peoples who are among the foremost victims of the consequences of climate change." get to be part of the official Irish reaction to a hideous massacre?

    I don't know, but I can't help noticing the President's spokesman is a former head of an Irish development NGO lobby group. And, yes, I know Presidential statements are meant to be vetted by Government. So does our Government think that a massacre (apparently by extreme Islamists) of Nigerian Catholics (who trace their religious heritage to Ireland, according to that Nigerian Bishop) is correctly linked to climate change?



  • Options
    #221
    Yurt2
    Registered Users Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119214656#Comment_119214656

    Point of fact: Presidential statements are not vetted by Government and they have no right to do so except in one circumstance - when the President addresses either house of the Oireachtas under which the government must approve his utterances.

    As I said, a lot of people could stand to do some boning-up on the legal and constitutional realities of the office of the President.

    His Nigerian statement was clumsy, and it certainly generated some level of offence with the bishop at least.



  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #222
    VillageIdiot71
    Registered Users Posts: 578 ✭✭✭VillageIdiot71


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119214682#Comment_119214682

    Oh, fine, we can absolutely pursue this as the President's own work.

    Because his statement wasn't "clumsy". Clumsy would be mumbling "very sorry for your trouble" to the relatives of the murdered.

    Whereas his statement required a very deliberate decision to avoid recognising what has actually occured.



  • Options
    #223
    donaghs
    Registered Users Posts: 2,738 ✭✭✭donaghs


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119214682#Comment_119214682

    "Clumsy", and "generated some level of offence with the bishop"?

    Over 40 innocent unarmed men women and children massacred, and that's your reposnse to our President making a public statement linking this to climate change?

    I suspect if your friends and family had been in the church you'd have stronger feelings. Its a pity thats what it would take for you to see how horrible his statement was.



  • Options
    #224
    Yurt2
    Registered Users Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119214848#Comment_119214848

    If you want to file it under "horrible", be my guest.

    I wouldn't have advised that he tried to shoehorn climate change in there, and it was doddery. But I'm not getting the particular sense he set out to offend.

    I'm genuinely shrugging my shoulders at the whole thing



  • Options
    #225
    elperello
    Registered Users Posts: 14,899 ✭✭✭✭elperello


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119214522#Comment_119214522
    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119214498#Comment_119214498

    Still the same old ad hominem stuff.



  • Options
    #226
    NiceFella
    Registered Users Posts: 364 ✭✭NiceFella


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119213895#Comment_119213895

    And you'd never do such a thing like that?Sell a house during a housing crisis. Do you maybe think it's housing a family or students right now?

    Your melo drama about moving students on is OTT. I moved house 6 times at college on a whim. Its par for the course as a student. As another poster pointed out he gave the students an additional 4 months to find alternative accommodation on top of his legal requirements. What more do you want? As landlords go that's as good as you will get.

    The pitchforks out here are ludicrous. Get over yourselves.



  • Options
    #227
    Shelga
    Registered Users Posts: 3,008 ✭✭✭Shelga


    Why did he mention climate change at all?! Completely bizarre.



  • Options
    #228
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 6,192 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119215292#Comment_119215292

    No,i wouldnt go profiting off others misery in a crisis,what use is money,if its on back of someone elses suffering......if i was that desperate for money,id deal coke


    He deos not need the money to justify evicting people to take advantage of tax breaks,his politics push a high tax model to fund public spending/keep good level of welfare,(of which i have no issue with),but he himself evicts others to take advantage of tax loophole,he is therefore wide open for critism for doing so



  • Options
    #229
    Yurt2
    Registered Users Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119215457#Comment_119215457

    What you're galled about is him owning a house, and selling the house. It's bizzare.

    He went over and above the statutory notice period in giving notice to quit. And if you do the sums, he did not make a killing on the house with the rent he was charging.

    I'm not worried about him and Sabina as they likely bought the house for cash (although I don't know). But if it was a buy-to-let mortgage they would have been underwater on the transaction based on the reported rents and the appreciation on the house between when it was bought and sold.

    PhD students in Galway would bite your hand off for 365 per month rent in proximity to NUIG. He could have doubled that and comfortably got tenants.

