Hilarious. Can they piss on Irish people any more? Ireland is the best country in the world to be a politician…great craic :D

FF/FG/Labour …. ALL THE SAME … and the majority of this country keep voting for this shower of lieing gits …. Open your eyes … Do not vote for the Ivory tower eite, who couldnt care less about anyone except their own kind ….
Vote for SF or the ULA next time out … If you dont, then you have no right to complain about the Government you get,

Yep. Our elected national leader is not only a proven rascist, but a hypocritical cronyist.

“Racist” ? Explain, pls -

Dont emigrate. Agitate!

@Declan, I think Conor is referring to the infamous n-word joke that Kenny made about Patrice Lumumba a few years ago. You can find out about it on Kenny’s Wikipedia page – don’t know if I’m allowed to link from here. Either that or Conor means his lack of reaction (and action!) in relation to Damien Scallon.

Ah !! Gotcha, Chopper. Was wondering. Tnks.

Thanks Chopper, that’s right. Yep, a few years ago Kenny told journalists a joke using the word ‘nigger’. The amazinig thing is he asked them not to report it, and most agreed! WTF does this say about our reps?

In fairness that was CJ then Lenihan that said that but I firmly believe that if you want to lead then it must be by example. This is just a terrible message to send, the govt needs to show solidarity not this.

Ok, maybe he didn’t say those exact words but the message to normal people is basically the same.

It’s sickening really.

Hi Ryan. Ryan I doubt Enda reads TheJournal

I can assure you his advisors peruse all interactive media.

That’s good to know, Ryan. Hope they get a real sense of how people feel.

There are a team of people being paid just to monitor all media outlets. each minister also has one

hey patthebaker, shut your mouth

Being overpaid Martin!

i know one of them, and i wouldn’t describe her salary as particularily high, would be better served doing something else though

This is the most important comment of the thread

Well said Alan. If this happened we would be out of this recession in no time. People would accept personal cuts a lot easier if this happened.

Don’t you remember that elected clown who explained not that long ago that it was difficult to live with 70K ?

But what’s the solution John?

We need a different voting system, is online voting (as an option) being considered? It would encourage more people to vote, it would be totally transparent with no recounts and best of all I wouldn’t have to travel over 150km just to vote :-) posters and fliers should be banned, waste of money and only benefit big parties. People who want ministerial positions should put their names forward and we should vote on them nationally, then vote for TD’s locally. That way ministers could forget about their constituents and fully focus on their minister job.

Wages should be capped at 50k until we clear all debts and then WE can decide who deserves more, politicians, nurses, guards, civil servants etc.

Term Limits !

what about backslapping in dundrum shopping centre?

OMG! You mean backslapping in like Dundrum like…

Well, sort of, loike, roflmbao

Jesus, on-line voting?? are you nuts?? imagine how easy it would be to rig, or “loose” votes.
There’d be no end of complications.

Each person would have a unique number only they would know. When you vote you get a confirmation letter stating your vote. all votes with id numbers would be online and on a notice board in every town.So if your vote was wrong on the list you would have the email to prove it. How could rig that or loose votes?

where would we store the notice boards

The schools that we vote in already have them, It wouldnt cost a penny.

And the politicians could put them up for free, at least they would be doing useful for a change, lol

Nice wee song here, totally sums up how I’m feeling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt9Iqa79vfU

First thing we need is the ability to initiate and veta legislation engrained back into our constitution(articles 47 and 48) until we do that the government will never be accountable to the electorate. Once we have those two articled we can start actually reforming our government without fear of laws being passed in secret by the dail or laws being proposed which are not in the shared interedt of the state.
We also need to print out a list of campaign promises from parties and include them into a legally binding contract. If ythe politician looking for your vote refuss to sign then dont vote for them as they have no intention of telling the truth if they do sign and break your contract sue them. It would bring a new meaning to the term mandate of the people and would rightly make politicians fear their electorate.

Sounds great in theory but its an Impractical solution in practice John.

Lets say your politician signs an contract not to increase income tax before an election. Two years into government a major financial collapse happens and income tax need to be increased to plug a hole in the country’s financies. What happens then? Does the government resign and have an election because they can’t increase taxes?

What about coalitions? What happens in one party promises to lower taxes by 2% and another by 4%? Those parties can’t create a coalition because one of them will be forced to break a contract. Given that coalitions are the most likely form of government in Ireland we’d never be able to get a stable government. Instead we’d have a set of weak minority governments that would constantly be voted out of office by the opposition.

Have to disagree Jim, its only impractal if a party promise impractical things. If they have no intention of doing what they are promising they shouldnt be running a PR machine convincing people they do.

