Fingal election poll

[gremlin]

@jack_white hear hear. I agree with what you are saying. Protest is protest and Breaking the Law is Breaking the Law.

[micropoodle]

The point is by doing what she did and the manner in which she did it she kept the focus on the reasons behind the protest. Her intentions were good. Her reasons were good.

Like I said in my eyes she is the only one of the 4 sitting TDs that have actually done anything of value. Reilly promised universal health. Did he deliver? Alan Farrells first task was to hire his wife as his assistant with public money. And Brendan Ryan. I have no idea what he has or hasn't done.

That's what we have to work with. So unless I don't vote at all I'm gonna go with the person or people who I think have had the most impact and are the most genuine in their beliefs. So far that's only 1 person.

I won't vote FG simply because I'm fortunate enough to have a nice house and a good job and think everyone else must be grand.

If you k ow anyone at all who has had the misfortune to visit a and e and spend 36 hours on a trolley you will see why I won't be voting FG. To spend €80mn+ on consultancy fees to set up the quango that is IW instead of spending it where it is needed is to my mind criminal. There are so many examples of this waste. And people think they're doing a good job?

Our elected leaders themselves may not have broken the law specifically but to authorise the spend of such vast amounts of public money to consultancy firms is criminal in itself

[Dubgirl]

My thinking is this and maybe it's too simplified but I believe Adrian Henchy and Paul Mulville have done an excellent job representing us and doing their best to represent us locally. Having someone from FF/Ind in the Dail should only help them continue to do the good work they're doing. I think I'll be voting that way anyway.

[Eva]

I Wouldn't think Paul Mulville would be happy that you said he was Fianna Fail he is an independent and doing great work,

[Dubgirl]

Sorry my post should be clearer. Aware he's independent. Will edit.

[micropoodle]

Have a read of this article from Gene Kerrigan. Well written piece and makes you think a bit more.

Bottom line is don't be afraid of change and don't believe everything you read from media with an agenda

http://m.independent.ie/opinion/columni ... 71314.html

[Mr. Stupid]

Don't believe everything you read from media with an agenda?
Obviously any of the media you want us to read doesn't have an agenda?

[micropoodle]

Don't believe everything you read from media with an agenda?
Obviously any of the media you want us to read doesn't have an agenda?

obviously nothing Mr. S.
I probably worded that slightly incorrectly but the gist of what I was trying to say was don't believe everything you read in the newspaper/online or see on TV.
I do believe that some media (not all), have an agenda or are inclined to push you towards certaian parties. Think that's fairly common knowledge.

My point is to go out and educate yourself as to what all candidates are offering and to vote based on what you feel is right and not what a certain media outlet might sway you towards.

My own opinion aligns with that article in that I would suggest not to be afraid of voting non-party. After all it's the parties that have continuously messed up over the years.

We/people assume that a government that isnt made up of the established FG/FF/Lab, will completely screw this country up. However, it is exactly those parties that have done so to date.

[jack white]

After all it's the parties that have continuously messed up over the years.

Not really. Only one party has continuously messed up. Historically, only one party has been in power for the bulk of Ireland's independence history. That party was, of course, Fianna Fail and they have lurched from one disaster to another over the years. On the rare occasions Fianna Fail wasn't in power we've had other parties attempting manfully to fix the mess they've made only to find themselves replaced by Fianna Fail after a gullible electorate voted them back in just one election later.

And, disastrously for Ireland, it looks like that's about to happen again, albeit with FF coming back to government as the junior party. It'll be somewhat sickening to see this shower of incompetents return to power but hopefully we'll have the fun of seeing them finally admit that they're a junior party. They won't like that.

As for voting for independents and smaller parties...how many of them are any different to the major parties? Renua are identical to FF/FG. The Social Democrats are identical to Labour. Most of the independents are former members of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. Independents never achieve anything anyway. In fact, once they become independent they are effectively admitting they don't want to be in government so they're not even trying to achieve anything. A vote for Sinn Fein or the smaller left wing parties is just a vote for blind populism and barmy economics.

Anyway, what it all seems to add up to is...a FG/FF government with Enda Kenny as Micheal Martin's boss. Say goodbye to the recovery.