    I'm not looking to beatify the man, but I see fanny all evidence of profiteering off people's misery. You're seriously overegging the pudding here.

    If you don't like the man that's your perogative, but maintain a bit of perspective in your criticism. If only for your own sake, because the great majority of people will struggle to take you seriously.



  • Options
    #230
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 6,192 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119215551#Comment_119215551

    I have nothing againest the man,its powerless role,he seems a reasonably good person along side of it


    But he is in no place on a personal level, to complain about the housing crisis,when he was willing enough to put people out,to participate in tax avoidance schemes around housing for his own benefit......he simply didnt need the money (has several pensions deosnt collect afaik),but it was pure self interested selfish greed,what drove that sale,nothing else


    What hope have we of ever sorting the mess the country is in,if people will blindly defend what went on there and shout down anyone pointing out the hyprocrisy of the whole situation



  • Options
    #231
    Yurt2
    Registered Users Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119215628#Comment_119215628

    Do you contribute to a voluntary pension scheme? Congratulations, you are also practicing tax avoidance.

    Maintain some perspective.



  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #232
    NiceFella
    Registered Users Posts: 364 ✭✭NiceFella


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119215628#Comment_119215628

    But do you disagree with what he actually said "the housing crisis is a disaster".



  • Options
    #233
    VillageIdiot71
    Registered Users Posts: 578 ✭✭✭VillageIdiot71


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119214930#Comment_119214930

    Oh, he certainly wasn't setting out to offend.

    What's interesting is who he didn't want to offend.

    And, again, doddery would be if he forgot the name of the Australian Prime Minister. This wasn't doddery. It was a craven attempt to consciously gaslight.

    That's your President, representing you. Unable to speak out against murderous attacks on religious freedom.



  • Options
    #234
    Yurt2
    Registered Users Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119216254#Comment_119216254

    Ok champ. *Backs away slowly*



  • Options
    #235
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 6,192 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119216165#Comment_119216165

    Not for a second.....just he is a hypocrite,given what he was up to....its not right when anyone deos it,i dont see why should make an exception for him



  • Options
    #236
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 6,192 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119215673#Comment_119215673

    No,like the vast majority of workers in this state,i dont


    But its a bit of silly comparison either way ,unless you think i am someway critising the private pension industry effect on society??


    The bloke is free to do,what he done,just its hypocritcal of him to start on about it ,when it suited him to take advantage of situation previously,and has an army of people who will support it,irregardless of the obvious hypocrisy



  • Options
    #237
    VillageIdiot71
    Registered Users Posts: 578 ✭✭✭VillageIdiot71


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119216270#Comment_119216270

    More like slinks away.



  • Options
    #238
    NiceFella
    Registered Users Posts: 364 ✭✭NiceFella


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119216419#Comment_119216419

    Yet you totally agree with him....Do you not think your opinion is a little hysterical? You literally compared what he did as worse than dealing coke. Selling a house. Mother of God.

    He is president of ireland. He said what literally everyone in the country wants to say to our politicians. I commend him, even with the very tenuous notion of hypocrisy. I think that is of far higher priority than weather he is a hypocrite or not. But thats just me.



  • Options
    #239
    Yurt2
    Registered Users Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119216443#Comment_119216443

    Yeah yeah yeah. Everyone you politically disagree with is a hypocrite. Everyone who has ever owned property needs to shut up about hosuing. Poetry is sh*t. Bernese Mountain Dogs make for poor pets.

    This thread is a nest of malcontents and cranks that can't articulate anything and don't have a bean about the office of President. Think that the President should walk around with a sock stuffed in his mouth and text someone in the cabinet for permission to take it out.



  • Options
    #240
    Yurt2
    Registered Users Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119216419#Comment_119216419

    Hey Blaaz. A question for you, do you reserve the right to both have an opinion on housing and own one at the same time?

    If you answer yes, you're a hypocrite

    If you answer no, you're a hypocrite



  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #241
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 6,192 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119216583#Comment_119216583

    Except i didnt compare it to coke dealing,grow up and read the posts


    Its not tenous,its textbook hyprocrisy....the bloke put young people out to avail of tax relief on selling a property,spoke out at opening of a homeless shelter for youth?



Advertisement