Seconded.

Thirded. If there us such a word.

What would such a qualification entail? I always hear people saying this but I can never understand what it actually means. Do

Agreed Bryan, i suspected by the end of the second paragraph that this might be bunkum and so it proved .Dermot set out a childish and patronising position suggesting the electorate is so naïve that we think a new party will miraculously end all our woes over night! This of course is nonsense, as an electorate we have been force fed the story of our economic infirmity for four years now. The vast majority of the population are only too aware massive budget deficit, our promissory notes, Croke Park, overpaid politicians and ridiculous pensions and yes of course our dependence on international trade, we’re not a communist country! The latter point on trade is discussed at length but has nothing whatsoever to do with the need for a New Party .I don’t think you get it Dermot! The vast majority of non vested people in this country are crying out for a new politics because there is no sense of fairness in this society which comes from the top down. Economics is only one part of it, its fundamentally about what sort of society we want to live in and about a functioning democracy .The populous looks on in a heightened state of angst as cuts and taxes are rammed down their throats whilst these cross party goons remain imbued with a sense of entitlement developed over decades looking after number one , they are all totally detached from reality cosseted in their allowances , perks and unsustainable pensions. I for one would love to see a party formed on the basis on a vision and passionate view of what type of country we could live in. When you look at End Kenny or his predecessor Bertie you never get the sense that is sat their rooms as young men passionate about society rather they were party men , members of club , cute hoors whose families were the mover and shakers but no they clearly have no vision and no passion . Can anyone tell what FG, FF stands for anymore. We know that Bertie et al wrecked the county with clientelism on a grand scale , appeasing developers in the Galway tent and in so doing destroying our tax base while at the same time cosying up to the Public unions and Father Sean Healy, the net result massive increases in totally unsustainable public expenditure , he literally tried to buy votes from everywhere , no principles of any kind . And what has Michael martin changed, can anybody tell me what FF stands for now are they conservative or socialist or will they as per usual just follow the votes . At least with labour we know where they stand , they are now the most right wing part in the country with a labour minister pushing down wages for hotel and shops workers who work weekends , jobsbridge which ensures that any jobs that any job might be crated are now “apprenticeships” costing €50 and basically breaking all promises they made, but its ok because Pat Rabitte said on the week in politics that you’ll say anything before an election . We need real choice Right , Left , Green , whatever but not this mish-mash of civil war parties populated by family dynasties peddling and watered down programs for government that nobody voted for ,all whilst most them get financially richer than they ever would have in their previous professions! i.e a cabinet of teacher making over 160 K and multimillion pension pots

I’m kind of tired of the “expert” argument. If we followed this sort of advice we probably would have had Seanie Fitz as Minister for Finance back in the early 2000s because he seemed to be making billions. We also have a doctor in charge of the Department of Health and that doesn’t seem to be too popular and we have had teacher in charge of the Department of Education without much luck there.

And would you like Michael O’Leary as Minister for Transport. He make Leo Varadkar look like a saint.

Finally are you saying that we should have a technocratic government made up of experts who have no democratic mandate?

@Tensing. Excellent post

well said, Jim Walsh.

Hi Tensing Norgay.
I set out to challenge and get reaction, not patronise and i can see how that came across in the article. Apologies. That aside, I don’t claim to agree with previous governments nor do i believe this government are particularly gifted. I don’t.
And people have every right to be frustrated and angry with how the country runs and the greater economic system. We need lower salaries and benefits for elected reps and reform to stop cronyism etc.
But unfortunately, when new parties appear, the Irish people dont seem to warm to them, dont vote in big enough numbers, dont regard them as serious, dont agree or understand their policies, or worse, dont take time to find out about who they are and what they stand for…. The politically interested and engaged readers of the Journal are not the norm. The Irish people unfortunately vote back in duds time and time again. Sorry

I’ve a little insight into why.

I set up the Regressive Hypocrite Party in the late ’80s to try to open debate about the recently formed PD neoliberal extension of Reagan/Thatcher monetarism into our already ultra-conservative politics.
I got some coverage in the likes of the Hot Press and local radio, and was even interviewed by RTE(but never broadcast). It was a European ticket I was trying to rock, knowing how fraught the national arena would be.
I was, and am, well able to debate and had thought through the 10 point program I drew up.
You can get on a chat show and moan to Joe and Pat’s sympathy, you cannot challenge the system that pays them so well to contain the debate in set ideological channels.
Ditto our print media.