Why don’t you apply the impracticality of this idea to the bond markets? Its impractical to keep failed institutions afloat on the backs of the tax payer, especially as it creates an incentive to do things badly and screw over account holders/tax payers in the process.

I am proposing the same system used by the developers, bankers and speculators. They don’t give politicians mandates becuase they aren’t stupid. They get legally binding contracts irregardless of the practicallity of said contracts. It doesn’t matter that they are not paying their debt because they have a contract forcing you to pay it instead. Whilst you have a mandate, something none of the parties take seriously nor do they have to take seriously.

If your serious about changing things you need to identify the problem. Fight fire with fire. Dont sit and take it up the …. Don’t sit and watch your neighbor getting abused, or your child or grandchild getting abused or your future children getting abused.
If you do your no different from the priests who shuffled the paedofiles around the country hoping that by sticking their heads in the sand everything would work out.

siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/20250-electoral-map-system-to-hel
Go to that link to get a taste for how politics and campaiging works in ireland. They use GIS software to determine how to approach you individually and how to appeal to you even though they have no intention of helping you. If you were to do a psychological analysis of these people you would probably come to one conclusion ‘Psychopathy’.

They are incapable of feeling empathy for the electorate and incredible at manipulating them into thinking that they do. Classic attributes of psycopathy. People are handing powers over to them with no legally binding conditions. You know psycopathy is caused by a parasitic gene. You dont put parasites in water supplies nor should you put psycopaths in situations of absalute power. You dont stick them at the single point of failure and expect them not to take advantage, not to infect everything down the hierarchy.

They have moved from parasiticically leeching at your most vurnrable times(death of a loved one), to learning as much about you without drawing attention to themselves.

So the question was how do we make the people we vote for work for us and not the markets.

I agree contacts are impractical and it would be much better if we had articles 47 and 48 added back into our constitution so that we could initiate and veto legislation like I said on the previous comment. That way we could approach issues as they arise and not approach delicate issues with 4 year sledgehammers.
These people are not prophets and our current system treats them as such.

Why not use that GIS data to help us map out progression in our country rather then help politicians sytematically lie to every one of us.
Apply funds where it actually counts. Abolish the management/pencil pushers in the HSE and have each hospital independantly run(keep funding frontline staff and facilities). Reward them for saving lives rather than punish them for treating too many heart attacks.

The data of income and expenditure should publically available for critique.
Allowing the Irish people to compare how well the hospitals are being run and allocate funds accordingly.
At the end of the day contracts are impractical but they are being used against the irish people, they are being used to defraud our justice/political/ecconomic system.

Make as much risky bets as you want because even if you lose you dont have to pay, in fact you can make money(interest) from the poor sap being forced to pay.
It creates a dual ecconomy/litigation system which reinforces the concept of entitlement through lineage over reward for success.

The lower/mid earners have debt over their heads before they are even born whilst the people manipulating the political/justice system make new rules to ensure that their familly tree retain cash irregardless of how reckless they are with it.

People want change, they dont want to have to be violent to achieve it. Here are the steps they should take. Create contracts for politicians to sign until they give you the ability to veto and initiate legislation.

As for the coalition Jim, well the coalition is just another excuse used far too much. Take a look at Labour and FG positions on students durig the election. They both took the same stance. They both made promises to the students and both are now pointing at the other and saying that becuase they are in a coalition they needed to comprimise. How does that make sense.

If ‘Boy A’ says ‘Boy C’ has a green shirt and Boy B says Boy C has a green shirt. Then both ‘Boy A’ and ‘B’ agree that ‘Boy C’ has a green shirt. It doesnt make sense to say that a compramise between ‘Boy A’ and ‘Boy B’ is the assertion that ‘Boy C’ has no shirt. It doesn’t make sense, its just a ruse to fool you into not holding either party accountable for what they promise. Whilst bankers, developers and speculators rape and laugh at you.

And that is why we need term limits, to get the liars out.

Save your breath Toirealach, probably best to start saving what little money you have, carefully plan and make your escape with your family to somewhere where people are less jaded and apathetic.

Im not talking, Im typing, lol

The clowns it would seem already are in

hai rachel……don’t you know how much a new one costs ! lol….and we can’t afford it !

Count me in!

I’m in. I’m bored anyways.

Because The Journal allows for comments on their stories, and like any other story on the website – people take advantage of that opportunity and express their feelings.

Why exactly should someone be positive about this story? If that’s your best defence of Enda – you’re going to have to try a little harder.

Thanks Kieran – that was my mistake. That should be amended now.

@kieran dunne. and the differance that makes is what exactly?