[Mr. Stupid]

Don't believe everything you read from media with an agenda?
Obviously any of the media you want us to read doesn't have an agenda?

obviously nothing Mr. S.
I probably worded that slightly incorrectly but the gist of what I was trying to say was don't believe everything you read in the newspaper/online or see on TV.
I do believe that some media (not all), have an agenda or are inclined to push you towards certaian parties. Think that's fairly common knowledge.

My point is to go out and educate yourself as to what all candidates are offering and to vote based on what you feel is right and not what a certain media outlet might sway you towards.

My own opinion aligns with that article in that I would suggest not to be afraid of voting non-party. After all it's the parties that have continuously messed up over the years.

We/people assume that a government that isnt made up of the established FG/FF/Lab, will completely screw this country up. However, it is exactly those parties that have done so to date.

There's a pattern in this country.

1. FF get power
2. FF screw the country up
3. FG / Labour fix it by making tough decisions
4. Opposition come out with all this populist cr*p that you don't need any taxes
5. FG/ Labour loose out and leave office
6. Country gets screwed up again

The real crisis issues homelessness, HSE, no party can fix on their own. There needs to be cross party support on an agreed policy that all parties will stick to irrespective of who is in government - just like the North.
Could you imagine if one party took office and just ripped up the Good Friday agreement?

On the economy, FG / Labour miles ahead. They have a track record. The looney left would make us worse than all the other PIGS.

[micropoodle]

The looney left would make us worse than all the other PIGS.

This is exactly the issue I have though. We have no clue as to whether the left will make a mess of things or actually bring us a thriving economy. We dont know because we have never had. We are scared to make that call because we are so used to having FF/FG/Lab in government. That's all we know.

Remember, we are being fed information about how our economy is thriving.

FG have claimed many times during this campaign that they have created 135,000 jobs. While that figure itself is in dispute, clearly FG have created none of these. SME's, business owners who take risks have created the jobs. Not FG. Those jobs would have been created no matter who was running the country because small business owners would have still been creating them.

I'm all for credit where credit is due, but I firmly believe that we were at such a low that any government would have improved the economy over the last 5 years. I shudder even saying this, but by 2011 FF had already began implementing the policies to recover the economy from what they destroyed. All FG/Lab did was implement those same policies. I don't see anything innovative that they introduced.

Our current national debt is €183bn and rising. (It was €65bn in 2009). Is that really the sign of a thriving economy? When the next recession hits within the next 5 years, that is going to increase significantly. We may be out of a period of austerity but my kids, and their kids and probably my great grandkids will be saddled with this debt.

Why do we have such a debt?
David McWilliams has been saying for years......

This column argued all during this time that if banks make silly and greedy mistakes, then they should pay for them. Such is the iron law of capitalism. When you make bad investments, you lose. If someone else subsidises losses indefinitely and gives the bill for banks’ bad investments to people who had nothing to do with those investments, then you are destroying the basic fabric of commerce........In Ireland, there is sometimes a mistaken notion that arguing for “burning the bondholders” is in some way a leftwing or socialist article of faith, but it is actually the opposite: it is a free-market cornerstone! Without the risk of bankruptcy, you can’t have capitalism. That’s the rule.

This is the crux of the issue. We should never have paid the senior bondholders. FG and Lab came to power on the back of promises not to pay. And what did they do, they paid, and as a result whilst we currently have a growing economy, we are saddled with really unpayable debt for generations to come.

I'm far from being in the looney left. In fact as someone who lives a very comfortable lifestyle, I never thought I'd agree with anyone from the so called left. But I find myself believeing people like 'economists' who know what they are talking about and not teachers pretending they are finance ministers and taoisigh. (and before anyone jumps on that I have 2 teachers in my immediate family who agree with me....it's no reflection on teachers.....i could say the same about my profession, i have no business running a countrys economy based on my qualifications!)

Full David McWilliams article here:
http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2016/01/2 ... -situation

This is one of the reasons I believe our current government have not done a good job.
I'd much prefer people to think for themselves and have an open mind rather than just say FG/Lab are good and all the others are bad.

