I know we can look forward to the usual SF guff here, but as a citizen I am glad to see FF as an opposition party trying to be constructive.

Really Seamus, have you forgotten who got us in this mess and who’s paying for it?

Just a pity when in power it was party first,friends second and citizens/country last!

@seamus – I too am happy to see FF in opposition, let’s hope they stay there.

Draghi and the EU know well who FF are, having some of your people turn up at meetings still reeking of drink does not make much of an impression. Neither does bankrupting a state just to save your party donors.

Mc Grath isn’t the worst of him, he is not that smart but he is still going to be handicapped by the name of his party and by the presence of ancien regime people.

I love the fact Stephen that u can blame every1 else for this mess we are in but not us as individuals. We all have to accept responsibility. We let ff do as they pleased. We the people, who constantly knock them now, voted them in for three terms. Why?because they let us spend, borrow, spend, borrow again and so on and so forth. No matter what party or what politician were there it would have happened. Have a good look at yourself again before you blame Ff again.

Hi Tom firstly are you or real? Not everyone in Ireland went mad as our lovely Taoiseach said, I have no debts never had a credit card etc. people who did it was being pushed on them by banks telling them to take out higher mortgages and credit cards, more money more profit for the bank, now we the citizens most are not bankers we trusted the banks to give us honest information but they just wanted to dish out loads of cheap credit.

Where was the government, aren’t they ment to regulate the banks. This golden circle millions being lent out to property developers with no security and not having even gone through the proper channels of application.

Where was the government, they didn’t regulate at all an they knew what was going on that is obvious? Brown envelopes in Galway tents to be quite and the same business men giving massive donations to the party.

So look go away with “think before you blame ff again”, I think that most of the country have taut about it and we are sure FF are to blame.
We also know that all cuts and taxes implemented are FFs so they were going to continue screwing us

Ridiculous bailout conditions and requirements and oh let’s not forget, billions of private debt, illegally transferred to the tax payer.

Go away now Tom with the oh FF are not to blame, Irish citizen 10% for believing everything we were being told, banks and government 90% to blame !

Tom has a point. Over 40% of the electorate voted for FF. A party that has had every leader in 40 years resign in disgrace, many with serious questions regarding criminality surrounding them. Nearly half of the Ministers for Justice of the party over the last 40 years are people than you would not trust to mind a dead sheep. The entire culture of the org. is of admiration for stroke politics and corruption. They have the worst economic record of any political party in Europe since WW2.

People voted for incompetent criminals and expected them to act like decent people. FF set the bar for failure and crookedness and we’ll never see a party again as bent. The current crowd for all their eejiting are like shoplifters to FF’s mafia.

I agree with a lot of what u have to say. The financial regulator that was in place from 2000 to 2010 should be in jail for what in did to this country. Bertie and Brian shouldn’t be far away from it as well. And still having said all that I didn’t see any bank with guns to people’s heads telling them to borrow more and more. I’m not on this to promote Ff, but I just think we need to accept responsibility for what we did. As parents we teach our children to accept responsibility for your actions. So now as adults we have to accept what we did in the boom times was wrong.

Only 40% so happy that 60% had some cop on, we suffer because of 40%. I agree with P but Tom is saying something very different he is saying it is our fault we went mad spending. That is just not true, look at the nudge thing in England, same things applied with banks ,I had banks in our college targeting 18 year olds with credit cards of 450 and overdrafts of 650 if they opened an account in 5 mins without giving any info about job etc you had over 1000 euro. That shouldn’t have been allowed. A lot of 18 year olds did take the money !

Tom. No doubt there was reckless borrowing and spending by a lot of people. They will all have to pay their way or loose their homes*. Many of the Galway Tent crew both Govt. and developers were engaged in whole scale criminality though and will be protected by the system and the party. This is the key difference between a severe recession and an economic collapse.

*From an economic point of view the debt relief should be at the bottom, as this would encourage consumer spending and growth and would be much cheaper for the taxpayer.

Vote SF they fought for our country, they can’t be any worse than the rest

@Tom
Just one point Tom you seem to miss
The anglo promissory notes are from a private bank which was used as a casino for rich men trying to get richer
the 30 billion is for their reckless gambles not the peoples debt
the people didn’t get a bailout like the gamblers they still have the debt which they pay every month in there mortgages and loan repayments
please dont mix the two up

The SF drones have outdone themselves today LOL.