Jim walsh seanie was running the show back in early 2000 he was advising all goverment ministers .

Agreed Frank.

FF/FG wre always the Rome Rule Francoists, good cop/bad cop go-with-the-flow-and-milk opportunists.
The Labour Party promised an outside the tent analysis of an alternative democratic management of an economy on other premises than ‘greed is good and phukk the hindmost I’m alraight jack’.

We don’t need a new party, we need Keaveney and the non-Stalinist disaffected Labour to re-group and give leadership, with whoever accepts that leadership for a new economics that must be put onto the global stage to counter the neoliberal gangster savagery leading to totalitarian militartised Orwellian dystopia.
Given the grip of our embedded media, and the general state of indoctrination and fear of change in the population, added to the weight of the vested interests…optimism aint wise.

The only realistic solution is a total reform of the electoral system & the governance of the country ! A true return to parish pump politics would be beneficial & let the power of the people flow upwards rather than the other way around , with only a 5 year window for change !!

“worst disparity of wealth in europe and this is a measure with which to judge our society”
since when ?

How is a new party going to produce better people for the job?
Anyone who makes such assertions has at least an obligation to explain why they aren’t starting one – the ‘someone else will do it’ attitude it the cause of a lot of the mess we are now in.

@Stephen
this might explain as to why disparity of wealth is important
http://youtu.be/jsEZr3s1aBA

and as i said in my above post the sooner we get away from civil war politics in this country the better because when one lot are in they look after their cronies and then when the other lot get in the same happens while the rest of us suffer

The Spirit Level was discredited long ago, and in any case “inequality” explains exactly nothing about a country and how well or badly it is doing, taken by itself.

Agreed on the civil war politics, but people have had choices and have not taken them, Frank. I would like to see some sort of neoliberal party emerge but no more now than I did ten years ago. The author’s point (well, one of them) is that nobody wanted change when we had money in our pockets, and the change in attitude is brought about by the recession – although in your case you sound like you, like me, have not been happy with the status quo for a longer time.

‘scuse me Tim…

but..’..I would like to see some sort of neoliberal party emerge..’.??

You want to solve our situation with more neoliberalism…of the neoliberal PD variety?

Correct me if I misread.
And if inequality explains nothing to you, exactly what does? The Dow or FT?

Damien, my point was that I’ve always wanted a neoliberal party in Ireland, who believed in Capitalism in principle rather than how FF did, i.e. it was just the latest thing they believed in because it suited their purposes, and I haven’t just decided that now to ‘solve our situation’.

As for inequality, no it doesn’t bother me. Poverty bothers me, but “inequality” as a statistic says nothing about poverty, only about how much wealth is held by how small a group. It doesn’t tell you about what access the majority of people have to basic amenities like food, water and shelter, and it doesn’t explain how well a country is prospering for most of the people who live there, it’s just a coefficient based on comparing the most wealthy to the most poor. If ‘inequality’ were particularly high it might indicate that there is a certain lack of market freedom, or it might indicate cronyism, but it doesn’t necessarily mean either of those. It’s certainly not a valid measure to judge a given society.

Fine, that narrows it somewhat, even if still wooly.

But is not the logic of your neoliberal capitalism, of the free forces of unregulated monetary accumulation and magnification, the creation of a pyramid of competition with a monolpole winner uber alles trickling favours, through a controlled distribution, to the parched floor of the 99% below an increasingly steep 1%?

Surely some regulation to maintain some limits on accumulation so that obscene poverty does not result is necessary?Some set of agreed rules to ensure some level of laterality?
At least some equality of basic nourishment, shelter and education?

Tim
Was it that the findings of the book were incorrect or the conclusions that were drawn from it were discredited?
and by who.
and yes i lost my belief in the status quo in ireland a long time ago
I sometimes wonder what this country would have been like if michael collins had of grown old hahaha

Frank, there was a book written refuting the Spirit Level http://spiritleveldelusion.blogspot.ca/. The gist of it, from hazy memory, was that the authors had been selective about which countries they had included in the study (leaving out some Asian countries) and that this choice had been arbitrary and dishonest. Also, that cultural differences as factors were entirely ignored particularly between Europe and Asia, and the general criticism that they conflate correlation with causation, a mistake nearly everybody makes at some point!