@Martin, mmm… accuracy, no?

Right, so what material difference does it make?

@Martin, I’d say every journalist would like to think that what they write is factually correct. It’s pretty much one of the basic tenets of journalism, and I’d imagine any journalist wouldn’t mind such things being flagged.

Of course, a minor detail like that is unimportant to your opinion of the subject, but the article is written objectively – another one of the journalistic integrity principle-y things! – and the “material difference” to your opinion is, sorry, irrelevant.

Thankfully, theJournal are always on the ball when *anything* in an article is found to be inaccurate.

Your right, Kenny’s just kept 1 person out of a good job with that cronyism.

No Shebeen, that will be FF’s next election promise as an indignant, ignorant, amnesiac and gullible electorate somehow convince themselves they were better under FF!!!!!!!

Yeah and if their excuse is “he’d be paid more in the private sector” then let him fuckin stay there.. We – the TAX PAYERS, their WAGE PAYERS, their BOSSES, can’t afford it.

We should get more say over what our taxes pay for.. I would prefer my taxes paying for public services and infrastructure, not insane pay rises for nobodies to keep them from running back to the private sector, or massive pensions for people who’s level of incompetency rivals that of an underwater hair dryer.

I actually agree . My vote will probably go to SF…

Was jean Mc Conville murdered?

Well i cannot vote, cos i’m English, but am expected to pay tax to whoever is in government……..does that seem fair n just to you?

You live here !

@ALLY … i am pretty sure that english people CAN vote in Irish elections … just not for the Presidency … ring up your local county council to check it out …

•British citizens may vote at Dáil elections, European elections and local elections;
•Other European Union (EU) citizens may vote at European and local elections
•Non-EU citizens may vote at local elections only.

Et tu Randy? My belief in human spirit is restored!

He don’t need one – he like his predecessors’ does what the hell they like!
…And stuff us!

Unitedpeople Ireland .
I was serious when I asked him what his excuse is . I emailed him and I emailed my local FG TD who is a minister .I am not going to be defeatist any more .They won’t stuff us if we stand up and ask them direct questions and keep asking them until we get a real answer….If I get a reply I will tell you

Can we put the dog down?

@ United Shoot whoever you like,just leave the dogs alone.Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Woof Woof

Simply fill in this form and click send.

http://www.leovaradkar.ie/?page_id=4

Wrong.

The problem here is that career public servants (like Kenny) have a view on what constitutes a “good” salary that is completely out of kilter with what normal people (here and abroad). 90k euro is a LOT of money, now matter where you go in the world. Of course there will always be exceptions for people that are exceptionally talented or experienced, but

Put simply, Kenny is still living in cloud-cuckoo land. He is obviously comparing this salary with his own (completely over the top) package, not with what normal people earn here (in the private sector) or with what his opposite number (say in Germany) earns.

Fine Gael are a slightly posher version of Fianna Fail, you couldn’t put a cigarette paper between them on 99% of policy issues.

Me too..

Hear hear!!

So in all other cases are the advisors hired ‘not so good’?

You are dead right William. We need to keep turfing failures out of office, and elect new governments until they finally get the message that we will no longer tolerate the bullshit. Party allegiance needs to go out the window. We need to use our vote smartly until we find a government who actually will do what’s right regardless of who they are.

You made the mistake of mentioning sinn féin William. It just draws out the civil war them and us kinda sentiment from all the voters that are going to continue to vote same way they always do.

Still, 35k is a decent wage all in itself.. As a pay raise in a recession, paid by a government who is in as much debt as we all are – it’s ludicrous..

Advisors …..

Do you think it’s ok ?

what’s the alternative

There are plenty of alternatives Joey. It is not mandatory to vote for either FF or FG. There are parties out there who represent the interests of ordinary people. (I would not include Labour in this, I wouldnt vote for them in a fit)

they just appointed a heap of judges

Paddy , FG had a function in the Mansion House a few weeks ago , apparently the food and drink consumed at it was disgusting! And guess what, the bill was covered by FG/ government . It makes me sick ..

@JRBMC; was it al that deep fried stuff?

You should do a bit of research on the IMF before making decisions like that. After all they they caused the crash in the first place.

The IMF did not CAUSE the crash. If the IMF had their way we would have burned bond holders and torn up the CPA. Get your facts right

Perhaps a fair point, but the fact is the country cannot afford it. Plus, look at all the perks this guy will get as he’s been a public sector worker since BEFORE they changed the rules on golden handshakes and fat cat pensions..

