1 – That Fianna Fail get a kicking
2 – That The Greens get a kicking
3 – There is no 3
I really don’t give a fucking fuck beyond that. I fail to see how I’m supposed to enthused and optimistic about the future of an Ireland with Enda Kenny in charge of it.
Of course it’s better than maintaining this current crop of corrupt conniving cunts – and maybe he’ll surprise us all – but it’s a bit like being beaten about the head with a large bat only for someone to come along and save the day by beating you with a wet fish instead.
A man with all the charisma of a towel, the leadership skills of the Stevie Wonder marching band and as powerful an orator as Bonnie Tyler after a night out.
To Endafinity and beyond!
Charisma gave us Bertie Ahern. Fuck charisma
Leadership skills – the art of delegating; ask Jack Welch
Oratation- maybe he’ll get some lessons from Bertie Ahern who pretends that he is a stuttery cunt to enamour himself with the plebs
“Whats’s the difference between a dead Fianna Failer voter on the motorway and dead cat on the motorway? There’s skid-marks around the cat”*
*stolen from Vince Cable and moulded for our current situation
if an irish man played george w bush in a satirical look at politics then enda would be the man to play him. FG did awful damage to themselves by keeping him on, the public dont have faith in him, and judging by his absence of late Fg dont have faith him. it seems like he’s being rewarded for being a good administrator, reward for the sake of it is surely what the irish politico should be moving away from.
SF still have my vote.
I share your misgivings twenty and reading the above I’ve been a bit abrupt but I’m thinking positive about Enda Kenny. I reckon he could could turn out to be our very own Gandhi
Fine Gael … just Fianna Fail with table manners really.
Labour? Still under the impression that the political narrative is about left and right … it hasn’t been that way since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Its all about the Corporations versus the Nation State now. I see people saying Ireland might get a true left versus right divide after this election. That’d be typical. A generation behind everyone else in Europe.
Proof? One word? ‘Anglo’.
Vote Twenty Major No. 1 of the Anti-Cuntist to nuke FF headquarters.
Fine Gael … just Fianna Fail with table manners really.
That’s brilliant Captain.
When the choices on offer are between the priest who would full-on rape, and a priest who merely drops the hand, one tends to shy away from the altar.
Apparently Gandhi had a tiny mickey, and as we’ve seen, poor auld Enda has no balls at all.
That’s ‘cos Ghandhi got married whern he was 13 and his mickey was worn out
My God, is SF becoming the only viable alternative?
Really?
And there I was thinking he was just like Enda..a virgin who slept with just the one sock on.
I was told once that the difference between
FF and FG was integrity and that could well be
true.
But for all it’s integrity FG still buys into
the business knows best,we need more management
consultants myth which is rammed down our collective throats.
I’m sorry Captain but Corporate Leviathan versus
Centrist State is a right/left argument.Just look
at the UK where in order to subvert the left
the right infiltrated Labour n the guise of
New Labour and dropped clause 4.
‘Tis the Greens who are the Eunuch Party. They demonstrated time after time that they were all cock and no balls.
For me it would be Sinn Fein and a vote for a future leader of that party Pearse Doherty. I’ve no time for Baron Oddoms for a number of good reasons but Doherty is a qualified Civil Engineer, shows passion, beat FF up regularly in fine style and secured the Donegal SW election and went and won it in a fairly conservative heartland in fine style.
He also was the only candidate to be able to point to a solid plan for regeneration in the West- his report ‘Awakening the West’ is solid work.
Looks like a winner to me.
Would we be fucked if, in an imaginary scenario, SF policy was implemented? I’ve been converted to them as of late but I have worries about the ECB withdrawing funding/a run on the banks.
It is paining me deeply that FG will get in. There is no bigger wanker than Leo Trollface. And with the likes of Sarah Carey, rotten to the core with silver spoon nepotisim. I don’t want to vote for FF, if there was a possibility that Labor or the Independents might get in I’d vote for them but its just not gonna happen. I hate FF for all the bad they have done. I know you are all “down with Bertie he took lots of Brown envelopes” but I doubt you even know the half of it. I mean you made a mockery of the Shell to Sea protesters on here one day but if it wasn’t for the likes of Ray Burke rubbishing our 50 tax rate on Irish oil, scrapping oil refining regulation, giving 16 year licences we would not be in this recession. If you truly want change you should have been supporting them. But keeping my well rounded knowledge of the ills of FF in mind I would rather get on my knees and oblige them than see FG in government. They can do whatever they like and blame it all on FF, it would be fiscal suicide.
