General Irish politics discussion thread

It’s not the people who are cutting their weekly allowance and length of time they can stay in accommodation.

It’s easier to blame the people, the vast majority of whom have done what they were asked to do and more, than to allow any criticism of how those in power have handled the situation.

One of the problems of living in a democracy is that people have rights, those rights also extend to people who own companies. You can legislate to manage rights but you cannot deny rights. The government has put a penal stamp duty tax of 10% on those companies who buy more than 10 residential properties in a year. However, if they were to ban such purchases outright or to impose a tax of say 50% stamp duty on such transactions, they could well be infringing on rights and/or in breach of EU competition law.

It would also be a level of interference in the market beyond any seen before. However, what is most ironic about this is that if you go back a decade or so, many of those objecting to institutional landlords now were calling for small landlords to be replaced by institutional landlords back then. That includes some of the long-time posters on here as well as prominent opposition spokespersons.

....are we truly living in a democracy, as it some how resembles a plutocracy!

...once again, the financialised approach to property has catastrophically failed, its now in uncontrollable positive and negative feedback loops, so just bloody stop it now, or else.....

...this is clearly out of control, this market based approach is clearly an absolute disaster....

At the moment I am voting SF.

I'm a long time (2011-16) believer that the power swap and subsequent coalescing of FF/FG has been a toxic influence and a sham or pretense that they offer something different. SF represent the best chance to end that. If they turn out to be the same then I will have to look elsewhere. SF have also committed to beginning to plan and pressure as an Irish government for a Border Poll which is something I wholeheartedly support.

There are literally no options for me.

FF - grew up in a FF household, vowed never to vote for them after the Bertie years, have held true to this.

FG - the party I am apparently 'most aligned' with but despise them, admittedly due to specific scandals that impacted people I know. Not a chance i'll vote for them.

SF - god no, cowboys.

Greens/Labour - mudguards for the larger parties, but still Labour pissed me off in the noughties, greens piss me off now. Cannot warm to Bacik or Ryan either, and both would actively put me off.

SD's - ideally could do something, but think they'll just be another Labour/Greens: promise loads, deliver nothing, take a hiding.

PBP/Aontu - head the balls,

Independents - meh, might fix the pothole down the road, what about progressive tax or welfare changes?

I'll probably end up voting for the local councillor (LAB), purely cos she seems a decent sort, does work for her constituents etc. But its a real process of eliminations, where she is the best of a very bad bunch.

We'd never have guessed.

Wouldn't touch FG, FG or SF with a barge pole, PBP are nutters, Aontu are SF all bar one issue which I disagree with them on. An awful lot of the INDs are nutters or one issue people. The, 'Ireland First' type parties.....no thanks.

My preference would be Social Democrats, Greens, Labour in that order.

I voted Soc Dem the last time. Will see the list of candidates in my constituency before deciding.

It’s a vote for Labour in a GE all the same.