It’s all bullcrap. If the guy would walk away from this job because the private sector would pay him more, let him go to the private sector.. This is the same nonsense argument that the wealthy elite would all up sticks and move If asked to contribute accordingly to society.. If they don’t see the benefits of contribution then perhaps they are psychopaths and we would be better off without them. It’s all excuses, excuses to keep taking everything from those struggling so that the fat cats can bathe in Evian.

I’m talking about higher level management not the lower levels. Surely if they could run things more efficiently and produce savings they would pay for there increased wages many times over. It’s not the point saying we can’t afford it. Can we afford this constant inefficiency?

Good point BUT the advisors are not the best the private sector can offer up. They are political cronies first and last.

I work as a civil engineer that does public contracts for the councils. I see how the councils waste money every day. I would sack every council worker and Subcontract all work out. The council workers only do a fifth of what private subcontractors do. Take a water scheme for example. A private contractor would lay 200 metres of pipe a day. Council workers do 40m. I’ve seen it with my own eyes and heard about it many times. This is just one example.

Sinn Fein government could come a lot sooner if these guys get any further out of touch with the people on the street.

one thing for sure they wont take it up the re,r like the rest of our leaders when they head for brussles,our fishing grounds sold for reps money to buy farmer votes,our gas rights given away,turf cutting rights nearly gone, we need a goverment to show no fear to germany and france,not to b told ur a good boy at school enda now sit down and do what ur told,and us the people who put them there are no better its either shut up r ship out like all our youth leaving,ect.Sinn Fein yes i agree extraordinary measures for extraordinary times,

The country is financially bankrupt, our Leader is morally bankrupt and Varadkar is a hypocrite of the highest order. How dare these leeches speak of fees for medical cards, cuts to Child benefit, increases in VAT and reductions in Social Welfare while they squander hard earned TAXPAYERS MONEY!!! on their friends and associates.

Jaysus, I thought FF were bad but FG have dragged politics to a disturbingly new low. Shame, shame shame on you Enda Kenny. How you will have the gall to stand before the nation tonight and justify your “austerity” after this atrocity is simply beyond me. You are, Enda, the lowest form of life.

Aidan Gill
I feel the same way , but who would we / could we have put in government instead ???

Fianna Fàil not Fine Fail

Hanly Sheelagh !
can you not see sarcasm . Get a grip woman and stop being so narrow minded. People are annoyed and rightly so and all you can do is engage in this form of criticism,,,,You were a public Representative ,so what are your thoughts on Enda’s speech What do yopu think ???

The problem is the people themselves. They are the “hurlers on the ditch”. Why can’t every community put forward an independent candidate with integrity and be ready for the next election. Of course if they did that they couldn’t expect him/her to put aside that integrity to ‘get them a house’ or a job or a medical card when they are ‘just over the limit’ because they supported him/her at the election.

Funny coming from the former FF turned independant. People dont trust independents because of the amount of sleeper cell FF canditates hiding in sheeps clothing.

I don’t think its fair that you are blaming the electorate for trusting parties to implement the policies they say they will implement. People do want to know, thats why they voted for apposing parties to the party you decided to leave(FF).
The problem is that the citizen are offered useless mandates which have no responsibility or legal conditions involved wheras bankers, developers, speculators, hedge funds, bond holders are given contracts signed in our name by the parties/individuals we hand mandates to.

That is why we are in the situation we are in now, where FF, FG, Labour and the Greens care more about the developers, bankers, speculators, hedge funds, and bondholders then they do the people who voted them into power.
FF, FG, Labour and the Greens share your view on the electorate. They see us as idiots waiting to be taken advantage of. The fact you admit it publicaly goes to show you are no different to them.

You should have offered your electorate a legally binding contract if you are so sure of yourself and your policies. Your situation also leads me to point out that previous members of poitical parties who go independant when the ship sinks should be forced to have a disclaimer below the ‘independant’ label on the ballot paper which identifies the previous party ties they have had.

I don’t mean to insinuate that you are bad for having previous ties to FF but I guarantee that there are previous FF members who still have ties with FF who are using the Independant label to slither their way back into power.

The same will happen to FG and Labour when they are kicked out.

Interested on your opinion on article 47 and 48 of the provisional constitution which your previous party removed without permission from the irish people. In my mind the power to veto and initiate legislation would make governments more accountable and citizens more engaged and responsable with their votes.
Much like how Swis has been for the last 400 years with those powers given to the citizen.

@martin Mc Cormack
We were told when we registered on the electoral roll that we could only vote in local council elections and EU elections. We have no vote in either the govt. (general) or presidential elections.
However, I will ring and find out if this is so, but we never received voting cards for the general election, but did so for the council.
Thirty years or so ago we (English) could only vote in european elections.