Ah sure begorrah, aren’t we better off with the devil we know, sure they know how to put it up to the Brits, ah yeah, bleat bleat bleat.
Look at Cairo. That should be us right now.
3 – That self-serving independents like Healy-Rae and Lowry are sent crawling back to the county councils where they can do less harm.
Yeah, Leo Varadkar does sometimes make me think that Thatcher is a pinko liberal.
Unbelievable how corporate tarts like Varadkar and McDowell can still wander across the political landscape bleating what Ireland needs most right now is free market low-regulation thatcherism right now.
The sort of browls who would emerges staggering from the ruins of Nagasaki with a great idea for nuclear weapons.
It wasn’t socialism that put Ireland in the shite its in now. It was Irish Thatcherism.
‘emerge’. Either the Grey Woolluffs have been baking cookies for my keyboard again or the New World Order are doing those subsonic brainwave patterns at t’internet.
‘Good man yourself Willie’.
So what are the worst case scenarios for a post-election Dáil? That FG have most seats and form a coalition with Labour. That way we might at least have a stable enough government to bring about badly-needed reforms.
Bad scenario: FG and the Shinners in a ‘lunatics take over the asylum coalition’. Wouldn’t last pissing time.
Bad scenario: Labour, the Shinners and a medley of pick-’n-mix independants. A brief love-in followed by chaos.
Worst scenario: FG and FF. Then we WILL see riots on the streets.
Any thoughts?
Rumour is that Micheal Martin is to reinstate Willie O’Dea to the FF Front Bench, says it all for me really.
In another country we would be waiting on him to be released from prison for perjury or worse.
The Irish are fucking stupid no doubt, Martin was a minister in every govt since 1997 & he was rated highest in the latest poll for who people thought would make the best taoiseach.
SF are a spent force, no longer relevant to modern life, no one is interested in what they have to say.
FG are far from ideal, Enda seems like a wimp, but compared to FF they are decent people with integrity, we hope.
The Greens are despised by all and sundry, traitors to their own voters, and me feiners every one.
They’ve had their one and only turn in power, and fucked it up big time.
Labour are the same as FG, they look like decent people, but who knows? I’ve always been a
labour voter, but I’m a floater now, and examining the independents.
It’s all a lottery, we don’t know what’s going to happen, so let’s hope FF are annihilated.
Once more into the breach, Dear Friends.
I reckon Ming the Merciless to hold the balance of power Crank and will deliver his seat to the party which supplies him with some nice mellow skunk, none of this lab technician high THC stuff.
So, Ming to go with Enda, I reckon Enda has a nice taste. Probably got some connections for some Leb too.
If I could I’d vote for Joe Higgins, his political analysis over the last two decades has been entirely vindicated over the last five years. He was ‘Spring’cleaned from the Labour party when they wanted to poach FG votes and get into power. Labour are to the ‘right’ of Tony Blair.
The real issue is that the ‘culture’ of FG and Labour is exactly the same as that FF and the GP – power via compromise, promote croneys, and at all costs frighten no one, least of all the Irish establishment. And never provide leadership on difficult policies or expose the constant meddling of special interest groups.
Vote for SF if you like, but don’t come running to ne complaining when your taxes are 60%
The baron’s economics for dummys books won’t be cheap you know
Anybody who votes for Sinn Fein needs to stop doing drugs. And you know how Sinn Fein will get you to stop taking drugs. It won’t be a quiet word in your ear. It’ll be a baseball bat. Fascist cunts.
Yep, wouldn’t vote for those knackers if you paid me.
Naw itchy. It’s only a baseball bat if you don’t buy THEIR drugs.
The Shinners are just another FF in infancy… and see where that got us.
Don’t forget. University Challlenge; 8 pm, BBC2 tonight.
The reason I detest SF is this. About 10 years ago I saw an interview with a 20 to 25 year old guy in Belfast who was complaining that he was hounded out of his house on an election day to go and vote. The local SF in his constituency were keeping tabs on who had and hadn’t turned up at the polling station. He argued that it was his democratic right NOT to vote and he invoked that right and stayed at home. A couple of days later a gang of thugs beat him up. Coincidence? Cunts.