Damien, I am fairly sure that is not the logic of neoliberalism but the logic of critics of neoliberalism that you’ve described, and it’s not my place to make those arguments for them. In response I’ll just say that in an ideal free market scenario, and we’re talking theory here, accumulation of vast wealth is next to impossible without some protectionism and manipulation of government in the regulatory end of things and/or cronyism to some extent; you cannot create a monopoly without the kind of force only government can apply. Why assume that economic competition has to result in the enrichment of the few at the expense of the many?

very interesting reading tim but I will stick with my man and the original data,

http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/authors-respond-questions-about-spirit-levels-analysis

I did say in my original post that it was a measure to judge our society and granted there are other ways in which to measure a society but it was part of the main point I was trying to make, of which I stick by aswell.

I also have the say hand on heart that the headline gets right up my nose its so condesending

The Great Day by William Butler Yeats
Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot!
A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot.
Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!
The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.

Sorry Tim, but I don’t think you understand the origins or logic of neoliberalism with Milton friedman and his team of Chicago Boys flying squad structural adjusters.You’re shooting in the dark.
Get a copy of Naomi Klein’s ‘Shock Doctrine’ for intro, and a copy of Michel Cossudovsky’s ‘Globalisation of Poverty, Impacts of the IMF and World Bank Reforms’ for a breakdown in detail.
Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and has followed its predations in detail, on the ground, across the planet.
Its not the ideal theory you think. Its a malign and premeditated ideology of destruction, containment and extraction of monetised resources designed by the powerful financial interests who control virtually ALL governements by creating indebtedness on a systemised program.
Its logic has pillaged Latin America since the CIA/Pinochet coup in ’73(9/11, no less) and tthe introduction of Operation Condor kidnap, disappearance, torture and elimination across the continent and beyond to Africa, Indonesia and now the devestating resource wars reconfiguring the Middle East and North Africa to suit the Halliburton/Bechtel balkkanisation of the military/industrial reich of full spectrum dominance PNAC kicked into overdrive by Cheyney/Bush after simmering under Reagan/Thatcher for a decade.
You are talking totalitarian dictation of the mega-corporatariat of Wal St-City of London and their global elites parasiting on the wealth producing workers whose ever-increasing productivity is siphoned offshore to an archipelago of tax-havens. http://www.treasureislands.org
I am not asssuming, I am reporting my observations over a long period across the globe, and with more than a little history digested. Get the books, they’re not too dear, and, if you still think neoliberalism is the way to go, at least you will be able to defend your stance.

Frankl

Yeats got it right.
Revolution is by definition full circle. If the ideologue liturgical-mantra chanters stopped to understand the language they churn they’d understand why Orwell depicted the circularity as he did in Animal Farm.
At most we need a half revolution to invert the pyramid, but ideally we might try resuming conscious evolution to a more lateral society.

Lots of great debate and criticism on this thread – how much can be achieved in an Ireland where the population, despite being angry and disgruntled with poor economic management, have shown little appetite at the ballot box for new and innovative political parties to date, and have re-elected poor and self serving TD’s regularly. How we change this is the trick…

@Dermot

Central to the problem is the escalating war for internet control now that the embedded corporate organs of ideological indoctrination have been briefly outflanked.

Many people are beginning to realise we are at a genuine historical crisis point, not just the headline hype of the mainstream managed spinners.
Crisis means critical. The last world war is up and running, but we are inside the Goebbeldigooked reich of a spurious ‘international community/coalition of the willing’ that has hijacked the UN attempt to transcend the imperial Great Games that brought us rounds 1 and 2 betweeen 1914 and 1945. They even called round 1 the Great War…to end all wars…which it will if we cannot halt its current Nato/PNAC Pentagonian gallop for full spectrum dominance.
Its bigger than Ireland. We’re just Eirebase Shannon on their charts, as the Falklands are the Diego Garcia of the Latin American theatre.