[Mr. Stupid]

This is exactly the issue I have though. We have no clue as to whether the left will make a mess of things or actually bring us a thriving economy. We dont know because we have never had. We are scared to make that call because we are so used to having FF/FG/Lab in government. That's all we know.

Sure we drive on the Left hand side of the road and it all works. Why not run the economy that way?

[Vlad the Impaler]

I think I'm going to have to vote FG, as none of the other candidates make any sense in terms of proposals for the economy.

I might grudgingly give Darragh O'Brien my number three, as he appears to be less like the chancers that went before him. Hopefully I'm right on that.

The Angry Left, well, they're just angry. I'm pretty angry a lot of the time, but that doesn't qualify me to run the country.

Sometimes I try to engage the Lefties in conversation about their policies, but once I start introducing reality and the cost of their thinking into the chat, their eyes glaze over and I know they think I'm a capitalist troublemaker. Which, funnily enough, I am.

[Quello Serio]

I don't think I can vote FG. Alan Farrell pissed me off by giving a job to his wife, when FG were running on a platform of reform. And pissed me off again when he joyfully announced the good news about the train timetable update on his website. And thats all he has done in the past 4 years. I think he had a row on twitter too.

James Reilly did very little too. What happened Universal Health Care? Why do Ministers get moved around after 2 years?

Not sure I can vote Labour, because Alan Kelly is a fool, and they might give him a job again.

Never though I'd find myself considering FF, but O'Brien seems to be a decent candidate. And Clare Daly is at least entertaining, and hard working.

[Mr. Stupid]

I agree Reilly and Farrell are both useless. But, I am voting for a government (Leo, Coveny, Bruton, Noonan) the rest of the muppets are irrelevant. Thinking FG 1,2 and then maybe a dabble with SD, Renua and Labour.

[jack white]

Never though I'd find myself considering FF, but O'Brien seems to be a decent candidate. And Clare Daly is at least entertaining, and hard working.

The way I see it, O'Brien would be a decent candidate if he wasn't a member of FF. But the fact remains that he's running for Fianna Fail, and therefore he's standing for incompetence and the destruction of the Irish economy. So he's not a decent candidate.

Daly is no more hard working than any other TD and she's only entertaining in a negative way. Hypocrisy can be entertaining, I suppose. But, although her economic policies are irrelevant as she has made it plain that she doesn't want to achieve anything by going into government, they are also nuts. Her recent leaflet was mind-boggling as she seemed to just pluck 12 billion out of thin air. And she's a recently convicted criminal too. Although, as she said herself, she doesn't agree with the law, so that's all right then.

Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that there are two lines of thought among the electorate:

You're either pro-recovery or anti-recovery. I'm pro-recovery so I'll be voting for the government to return.

And yes, there are all the arguments about it being an uneven recovery, as if everybody who was unemployed could have got a job simultaneously. They are daft arguments. The fact is, I wasn't expecting any recovery at all and thought that if the government could have kept unemployment at 15% they would have done well. So, with unemployment at 8.6% and falling, I have to doff my cap to the current government and say 'well done'.

Changing now would, frankly, be daft. Even if it would be very, very funny to see the hapless Micheal Martin in a job with Enda Kenny as his boss.

[micropoodle]

But why weren't you expecting a recovery? Decades of recession and recovery have shown that it always happens, across the world. A recovery was inevitable. And when the world economy tanks again probably within the next 5 years we will most probably enter recession again. That's just what happens. It just so happened that FG and Lab were in government when it happened. Doesn't mean they deserve another term.

How can you ignore the €185bn in debt? How can you ignore the promises to not pay the senior bondholders that didnt materialise which added huge debt?

If the greens were the majority government the last 5 years we still would have recovered. I'm not entirely sure why people are ignoring that. Why people are ignoring the economists.

Has Anyone here had a relative sit on a hospital trolley for 36 hours? Where's the recovery there? Where are the improvements made over the last 5 years? My nephew had an eye test in school last year and needed further intervention. The waiting list for that intervention was 2 and a half years. He went private, got seen to and sorted within 10 days and was told if it had been left the 2.5 years it may not have been fixed. Where's the recovery there?