Silla says: “SF are a spent force, no longer relevant to modern life, no one is interested in what they have to say.”
Silla, I’m afraid you’re wrong. There’s a lot of people supporting Sinn Féin because they’re the only party who call into flat complexes and listen to what’s going on. They ‘sort out’ crime when the Garda don’t bother. As mad as they are on the economy and despite their shady members, they are going to make big gains, like it or not.
Just like the 2007 election where nobody admitted voting for FF, this election will reveal the real level support there is for SF in all walks of life, not just ‘down the flats’.
They are probably the most relevant party there is right now. And that’s not to say I support them but simply dismissing them as scum and knackers is not good enough anymore. You must draw them out at the door when they call canvassing. They know that FF, FG and Labour are more or less all the same. People can see that too. SF are looking like the only alternative.
And that’s a bad thing for Irish politics.
Ah Bonnie Tyler … ‘Total Eclipse of the heart’ … or “Toe-tal eclipse uf the hort” as I once heard a UCD head call it
Hmm … total eclipse of the Greens?
Quite interesting to see the comments on Sinn Fein. None of the other parties have qualified economists backing their stance on the IMF both inside Ireland and externally.
There must be some real fear there when the established parties have combined to push through the destruction of what Republic was there.
Talk about refusing a rope when hanging off a cliff just because you don’t like where it was woven…
If they proposed firing squads for the Traitors Dail I’d be more than happy.
So, Holey, what would you suggest I say to them on the doorstep?
“Hello, you narrow minded moron, promoter of violence, lover of skangers, user of stupid scumbags, sly disingenuous double talker, intimidating thug, abuser of the democratic process, hijacker of patriotism, craw thumping hypocrite?”
And the difference with Fianna Fail is that they are confirmed as all of the above.
Sinn Fein have never been in power or coalition in the Republic.
They’ve been the only party who actually opposed as against weakly pawing at FF trousers by FG and Labour.
Silla? Have you got any sisters?
I’m finding Jean Byrne a bit one-dimensional since she declared her interest in me after the 9 O’Clock News last week. All she talks about is Jimmy Choo. Anytime I talk art or politics she just nods off. And she snores. Very loudly.
FF are the worst of a bad lot, SF are irrelevant.
Ya know, I’ve never liked arguing over politics, and I’m as confused as the next person. I don’t really like or admire ANY of them, I think ALL the parties are pathetic, but we have to elect someone.
So the aim, I guess, is to elect the people who will do the least damage.
God help us all!!
Ah, Itchy, these clothes horses are always boring cunts!
You want a real woman, who sometimes likes clothes, and sometimes doesn’t care how she looks, someone who likes the wind in her hair and the vodka in her glass, who smokes, curses, laughs at dirty jokes, pinches men’s bums, loves The Sopranos, loves David Bowie, reads Swedish novels, kisses the dog, shouts at the telly, and appreciates a hairy man.
In other words, me.
Pity I’m already taken.
BTW, my sister is a boring wagon.
She likes Where The Heart Is.
Tragic.
Today 750million is being paid from borrowed money to UNSECURED Anglo bondholders with the blessing of FF/FG/Labour.
The only party who want to burn the bondholders are SF.
No skin off my nose. Your nose, your skin. As for SF being irrelevant Silla that is clearly an emotional and not a rational statement given that SF did more to take down FF than the other parties combined.
We’ll see how irrelevant SF are after the election. The reason they are attracting votes is because they are very relevant and internationally respected economists agree with them.
Silla, Sinn Fein are not irrelevent. It’s as Holemaster says. They are making huge gains into more socially deprived areas, areas that no other party will go door to door to and areas that would make up the most part of the 40 odd percent of traditional non-voters. I’ve seen it first hand and unfortunately Gerry Adams is in my constituency. I can see them running transport down to the polls (like FF used to do for OAPs) from these areas and on the day calling door to door to get the people out.
Silla, I’m only saying it like it is. I don’t want to see them in Government but there’s no point pretending they are not there.
I’m probably going to vote for independents and Labour. It looks like it will be a FG/Lab coalition and for fear of a FG/FF one, I’m voting Labour 1st and 2nd if possible. It’s not near what I think a good government will be but it’s the pillow over FF’s face.