Hi Dermot
Yes I agree changing the electorate is going to be difficult but I am still of the opinion that we need to cleanse ourselves from civil war politics. I think that is a huge issue and something that has held us back as a people. I did take exception to the heading of the article as it in my opinion not childish to me its the only option. I did agree that outwardly the blueprint is the same but its domestically where the change needs to happen

Well, Damien I think I understand it pretty well. Fortunately for you, you don’t have to like it. I waded my way through Naomi Klein’s book back when I might have been a little sympathetic to her ideas but am more inclined towards her critics now having assessed the arguments on their respective merits.
That said, your attempt to launch a guilt-by-association criticism of neoliberalism involving Pinochet (for some reason) shows that you aren’t really concerned with the theoretical basis of free-market Capitalism but about how others have used it as a tool for their own ends. Which is not the same thing.

And since we are giving each other friendly reading advice, why not take a look at The Road to Serfdom? It’s very good.

You’re right Tim, I’m less concerned about abstract theorising and more concerned with the effects, and Chile, Argentina and most of the globe reside under the yolk of its effects, which is finaly come home to roost in the US.
Its efffects are unbridled fascisms of varying hues.
Thats what deregulation DOES. It licences fascisms and fraud in the name of its theoretical abstract Liberty. Facts on the ground, as the Zionists call them. Usually jackboots on someone else’s.
There are many roads to serfdom. Which author?
Meantime try Chossudovsky.

Ah yes… deregulation ‘licences fascisms’ .. that’s exactly what it does. Because taking away power from government = fascism.

On that note, I shall leave you to discuss Zionists and jackboots with someone else. Have a good day.

Close down democratic management and the power of cumulative capital feeds the corporate conglomerates and the ever ambitious militaries who then hollow out your idealised abstraction and go on the rampage. Thats how Adolf surfed home, when he convinced Krupps and IG Farben and Siemans that his egalitarian populism was a means to his end of expansionary rearming and eastward push for conolial liebensraum.
Eisenhower warned it would happen, as he left the coal-face after having watched its mushrooming, literally, during WW II; as depicted the by parasitic fillicidal military/industrial machine in Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman’.

Your idealisation is the mirror of leftist ideological blinkers. Utopian wishes are lazy ways to dystopias.

Oh tell me more about my supposed ‘idealism’!

I like your debating tactics, I honestly do, they’re dishonest and non-constructive but a lot of fun. They have their place but I don’t have the time nor the energy. I may file them away for use at another time, but just to recap:
1. patronise your opponent by suggesting s/he hasn’t read much. Misrepresent at every turn.
2. pretend your opponent holds Opinion X, then associate Opinion X with nasty people like Hitler and/or Stalin, or in your case, Pinochet and ‘Zionists’. Whether the association is valid or not.
3. continue 2 by carrying on about all the bad things in the world in the hope they’ll stick to imaginary Opinion X.
4.present opponent as ‘ideologically’ driven, with self as ‘reasonable’ centrist (very common one, that)
5. rinse and repeat.

Like I said, it’s fun but when you only criticise another’s views without presenting any of your own I call ‘unfair!’ because it’s impossible to return the favour. It’s only fair to explain your views as well, or can you give it but not take it…??

In short: put up or shut up.

now lads im feeling left out, what about civil war politics
give me your views tim i’m interested

What about them is right, Frank…this is probably how they started.

Everyone climbing into a trench of labels. There I am nailed up with a five point assesment I don’t recognise. Including accusations I don’t recall slinging.

Do you second that measure?Well I’ll settle for your reffing seeing as you seem to have retained a sense of balance.

I figure neoliberalism is what the PDs drove through our polity in the last 25 years. Tim seems to think the day hasn’t dawned yet.
What do you reckon?

Frank, you’re right about civil war politics imo, our parties don’t seem to be divided on lines that are relevant to anyone. I understand that FF consider themselves centrists while FG are more conservative, but that hasn’t always seemed to an outside observer to be the case. That said, if one were on the political Left it’s hard to see what difference it makes whether FF and FG are two parties or one. Would you be of the opinion there is a sort of latent leftism within FF that could be liberated from the party?
Back when I could be reasonably considered a ‘young person’ it made no sense to me then, so I wonder do actual ‘young people’ now feel the same or have their views of the parties changed?