Instead the government spend upwards of 80mn to IBM and Accenture to tell them how to set up Irish water.

Are those who want to keep the status quo happy to ignore all of that?

[Mr. Stupid]

But why weren't you expecting a recovery? Decades of recession and recovery have shown that it always happens, across the world. A recovery was inevitable.

Yes the same happened in Greece. Obviously recovery and going to the fastest growing economy in Europe is inevitable.

[Mugwump]

So who should we be giving a chance to then?

The alliance of independents couldn't even agree at their first press conference whether or not they'd go into power with Sinn Fein. Fantastic.

If a party can't tell me where the money to fund their promises will come from then I can't take them seriously.

the way some people talk about Ireland you'd swear everything was wrong. I see the UN Human Development Index rates Ireland joint 6th in the world. Maybe they should read more Gene Kerrigan.

[micropoodle]

I honestly have no idea who should have a chance. In my opinion FG and Lab had 5 years of chances and haven't done anything of any significance. I voted FG and Lab last time as well as Clare daly as far as I remember. I gave James Reilly and Brendan Ryan a 1 and 3 as far as I remember. So I'm not coming from a position of being anti FG or anti government for the sake of being anti government.

But I can't ignore all of the errors that have been made, all the promises that were ignored, all the people sitting on trollies and waiting years for medical service and all the homeless.

None of these issues have affected me directly in the last 5 years. I'm fortunate to be able to afford private health care and skip the queue when I need to. I'm fortunate enough to own my own home. Doesn't mean I'm going to pretend all is well with the country because those issues don't affect me.

Who's to say some of the left won't run the country well? At least they will attempt to look after the less well off in society.

I personally wish we had a social Democrat candidate running here as I'm liking them more and more

[Mr. Stupid]

So I'm not coming from a position of being anti FG or anti government for the sake of being anti government.

Yeah but you have a bit of "f you I want do what you told me" about you.

[Mugwump]

Who's to say some of the left won't run the country well? At least they will attempt to look after the less well off in society.

They have never shown the inclination to make any tough decisions, nor have they demonstrated where the money would come from to pay for their policies.

Oh wait, they proposed the tough decision to torch our credit rating at the same time as we try to finance our deficit, the bulk of which is made up of health, welfare and public pay. I suppose the far left would have come up with a way of protecting our spending (and the most vulnerable in society) while burning de bond holders.

[micropoodle]

It's not easy to see what a person is really like based on a wall of text but I've been no problem being compared to RATM!

I'm far from being 'f u I won't....' though. I have many other views that don't align with the left at all.

For example I believe the special criminal court is a necessity. I believe free legal aid should be withdrawn after x number of convictions, with x ideally being less than 10.

I have no problem paying for water but I do have a problem paying for the setting up of a quango that is Irish Water. I have a problem with enda Kenny right now on the debate blatantly choosing not answer questions by answering questions he's not even being asked. What is he afraid of?

5 years ago I believed FG and said they deserved a chance. 5 years on and the mysterious disappearance of the FG 5 point plan amongst other things has convinced me not to vote FG again and to let someone else have a chance.

But unfortunately we don't have enough alternatives. Then again if we keep voting these 4 parties in simply to keep the status quo, things will never change.

In my opinion despite all the fake blustering we are seeing now we will have a FG/FF/Social Dem government by this day next week. Our only hope is that the social dems have a significant influence

[micropoodle]

Who's to say some of the left won't run the country well? At least they will attempt to look after the less well off in society.

They have never shown the inclination to make any tough decisions, nor have they demonstrated where the money would come from to pay for their policies.

Oh wait, they proposed the tough decision to torch our credit rating at the same time as we try to finance our deficit, the bulk of which is made up of health, welfare and public pay. I suppose the far left would have come up with a way of protecting our spending (and the most vulnerable in society) while burning de bond holders.

But burning the senior bondholders according to many economists would have been the right thing to do. Why are you ignoring that fact?

[Mugwump]

Because you can't refuse to pay some people back debt which the government (previous administration) guaranteed while asking other people to believe that they should lend you money to finance your deficit. it's quite simple really. Greece prevaricated on this and look where it got them.