Silla, you’ll love these (if you don’t alreay know them) The Locked Room and Roseanna are my two favouites. The cool dude in Murder Inc put me onto them
http://www.scandinavianbooks.com/crime-book/swedish-author/sjowall-wahloo.html
back to Jean then I suppose….
Captain Con O’Sullivan
January 31st, 2011 @ 3:39 pm
The reason they are attracting votes is because they are very relevant and internationally respected economists agree with them.
You’d agree with them too if there was an AK-47 pointing at you
How did Pearse Doherty point an AK at two thirds of the voters in the Donegal by election?
This stuff is straight out of civil war politics … people referring to ‘Blueshirts’ and so as if they fought in the civil war against them.
heritage politics has fucked Ireland enough.
Captain. Have you heard Gerry Adams try to explain economic theory? It’s nearly as bad as Brain Cowen implementing his economic practice.
As for Donegal and AK’s; they’ve all got them.
If you are saying SF have something to offer I beg to differ. If Iwant to work in a paddy field I’ll move to Cambodia.
Good point Con – “heritage politics”, and not taking the current parties and politicians on their own merits is going to be a problem in this one. Labour drifting away from FG is also going to split it wide open, and the older generation are going to vote along treaty lines.
The younger generation might stay away in droves, applying for visas, unless someone can engage them. The greens? nah. FF with Martin in charge? nah. SF? nah, too soon for them to shed their coffin carrying past. FG? Consistently failed to provide an opposition capable of anything beyond “I wouldn’t have done that” or “I would have done more of that”.
Bottom of the ninth, the scores are tied, it’s time for a big one……
‘If you are saying SF have something to offer I beg to differ. If Iwant to work in a paddy field I’ll move to Cambodia.’
What do you think Ireland is now?
Thanks, Itchy, I’ve heard of these, but never read any.
I’m going to now, it’s great to get a recommendation.
Steig Larsson books are terrific, pity there are only three.
Wallander books are pretty good, the Swedish tv versions are brilliant.
The english speaking Kenneth Branagh versions are not bad, but not a patch on the originals.
Ah Kurt.
Now there’s a real man!
itchy you are working in a paddy field
I’m busy in Jean Byrnes field otd. It’s very wet
i have a second hand one for sale http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM4eJ38S7Hw
rice very rice itchy
Callely awarded €17,000
http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0131/callelyi.html
As much as what Callely did was morally wrong, it wasn’t against the rules. They should have changed the rules and then tried to punish him if he didn’t comply with the new ones.
Think he deserves the settlement, though might be on my own there I realise…..
It’ll probably be Labour or Independant all the way for me although I’m still toying with the idea of SF. FF & FG are interchangable really.
So, which party is going to finally legalise cannabis? Read recently that it brings in 400 Million p/a in taxes in Holland in addition to the thousands of jobs it creates. It’s time to drop the outdated and irrational moral issues with it and use it to the country’s benefit.
Other than that I want to see a big investment in green energy and a national bank specifically set up to lend to small Irish businesses.
Drugs won’t be legalised without a global policy change because it will only create drug tourism in countries where it is legal. It should happen gradually though. The deaths are largely avoidable with controlled supply. If you eliminate the illegal dealer, you’ve prevented a huge amount of crime straight away.
Could drug tourists be any worse than the hordes of Spanish students on the 48A in the summer?
“Could drug tourists be any worse than the hordes of Spanish students on the 48A in the summer?”
In a word, yes.yankees.
Fine Gael has vowed to save 15 billion Euros yearly by benchmarking irish public service employees against their northern Ireland counterparts.Yesterday Mr Kenny announced,”we are the only party that has the courage to take on the public sector and close quangos.When elected we will re benchmarking civil servants pay downwards and bring it into line with UK wages for public servants”
“Social welfare rates and Civil Service pay levels are far higher inthe Republic than in North” said Enda Kenny.
“PUBLIC SECTOR pay rates are significantly higher in the Republic than in Northern Ireland, while there is also a comparable substantial difference in social welfare payments between the South and the North.” he continued.
“Civil servants, politicians, hospital consultants, teachers and nurses are all better paid than their Northern Ireland counterparts on most rungs of the promotional ladder, while the exception to this rule are police services, with gardaí and PSNI officers broadly on similar rates. As politicians, commentators and the public debate the cost of public sector pay and social welfare in the current financial crisis, we in Fine Gael have examined public sector pay scales and social welfare entitlements on both sides of the Border .Our survey illustrates sizeable differences.”He continued.