By ‘conservative’ and ‘latent leftism’ do you mean that FF tended to give pensioners a slightly bigger pittance, while FG tended to slash it and tax kids shoes while protecting the financially strong, particularly strong farmers?

reffing hahaha,
im still reading and trying to take in both of your second or third comments. its hard going and i’m having to go to the dictonary every second word. i will be honest, im not interested in changing the world and that may sound selfish but all i want to change is my surroundings. i’ve lived my life watching gombeen sons taking the place of their gombeen fathers at the forefront of irish political life for nigh on 4 decades now and im just sick of it. i think the banking crisis was the straw. i see people around me, hard working people who never were in trouble in their life willing to got to jail in protest at the corrupt goings on and i genuinely want to change that. i think thats why i was so mad at the headline because i know in my heart and soul that they only way to do that is with a new politic and to call it childish hurt. politics don’t exist in this country it all palm greasing, shoulder rubbing, back slapping, stroke pulling, backhanded shite

HI Frank – thanks for the feedback – the title was the most controversial bit of it all and it certainly has got a lively debate going. I’m going to have to get a clear head and try and get up to speed on Damien and Tim’s debate as its high level stuff.
Re: Civil war politics – its odd, and yes, there are members of FF should move left and members of FG should be further right. The civil war split causing FG and FF has divided more natural allies onto the other side of the pitch. Who knows how Irish history would be different if this wasnt the case… it certainly would make taking sides easier so therefore it blurs the lines for voters making them say with regularity, “whats the difference between them, they are all the same…”.
Thats not good for politics and has meant that a fairly centrist party has always been in charge, unlike the UK perhaps where it swung between Lab and Conservative

yes dermot
it totally messes things up, typical irish!
i love the yeats poem because its explains exactly the way i feel and its good to think at least someone else felt the same way and that im not going mad
could be old age aswell haha
but in the end good article and good debate allround

They wouldn’t make it past the corporate media filters. Its managed ‘democracy’.

Invisible hands, remember.

@ Emma “We need politicians who can act for the good of the whole country not just their constituents.” If only they WERE acting for the good of their constituents. Unfortunately their only loyalties are with themselves and their party.

Iceland not tied in with the EU thou

http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/countries/detailed-country-information/iceland/index_en.htm

Colin here’s what’s actually happening in Iceland – link tweeted by Matt Cooper the other day

http://studiotendra.com/2012/12/29/what-is-actually-going-on-in-iceland/

Ciaran, you state that this is actually what is happening as if its absolute truth. It is not, it is just another opinion of which there are many. Read the article I posted from the Washington Post for an alternative view. One should never confuse beliefs with absolute truths

Still not a member of the EU! Fishermen from Iceland are fishing off the West Coast of Ireland while Irish Fishermen were parked up restricted by the EU quotas etc. The fishermen from Iceland got away with it because the werent under EU jurisdiction

My absolutism is no more or less absolute than yours….

Iceland paid back the bondholders and the only people that did gaol time were three mid level operators. I would thoroughly recommend reading the link above if you want to know what is actually going on in Iceland rather than the fanciful nonsense that is so often trotted out about plucky Icelanders standing up against global capital!

Colin, you described the blog to which Ciaran linked as an opinion piece. Fair enough, but it is an opinion piece which is backed up by facts and figures, and transparent links to their references.
There are a lot of untruths being told about Iceland by people who have their own agenda.

Ciaran Dillon that link to studio tendra was amazing. Thank you.

@Desmond O’Toole, Iceland did not pay of the bondholders, they repaid international monetary funds rescues loans, not the same thing as bondholders who gambled and lost.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-26/is-remedy-for-next-crisis-buried-in-iceland-view-correct-.html

@Mattoid, and who has the biggest agenda of all? Never the bondholders is it? In whose interest is it to cloud the facts?

@DMc, It is not really the EU but the Euro that is our biggest problem. We are locked into the single currency when really we should have followed the example of our biggest trading partner and stayed out of it. I think bigger questions need to be asked. For example, is it even constitutional to have private debt of a wealthy elite transferred to the sovereign state coffers? Was not a referendum required?The elephant in the room are the zombie banks. They are failed enterprises and will be bailed out again. We simply cannot afford them. We, the Irish people should never have allowed ourselves to be saddled with the private debt of super wealthy gamblers. Our society is a broken one and things are going to get a whole lot worse.