Look at the profiles of some of these posters, it looks like they joined twitter for the sole purpose of trolling this story!

Well done Michael McGrath and Fianna Fáil.

@Seamus
and your point is?

Seamus what exactly are you talking about ?

Can i just point out in regards to the claim that 40% of the population voted FF. Firstly only 69.9% of the total elegible population voted which equates to 2,139,000 of that 40% voted FF which was 855,600 which infact is 18% of the overall population of ireland.So how is it that we are to blame for all this, maybe someone can explain it to me once again.

Point taken frank

classic
keep up the good work!

Maybe the Germans have outsourced it to McGrath. Did Draghi have just a letter in the envelope. There must have been some consternation in FF HQ at that, quiet unusual.

Asking the arsonist to put out the fire.I’m sorry can you remind me of FF’s role in all this?

McGrath can hardly keep himself informed, never mind the Irish electorate. For most people he will always only ever be seen as Ahern’s pet Cork hound. Loyal to the master to a fault.

“Asking the arsonist to put out the fire.” It might not be a bad idea, you could guarantee that some FF’er would have stolen the petrol can and sold it before they could get a strong blaze going and replaced it with water.

FF has zero credibility here. The bloody brass neck of them.

What is happening with this is what FF arranged to happen. These cuts and these terms were put in place by Cowen and Lenihan and FF. McGrath had no problem with them before and is just playing politics now.

That said the current Govt. should not have gone along with the previous one’s plan. If you act like a thief then you are going to be hated like one.

P Capoore maybe you are right but the present government embraced the FF policies with gusto when they got in.So any ballot box pain they get is entirely their own fault.They have delivered two regressive budgets since taking office.They had choices but went after the most vunerable in society instead.

The present Govt. are screwing the people by legal means, FF screw the Irish usually by illegal means. Not much margin in it for us either way.

FF Ministers walked away with 6 figure pensions and are in to directorships now etc as far as the party is concerned it has worked out great. Bit rough on Paddy, but that isn’t their problem.

David FG/Lab got in only because they were not FF.But don’t worry this present bunch will get a kicking too.

No we don’t think that FG are going to save us but we sure as hell know that FF aren’t even going to try, if you want to help the country and are in FF then one would be a lonely fool at a cumann meeting. The civil war parties have failed utterly, they need to be broken up and replaced.

Come the next election, Sinn Fein will hit an invisible barrier of about 10% – 15% of the popular vote unless both Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness step down first, given their IRA links. Look what happened to Martin McGuinness during the Presidential election. He ran a pretty good campaign from start to finish but wound up with just 13.7% of the popular vote.

Independents have historically played only a marginal role in Irish politics and they will continue to do so.

That means that, unless a new party emerges, the only alternative is Fianna Fail.

Our only alternative is FF, SF have my vote troubles are not my past I’m 22 , FF is in my past, Galway tents and corruption, Gerry Adams has put the violence aside and went the peaceful road , FF are still corrupt to the core. If they get in again I’m never coming back to Ireland along with a lot more Irish in Australia.

So, you forgive the past of one group, but not the past of another?
Can you make your mind up?

Yes I guess seen as IRA are gone there was a peace process and there is now peace up the north and SF are callin for a truth and reconciliation process yes I am willing to not forget the past but to put it to one side for the sake if my country. As for forgetting FF past what have they done have they apologised, no, instead they were going to bring in all the same policies that FG have been implementing, so they were just going to screw us again, we are still feeling the effects of what FF did. They have no remorse and there has been no investigation into what was the scale of corruption etc we still don’t know and still have no apology so no I won’t forget there past, it was 2 years ago I don’t class that really as past. 14 years ago that is past !

Julie have you evidence to suggest FF are corrupt ? Can you please furnish that evidence ASAP so we can see it! Your talking your usual bullshit Julie you simply have not got a clue.

Mahon and planning tribunals, Galway tents, bribes, brown envelopes, the dog on the street knows FF is as corrupt as they come. Just look at the story of the laundries. Their bank regulator turning a blind eye to the massive scandal going on in the banks. Etc etc etc. now can you quote me where I am always talking bullshit? Please.