Further errors in Leaving Cert maths exams highlighted

Sort of coincides with the new college semester. Looks like all the new college FF covens have been given a job (ironically the only one thats imminent in their lives thanks to the Soldiers of Destiny). That or it’s a fraternity prank. If we were Americans, like.

Hopefully the A&E has a sudden rise in cases of RSI of the red thumbs :-)

@ Oh boy

And still free!

That’s exactly what they’re doing. Still, I guess it keeps them off the streets.

Fair point, Leonard. Money has to be cut somewhere, though. And Labour aren’t going to let it happen in the public sector. I imagine sickies will drop dramatically when it’s the boss that’s paying for it.

Recently Minister Alan Shatter was in hospital (I wish him well) ,but I am curious ,did he get paid while he was unable to work ? did he lose his allowances ? or did he get paid as normal ? I am curious .

#Paul Anthony….sorry about that. What with you talking out of your arse it was hard to understand what it was that you were discussing.

#Paul Anthony…nice picture of you with Micheal Martin, by the way.

Vincent, I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m a member of FF, so pointing it out is hardly touting journalistic prowess.

Granted, I was harsh. And I apologize for that sincerely. It’s just so bloody frustrating when I think there may actually be an opportunity to discuss the strengths/weaknesses of a piece of legislation & I come on & see all this clearly orchestrated Shinnerbot stuff… Really gets my goat.

#Paul Anthony- I’ll let you into two secrets; I’m not a journalist and I’m certainly no Shinner. You may well get frustrated but you need to understand the perfectly understandable anger of people towards a party that presided over economic oblivion and the surrender of our sovereignty. In that context, you should not be surprised that people react when Fianna Fáil have the gall to pontificate to others on how to run a country. Yours is the party if Haughey, Ahern, Callely, Flynn, Burke….we have every right to be annoyed.

bring back ff and get rid of these half witted bog snorkelling tears

How can anyone still boast of being a member of FF? Shame.

Vincent, you are going off topic. This is not just an FF v FG proposal. The effects of incurring this cost on the employer when they have already paid PRSI is ridiculous. It’s another attack on those who are creating jobs and those working. Is utter madness. My question is how is this going to benefit the creation of jobs.. Well it won’t. And where will the money saved be spent. Bondholders, long term unemployed. I don’t care FF brought this to the table, I’m just glad it is getting debated.

Ahh Jaysus Paul Anthony having your picture taken with Michael Martin. What were you thinking of putting it on your facebook page, Unlike love it’ll be there forever. At first it looked like you’d photo shopped it in but then I thought no it must be real People only photo shop themselves out of photos with Michael

FF is not a good opposition. And this was just another stunt. They had no chance of getting that motion to pass, and if they were in power they’d be doing exactly what FG is doing. FG=slightly thicker continuity FF.

I think we are seeing why we didn’t vote for FG/Lab government for 13 years…

Starting to think we voted for FF because they were the least worse option.

What opposition? Do you really think there is actually a thoughtful principled opposition going on here?

Personally, I’d be more in favour of a program that didn’t rule out income tax adjustments and try balance more of the cuts against tax measures. Certainly means testing all social welfare benefits. A third higher tax bracket that would kick in on earnings over €200,000. An effective stimulus package not of direct investment but business friendly legislation, even temporary legislation, aimed at allowing private industry the stability to hire new staff.

And another thing Vincent, people loosing jobs as a result of this pushes up the social welfare bill when they join the dole queue. Pointless policy from government.

I don’t disagree with any of that, Eoin. Except maybe the €200k tax. Is there a point in frightening off the real achievers? Not sure you’d make the €3.5b, though. Absolutely sure you wouldn’t get the means testing past Labour.

I don’t see how a third tax bracket would scare people off. For example if someone was to earn €200,001 in a year and this tax bracket was set at say 45%, then the tax take from this would be 45c. Most multi-millionaires are already tax exiles already and of those who are still here, only a handful might run elsewhere for their tax affairs. The extra revenue generated by this measure would more than pay for itself and offset some of the harsher cuts. I do agree that cuts are necessary however this can’t be indiscriminate and cutting at will. The most needy in society should be protected. Also, measures like the above don’t even make sense as they will cost more money that they would make.

The government have made a bad, shortsighted call to try cover over a social welfare bill that is higher than they’d like however this will simply kick a can down the road where it will be an ever bigger problem. It was right and economically proper to oppose it.

Thanks for that Eoin. Was getting tired of reading the rest of the tripe here, it’s entertaining at times but seriously people.

Or what did deliberately inflating an obvious property bubble do to the finances of half the population and the fabric of our society? Go away, FF. Listening to them spout about economic policy is like being slapped in the face with a week old haddock.