The present government told blatant lies in order to get elected. That Enda Kenny stood in front of the Irish people announcing that he had a 5 point plan that would create 100,000 jobs, when nearly 2 years later, not 1 of those jobs has materialised is downright criminal. Eamon Gilmore swore that Child benefit would not be cut under a labour Government. Leo Varadker vowed to burn bond holders. The list goes on. It’s the liars and fraudsters that need to be turfed out so that change can take place. All the main parties out there today are of a “look after ourselves first” culture, that only by establishing brand new political parties can this ever be changed. What the ordinary people of Ireland need today is honest, hardworking people in charge. We’ve had enough of incompetent, self serving fraudsters.

Very well put Rodrigo.
Don’t forget “it’s ok to lie to get into power ”
Is Treason not a crime anymore.

Exactly Trevor, this is the real issue.

Dermot McNally has royally missed the point – in fact several crucial points.

The first is that what the last five years have demonstrated beyond doubt is that none of the mainstream political parties represent the interests of the majority of citizens in this country.

There are two very serious problems in the Euro-zone.

The first, tho’ the exact same globally, is the emergence of a vast, largely unregulated financial sector that has become so large it is almost purely extractive of the real economy. Feral & producing absolutely nothing, it ran up a Pyramid scheme with the help of greedy property developers & other speculators.

It is now quite obvious, after 5 years of precisely zero action on addressing (appropriately shrinking this plague of leeches & removing all it’s activities from high street banking institutions) that the mainstream economics profession & politicians are variously bought by or otherwise captured or in thrall to this finance sector.

Obviously, this issue goes well beyond Ireland, but Ireland’s ‘authorities’ have been just as self-serving as those everywhere else.

The second is that even with all the damage – direct & consequential losses – of the failure of the financial sector Pyramid scheme, recovery should have – & could have – begun long before now due to the insane policy of austerity. And the most insane part of all is that the Eurozone shared currency system was designed to guarantee & lock-in austerity, as far as possible, as the only policy response.

Whereas the UK, US, Japan etc., with sovereign currencies, can ALL carry far more government debt, at much lower interest rates THAT THEIR CENTRAL BANKS’ CONTROL, NOT ‘MARKETS’, the Euro-zone countries have faced the opposite dynamic.

Effectively using a ‘foreign’ currency, they do not control, Euro-zone countries have found themselves, inevitably, at the mercy of that same finance sector, doubling, trebling or quadrupling (or more) borrowing costs at precisely the time when more borrowing is needed. Needed & precisely the responsible thing to be doing to ensure minimal losses to employment and damage to economic capacity.

But it gets even worse. Instead of trying to rectify the Eurozone’s flaws, what we’ve had is some faux ‘morality’, ‘competitivesness’, race to the bottom finger wagging – in reality, nothing less than age-old Mercantilist, ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’ looting.

Seriously, when Ireland had its own ‘shared currency’ – the punt – did we spend our lives berating, say, County Kerry, because it’s no where near as ‘productive’, or economically ‘competitive’ as, say, County Dublin ?

Did we even think of collecting the ‘data’ to even make such comparisons?

NO, WE DIDN’T. Because it is nonsensical. And even more nonsensical to apply punitive ‘austerity’ measures plucked from some Victorian Empire morality play. “…The beatings will continue until morale improves!!…”

In a shared currency, the main idea is to facilitate trade – we are all each other’s customers. One’s spending is someone else’s income (and jobs!). If a region is deemed to be lacking in economic development, INVESTMENT is applied, not ‘austerity’, ‘competitiveness’ STARVATION.

So what we have is the elites of Europe engaged in the age-old squabbling over their petty self-interests. Did Germany really think Greece (or Spain, or Portugal, or Ireland or Italy) was within, even +decades+, going to become as economically, productively efficient as them? Not a chance.

Regardless, in the meantime, with the fixed exchange rate of a shared currency, the export industries of countries like Germany would boom with all these new customers, strong currency in hand. So, who cared if it all fell apart at the first economic shock? Not the people at the top!

It was no secret, which economies were more productive (in money terms) & which were not. But also note, immediately on joining the Euro, Germany itself introduced the most aggressive wage cutting program it has ever made in recent history – the Hartz ‘reforms’.