“The Department of Finance’s estimated public sector pay bill for 2010 is €16 billion, more than a quarter of the estimated Government budget of €61 billion. Estimated social welfare payments for 2010 are €22 billion, more than a third of the total Government budget. Combined public sector pay and social welfare payments amount to €38 billion, more than 60 per cent of the total budget.”
Mr Kenny continued ,” Figures provided by the Department of Finance show the two best-paid civil servants in the South are Dermot McCarthy, secretary general to the Government and the Department of the Taoiseach, and Kevin Cardiff, secretary general at the Department of Finance. They each earn €228,466. As figures from the Northern Ireland Department of Finance and Personnel illustrate, the top rate of pay is potentially higher for Northern civil servants, the scale for permanent secretaries running from £98,059 to £205,000 (€115,050-€240,387).
But no one in the North is near the highest rate. Bruce Robinson, head of the North’s Civil Service, receives between £150,000 and £155,000 (€176,542-€182,410). Most other Northern permanent secretaries earn between £100,000 and £120,000.
Southern deputy secretaries earn €168,000 and while the scale for the Northern equivalent is £81,600 to £160,000 (€95,702- €187,638) no Northern civil servant has reached the higher levels of that scale. The difference in pay is also considerable further down the ranks.
Southern politicians also pay themselves substantially more than their Northern counterparts. The Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, earns €228,466 compared to €134,436 for First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness. Government Ministers earn €191,417 compared to €94,959 for their Stormont counterparts. TDs earn €92,672 compared to €50,595 for Assembly members.
Northern Ireland hospital consultants earn between €87,460 and €117,923, according to the North’s Department of Health – less than half of pay for consultants south of the Border. Rates for consultants in the South who do public hospital work only range from €184,455 as entrants to €241,539 at professor level.
Northern consultants can also earn bonus-type payments for public work, but even taking this into account there is still a huge gap in consultants’ pay between practitioners on both sides of the Border. Moreover, most Southern consultants earn substantial figures from private work – much more than their Northern counterparts, according to Northern consultants.
Southern staff nurses earn between €30,234 and €42,469, compared to a pay scale of between €24,856 and €32,521 for Northern nurses, according to the two health departments and nursing union representatives.
The Department of Education in Northern Ireland was able to provide a clear statement of average payments for school principals (€65,867), vice-principals (€57,469) and teachers (€44,056), but the picture was less clear for the South.”
Based on information provided by the Department of Education and teachers’ unions, the pay of teachers, on average, ranges between €55,000 and €60,000. Principals of 500-plus pupil secondary schools average between €95,000 and €105,000, while primary principals, who run smaller schools, on average earn about €67,000.
The PSNI Chief Constable Matt Baggott bucks the trend by earning more than his Garda Commissioner counterpart, Fachtna Murphy – €227,290 against €197,625.
On the welfare side, Southern pensioners receive €230.30 per week compared to €114.65 for Northern counterparts.
Jobseekers over 25 in the South receive €196 per week compared to €76.82 for jobseekers over 25 years in the North.
Child benefit for the first child in the South is €150 per month compared to a Northern figure of €103.29 per month.
The trouble with our system is, the wrong type of people are allowed to vote. In our current system, anybody over 18 is eligible to vote, regardless of social status and career. Even the unemployed get a say! “What’s that all about?”
I believe, in order to get the right government in this time, the voting should be limited to those paying taxes and contributing to the economy in a meaningful way. And I don’t mean those on low incomes who’s overall tax contributions offer very little to the economy at all; bar bus fare, if anything at all really. I feel, only those on 60K upwards should be allowed to elect the next government, to whom statistically wise, these voters are career people who hold a far greater degree of intelligence and superior education than those say those of menial tasks and lower-class, poorly educated sorts.
I hate to sound draconian, but I feel if this country is truly serious about change then we need the best educated people to make the decisions, starting with the voters. I myself hail from a quality address, I have excelled in private school and went onto Trinity college so I know what I’m talking about. No doubt many of you will agree with this innovative thinking and sparring with ideas outside the box.
My feelings are: a better class of informed, learned voter leads to a better class of informed, learned government.