Benchmarking occured because we would have lost valuble public servants to the private sector.. and I mean useful ones like nurses and teachers.

Benchmarking wasn’t the issue, it was Social Partnership and the prearranged wage increases which led wages to permanently follow inflation.

The housing sector bubble was driven in a way by government. But building houses in itself wasn’t an issue as the demand was there. Houses were being bought off of the plans. If there was no demand there would have been no supply.

So in short, the issue wasn’t overheating the housing sector….. that was infact a by-product of the actual reason which was …..

Lack of financial regulation.

100% loans, very low interest rates, allowing people to borrow far more than thet could pay back on the basis of colateral on other houses they hadn’t fully paid off.

Now Im in FF, we know what we did wrong and how it happened. We didn’t have the luxury of blaming ourselves all the time witout understanding what happened.

We do blame ourselves for what went wrong and as such had to understand how and why to make sure it doesn’t happen again ….. but we didn’t get everything wrong.

Now if you don’t mind, I would, like the rest of FF, see this country climb out of this global recession asap.

You can keep saying its FF fault and mis representing issues from the past or you can do what we did today, and try and get Irl fixed by coming up with good ideas today and putting the govt to task on bad 1s

#Dave.. Benchmarking was classic FF. Ye bought votes. You wrote a cheque with no demonstrable dividend in productivity. Ye bought votes. As for housing, the rise of developers can be tracked to corruption in planning and Fianna Fáil led the way there. And yes, you did not regulate the financial sector. Sorry doesn’t cover it. The country was drunk on credit, Fianna Fáil was the designated driver and ye put us in the ditch. Sometimes, sorry- let’s move on isn’t enough. You have ruined this country for a generation. FF should have disbanded. Your leader was part of a calamitous Government. Your history , Haughey etc is shameful. The country needs a centrist opposition to Fine Gael. FF has no moral authority to fill that role. Instead there is a vacuum being filled by SF and a rag tag bunch of independents.

Again with the past, which I essentially agreed with you on and added more.

Yes, it will take time for us to earn peoples trust (some will never trust us again).

However, we are the main opposition, we were right today and we will continue be right again in the future.

I’m not arguing with you to be vindictive. Honestly. But why should I believe that? There’s nothing in FF’s history in my lifetime to suggest you could ever be worthy of my vote. Haugheys cabinet was a rogues gallery. Ahern was corrupt and incompetent. Do I really need to name his partners in crime? Cowen, an honest decent man was out of his depth. FF was established with stolen money. Corruption is in its DNA. Point to me please to the possible reason to ever countenance voting for FF.?

Why should you believe what I said?

“Again with the past, which I essentially agreed with you on and added more”.

Ans:- Go back and read what I have written.

“Yes, it will take time for us to earn peoples trust (some will never trust us again)”.

Ans:- By your last comment you have proved this to be true.

“However, we are the main opposition”

Ans:- By virtue of us being the largest party on the opposition benches (Never mind the solitary poll which has no meaning until another on comes out saying the same thing).

“we were right today”

Ans:- Naturally this is open to opinion but I believe the governments decision will turn out to be a negative one on the jobs front.

“and we will continue be right again in the future”.

Ans:- Again open to dispute but I cannot see into the future so I can offer no basis for this statement except to say we have been right about things in the past (fact) and even a stopped clock is correct twice a day so I imagine that I’m probably right in this assertion too, the only factor is time.

Now you appear to be a Meerkat which means you have an average life of 12 – 14 years. This means you have only ever known a Fianna Fail government (Bless) apart from our current one.

In the last government we Achieved Peace in Northern Ireland, developed the IFSC and increased FDI, built an export based economy (a part of the economy which is still working to this day), Introduced 10,000 special needs assistants and reached record numbers of 3rd level students. Achieved massive improvements in health especially in tackling cancer and cardiovascular diseases. We prioitised children, protected the elderly, transformed our transport network, made roads safer (50% less deaths between 1997 and 2010) , introduced civil partnership etc etc etc I could continue.

Your absolutely correct about corruption, internal structures have changed to counter that and hopefully will be helpful in preventing further corrupt officials making it to the top of FF or anywhere in that matter.

In answer to your earlier question about Benchmarking and small business. It didn’t effect them at all as they just passed the cost onto the consumer who, at the time could afford the higher prices. It wasn’t until the boom went bust that it became an issue. However, at that stage most wages dropped and benchmarking was cast aside (and rightly so) .

A group of meerkats is called a “mob”, “gang” or “clan”……… Your character, Aleksandr Orlov, is a pompous aristocrat who by the look of his adverts has little respect for the working classes including his own employees…. Sergei has come off badly in many of the adverts. It’s getting to a stage whereby a legal claim my be in order.