Yet neo-liberal ideologues like Merkel & Shauble & all the rest, now blame Greece, Italy, Spain & all the rest for not keeping up & catching up. Which we should all have done within about 5 years according to them? Yeah, right!!

So who was representing the interests of ordinary citizens in all of this???

Flat, fecking NO-ONE ! NONE OF THIS SH1T WAS ‘DEMOCRACY’ !!!!

Ok, ok. Rant over. You get the idea? C’mon, wake up everybody, we don’t need new ‘parties’ we need a whole new politics & system of public administration to replace the present self-serving tossers virtually in their entirety :)

excellent post Mike fair play!

Trevor – good point.
Mike: alot of fair and reason points – the difficulty always seems to be: 1) identifying the people who actually want the personal hassle to make a new party available and 2) getting the public onside to vote for them,

If we had stronger politicians that didn’t cave in to vested interests and try to buy elections by throwing money around we would be here in the first place.

Not to mention childish

Hi Lisa, apologies there if this came across as arrogant. I welcome new political parties, its just that i feel there are very limited options at present, regardless of who gets in. And for the record, I dont like the international monetary system or how global trade works, i just feel we are trapped at present unfortunately. And as you point out yourself, the Irish people have ultimately re-elected the same monkeys for years, even those involved in crony-ism. Only a tiny percentage of our population really engage with politics/debate and we need more engagement if things are to really change.

Scrap Croke Park1. You’re right but who is going to make this new party happen? Most of us might enjoy a debate and a banter about politics but are enough “normal” people prepared to get really involved? And can a new party or parties catch the public imagination? Big questions.
Yes, as i said, reform, improve, new parties are all good. But we have to set our sights on incremental improvements because our voting population rarely does revolution…

I hope so Dermot. 5 years ago if I told u FF would have less seats than Indo’s and none at all in dublin I’d have been committed. Never in the history of our country has their been more appetite for change. Right now im watching a new party, Direct Democracy Ireland. Check them out. A little green behind the ears but they seem honest and ambitious. There will be more new parties before next election

Yes, i looked at this crew Direct Dem…. it will be very interesting to see how they get on. Unfortunately, the only reason i heard of them was through someone here mentioning them. THey are struggling to get heard on the mainstream media. Your point about the independents is right, there will be an increase there too, which can be messy re: formation of government.

Tom – Tacit support? Hmm. I just mean are there immediate alternatives? Things are crap and the government should be doing alot more to reform their own pay and conditions and lead from the front – no doubt. But i dont see enough Irish people getting engaged to make a big change. We can barely get a sizeable demonstration.

We need to get away from proportional representation. Leave that to local councillors. We should be voting nationally for a National Assembly. 60 qualified representatives should do it. 80k a year should be enough to attract some decent people.

And if you disagree with this businessman then you are childish..

Hi Coddler – thanks for the robust challenge – my position is that doing what you have suggested could make things alot worse. And for the record, I dont like the international monetary system or how global trade works, i just feel we are trapped at present infortunately.

Dermot,
Fair play for responding to mine and the other posts. My main suggestion was that Ireland should take the ECB to the European courts for exceeding their authority and forcing us to repay all the private bondholder debt. Ireland could legitimately postpone all bank debt repayments pending the outcome of this case. I really can’t see how this measure would make things a lot worse for us economically.

The Troika are not united in their insistence that Ireland pay all the bondholders. The IMF have made it very clear that Ireland should have imposed losses on the bondholders. It is our own governments that have adopted and implemented the hardline ECB position of no bondholder will be left behind. Fianna Fail/Green Party firstly and now FG/ Labour are the ones that have trapped us in their prison. It is clear that the welfare of the people of Ireland is not their priority.

I’ve explained why the Troika will not withdraw funding from Ireland due to the risk to the Euro. But if the worst case scenario did occur and we were cut adrift immediately for daring to legally challenge the ECB then I have suggested a radical but practical counter measure that Ireland could take. This is a time of great crisis. We need to be brave and look beyond the old grey men and their failed policies.

