The decline of SF?

I suspect people wishing for recessions are mostly doing so because they believe it's the only way that they'll ever be able to own a house in this country.

Depends on people's individual circumstances. If they have a bullet proof job (say public sector) and decent savings then they might think they could ride it out. After all, that's what happened with many people after the 2008 crash.

All of those things are true. However many public sector employees were able to get mortgages in that period. They represented the kind of low-risk long term option that banks were still comfortable with giving mortgages to during that time.

Anyway we're getting beyond my original point which was basically to not attribute to malice what can instead be attributed to ruthless self interest. Whether that strategy is misguided is really besides the point.

The vile abuse aimed at the Stoops and Cara Hunter by angry SF supporters for running in East Belfast is the height of irony considering this happened in 1986. Nationalists who rejected violence and terrorism (the overwhelming majority of nationalists in NI) are entitled to vote for the SDLP or indeed anyone else they choose.

They returned two MPs. One in the city and hinterlands of Bloody Sunday, John Hume, and a place that rejected the bombings, shootings, rape, torture and disappearing of people carried out by the Provos and defended to this day by SF.

They didn’t though, Francie. People voted for the SDLP because they wanted to. They prefer the legacy of Hume than the blood-soaked legacy of the Provos.

No SF politician turned up for it.

Disgraceful tbh. Even 50 years later SF and their pose cannot let go, put their hands up and say, "Sorry, we were wrong".

……

The money wasted by the HSE is eye watering

western housing problems are not a case of the lack of supply but more so the overall financialisation of the whole process, in which includes a widescale privatisation of property, and the whole process of property, which has opened the door widely for speculation of these markets, whos overall objective is to keep inflating the price of property, which under such, housing is now considered an 'asset'!

….prices are inflated by the influx of new credit into markets, the more new credit enters the market, the more prices inflate, most new money is now created by major private sector financial institutions, we call these 'banks', whereby banks play a critical role in this overall process of financialisation, along side its other partners, insurance and real estate, i.e. 'fire' (finance, insurance and real estate)

obviously those capable of borrowing, which includes employees of both the public and private sectors, we now have other major players from the private sector maintaining this process, such as major investment and pension funds etc…..

our health care sector issues are wide and complex, the fact that we ve significantly under funded our health system for decades, were effectively forced to implement austerity measures when the private sector banking system went caput, and the fact our health care needs have dramatically changed and become far more complex, therefore more costly to provide, resulting in an absolute sh1t show……

..yes this is true, but over the last few decades, there has been a large widescale privatisation of property, hence why many western nations, including ireland, have significantly reduced public housing stock, and states have largely withdrawn from the production and creation of public housing, preferably outsourcing this process to the private sector(part 5).

…this is ultimately why we are where we are, whereby speculation of property and land trumps the actual creation, or attempt to create housing

…this means the needs of these major private sector entities, i.e. the fire sectors, trumps societies actual needs, hence why bailouts and other public polices including qe have been enacted, and maintained…..

…wouldnt be worrying about it, there wont be a sf government, and may never be….

Pearse, poor old Pearse. This is the man who said one month the rich earn 140k and the next 100k.

The alternative budget, which version on they on now after they fixed all the mistakes?

Well that'll be up to the voters

No party is restricted on the ballot paper

So I'd disagree there too,Ireland isn't Belarus,our voting is free open and fair,please do report anything factual to the contrary?

My son is renting an apartment for 400 a month 40 min from Barcelona and 10 minutes from his job. You wouldn't rent a dog kennel within an arses roar of Dublin in Ireland for that. He was renting in cologne before that for 450 a month in the center of the city. We are not London, new York or San Francisco and it's only a matter of time before the arse falls out of this government funded house of cards. As you say the health crisis is caused by our inefficiency to govern ourselves - remind me who is in power and has failed to govern the health care sector ? The shinners couldn't be worse than the crowd running health and housing at the moment. Both are a **** disaster

…and again, you ll find its actually the access to credit that has ultimately caused the rapid rise in property prices, and yes, those that earn more, in both the public and private sectors naturally have had that access, noting theres plenty of people in the private sector earning healthy 5 and 6 figure sums, therefore can borrow larger amounts of money, this approach of just blaming the public sector is just childish now!

…and again, after the 08 crash, we encouraged much large investment and pension funds to invest in our property markets, and they to got access to cheap credit via methods such as qe, as interest rates were kept at record low levels for some time after the crash, this was all to simply re-inflate asset markets post crash, and it worked…..

…again, you seem to think we have a fptp system here, we dont, under pr-stv, it is possible for a party to receive a larger proportion of votes, but still be unable to form a government, this is more than likely what will happen here again, i.e. its very likely sf will get more votes than either ff or fg, or even ffg combined, but will be unable to form a government, resulting in a default back towards another ffg lead government, this is currently the most likely outcome after the coming ge…..

…yes voters have the freedom to vote who they like, citizens even have the right to not vote at all, but again, voters alone do not decide government formations, as is the case here in ireland under pr-stv…..

The Barcelona economy would be quiet close to ours, average salary is about 38,000. Why did you exclude cologne in Germany from the discussion which I mentioned also.

The Tories tend to do that, parachute candidates who have nothing to do with the constituency in to win seats.

When you think of how much criticism from Sinn Fein supporters there has been on these pages of celebrity candidates of other parties, you would think they would put the head down.

The governments disaster of a policy on housing is built on driving rent prices up through subsidising investment funds with inflated rents. Any idiot can see this will end one way. If you think that is a sustainable policy well good luck with that one, the first economic crash and we are fucked. County councils etc signed up to long term leasing of properties at massively inflated prices after the building was funded through pension etc. will only end one way the same as the bank crassh

The govt arent inflating rents. They are trying to cap the growth of rental prices.

The price of rent is dictated by the market, not by the government and not by investment funds.

A SF led govt would reduce the number of new home starts/completions and therefore continue to drive rent prices upwards, as supply of new rental homes contracts.