You may not be intentionally vindictive, but you are. Or as you you so kindly corrected me earlier. You’re being vindictive.

Good night, you can run to which ever mob/gang/clan you’re from and sleep soundly tonight. You have done your job well.

Nah. We were in no danger of losing public sector workers to the private sector. Even if we did, why would it have been a bad thing to have them working in the productive sectors of the economy? Wages and numbers employed increased dramatically in the public sector throughout the boom. Now we need a correction.

Dave I’m sorry to have to say it but Vicent the mearcat just gave you a fantastic smack down. As much as I welcome the debate on the above topic, Vincent has beautifully paraphrased FF’s legacy. And remembering the past is essential, in fact it’s vital to teach out children how our nation was betrayed by a small bunch of power hungry, money grabbing inbreds.
Benchmarking was done for no other reason to get votes, at all costs. Thank you Bertie for that small minded arrogant destructive policy.
Let us pray that by remembering we never allow it to happen again.

By the same token though BE, this makes a good read when you’re considering historical legacy of political parties: http://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/guest-columnist/if-fianna-fail-ruined-this-country-nobody-admits-that-it-also-built-it-br-by-victoria-white-211841.html#.UIkJf0J79fs.twitter

I would take a lot of what VB says with a pinch of salt. One minute he lambasts you. The next minute he stands up for you. Thats part of his job … headlines.

Doesn’t change the fact he tried to get on an FG ticket to run for the Dail….. that could account for some of his uber negativity towards FF.

It could be that Dave. Or maybe it’s because Fianna Fáil surrendered our hard earned independence and brought an economic apocalypse down upon us.

#Dave. Oh my God. I mean, my God. I just read your final response to me last night. The denial is scary. Every single one of those accomplishments you listed we’re built on a house of cards that has now collapsed. They stand for nothing. The massive debt that FF has burned an entire generation with. That counts for a whole lot. Do you really not understand the damage FF has done. That every cut is FF’s fault? Todays and those over the next 10 years. Really?

….and don’t worry about Gerry. He’s my “local” TD. Next time he branches off the M1 on his way from the Dail to West Belfast to drop in on a visit to Louth I’ll have a word myself. Early in the New Year so…..

Best of luck with your venture. I think you’ll find it might not be quite as cut and dry as you think. Also we need to bear in mind another fundamental here – if you started paying Irish people Polish wages you know what else would happen? All those loans, mortgages, credit cards – immediate default.

As I’ve said, good luck with what you choose to do, but don’t come on plying this “the plebs are asking for too much money so I’m off” rubbish.

Actually, rents are increasing. And not everyone bought in 2006 either. But that’s beside the point – did you ever notice how many FF TDs were riding the property bubble themselves? Even the most reticent seem to have snapped up an apartment or two.

And there was little old me at the time wondering why the government wasn’t doing anything about soaring rent and mortgages.

(To the red thinners: Are you not entertained?)

Rents for the most part didn’t really come down because mot people bought to rent and couldn’t afford to lower the rents as they had to pay the mortgages. Those who bought pre boom or now possibly ;owered their rents but anyone else couldn’t really afford to take the hit.

Yes FF TDs bought into it as well, like many normal Irish people. They got caught with it being, what turned out to be a bad time to buy as well.

Ah. So you don’t see the governing party being personally knee-deep in investment property during a property bubble as being an issue, at all?

And contrary to the pages of the Sunday Independent not everyone was into property. The vast majority were simply trying to obtain a place to live but didn’t happen to have Fingers Fingleton on speed dial.

America sneezed. The rest of the world caught a cold. We contracted HIV.

It’s you’re, by the way. As in you are right.

Phones ….

I’m not sure what Enda cares about but I do know it’s not the people of Ireland.

We could have struggled past the international recession without imploding, Davey. It was the fact that we had a catastrophically overvalued property sector as a direct result of FF policy that meant we got shafted sideways,

And you’ll have to forgive me for saying you’re a tad premature – surely revisionism takes a few decades at the very least? Try peddling that line in 2050 and you might get people to believe you .

There are many legitimate things you can lament about our Taoiseach. His patriotism and his desire to serve the people of Ireland isn’t one of them. Even if you do disagree with the manner in which he goes about it.

I’m sorry but Enda serves his own party’s interest second only to wanting to fit in at the big boys table in Europe. He does that by taking every cent he can from the honest taxpayer and hands it over to his cronnies in Europe no questions asked.
At the same time protects his own interest above the Irish people by allowing Reily and hogan to savage as they see fit.

Oh God. To the poster directly above: up your game, please. The public are considerably more sophisticated these days and 1980s generalised muckslinging won’t cut the mustard.