Coddler, your argument is one that many of us make. I’ll tell you how I come to my twisted logic – i have met many politicians and while I didn’t walk away from any of them feeling I met a genius, I rarely walked away thinking, “that guy is dangerous, 100% self serving and full of his/her own self worth”. Despite what we often hear, they are fairly regular people (in so much as politicians are).
Ok, so when they make decisions for us, i figure that they have the best advice at hand and make the best judgement. What you have suggested is probably so close to the line of economically dangerous that while it might work, the conservative in these elected reps, just sits safe, for fear of being lynched. I assume it was this “conservative” instinct that made lenihen sign the bank guarantee the night he did. Then again, it could have been whiskey, exhaustion or lack of information…. we’ll never know… One thing for sure, we need more leadership from up top in the form of TD pay and conditions so the working man and the indebted person feels, these guys are bearing the pain with us.

Don’t confuse your view with the people’s view. Unlike you or the likes of Mickie McDowell who is trailing this idea of a new political party, this government was democratically elected. It has a mandate to restore the economy and to stabilise the state’s finances. Deal with it.

I’ll deal with that.

‘..restore the economy..’.

Thats the problem. Its broke. As an economic model it is unfit for purpose in the 21st century and unless upgraded to our times will revert to its natural default of totalitarian war as in ’14-’18 and ’39–’45.
With the 21st century technologies of overkill.
Get your heads out of the nationalist nosebags. Its a globalised economy. Has been for centuries. The borders are just the pens the labour units are confined by, like cattle at the mart.

Unfortunately Desmond the people including myself would like to see a change much to the bewilderment of the currently empowered. We care not for b-shit and lies, but for honesty and transparency and an overall improvement in our society – not the complete opposite !

@Desmond. “this government was democratically elected. It has a mandate to restore the economy and to stabilise the state’s finances.”

They were elected on the basis of promises they made which they subsequently broke, and they have been entirely unsuccessful in restoring the economy, and have made things far worse. The only way to “deal with it” is to get them out. If it were any other job these people would have been fired on the basis that they: a) lied in their application, b) have shown themselves to be grossly incompetent for the role, and c) have committed numerous acts of gross misconduct.

What mandate ? People voted on policies and manifestos of individual parties that insisted on going alone prior to the election despite the fact we all new FG/ labour would go into coalition, what we got was that watered down and amended catch all program government that no one voted for !!!

for government

Blobert – ape? Ok, so maybe not seeing things the way you do! I didnt say the Government in charge care, i just said that it could be difficult in finding an improved alternative. You’d imagine it wouldnt be hard but finding the people willing to engage with politics, stand for election and convince the people to vote – that’s the hard part – that’s where all the wishful thinking faces tough, unpleasant reality. Dont get me wrong, id love if things were better but things are so difficult and the harsh reality is tough….

ISBA. At the end it’s the people who vote for the politicians that run the country. The PDs were a good party but in the end the people didn’t want them. So it’s the peoples fault. Anyone who stands up and tells the truth will not get elected, ever.

ISBA – i cant say i agree with the article being deeply flawed but there are lots of valid points in 2, 3 and 4. How easy this is to achieve, when most of the population dont want to get involved in politics is hard to know.

You’ve already talked about this article above and as Ciaran Dillion pointed out (and posted a link about) there are alternative views on this.

Actually, you’ll find it was me that pointed out that there were alternatives views. Read it again.

A lot of people were saying that in the 1930s as well – be careful what you wish for!

Because anything you don’t agree with HAS to be a left-wing conspiracy. You do realise over half of the electorate want a new party when Ireland is a traditionally center-right voting country right?

Sli-Nios-Fearr must be good, to say you’ve mentioned the party. Are you scared of Parties, that listens too its citizens and will do as they promise!

Jason, of course people want a new party – we’re in shite at the moment. But when we exit the program and stand on our pent two feet, the clamour will be less. When the domestic economy starts to move as confidence grows, the calls will diminish. And when job creation ramps up and people can aspire to a better life you guys will be forgotten…

@OReilly
We will need a bailout this year, as our banks yet again have fooled our government into thinking they have enough bad debt provision to cover the mortgage default.
Our present emigration levels are the worst since the famine.
The domestic economy is imploding under the current austerity programme.
Do you remember when Enda said that it was impossible to tax your way out of recession, well he was correct
We have a greater disparity of wealth in this country than at any time
We have a leader who is negocating a debt writedown that is paid more than the people who he is negociating with so i’m afraid guys like us will be here for the forseeable future