Brian Cowen's legacy of failure as Taoiseach

[TheManFromFerbane]

Game on .....

Ah man I was never good at debating, I don't like anything that I can't do better by getting angry!

Of course not. However I was not singling out individual TD's - I was saying that most political parties seem to have some sort of raison d'etre. A look at their actions and policies could determine some sort of underlying ethos - with FF, this is completely absent. It is seat-of-the-pants government, making decisions with no coherent strategy only to get a bounce in the polls. Of course individual TD's look after their own patch and spent countless hours in clinics and at funerals, but once they get into government (as opposed to parliament) that's usually balanced with some sort of attempt to look after the country. FF don't even pretend to do that. Listen to all the interviews with Bertie Ahern, and he's most proud of the fact that he won three elections. Those are his words, not some media commentator or analyst. It's not what he did with the power, but the fact that he obtained it that makes him proud.

I'm not debating about Bertie Ahern, this thread is about Brian Cowen and his time as leader, and I suppose Minister for Finance and how those actions led to the state we're in now. I personally don't like Bertie Ahern, as far as I'm concerned he is the type of politician that's all smooze and no content. I'm sure Bertie supporters somewhere could come up with their arguments against that point but that's the way I feel about him.

If you're looking for a "what we stand for" from FF, well I'm sure you'll get it during the election, but in my opinion, FF and FG are a right of centre party that believe everyone should have the basic human rights of food in their bellies, a roof over their heads, access to health care and access to education. Maybe they need to do better getting that message across but I'd say at that level it's an accusation that could be made against FG as well.

Also, I'm not sure if I subscribe to this way of thinking but there is an argument that if every person that goes into a voting booth and votes for someone that will do what's in their best interests, that when that all comes together, the majority of people will have people in government doing what's in their interest.

I would again argue that in the shape RTE, FF had the biggest cheerleader they could hope for. George Lee was the exception while he was there, but Joe Duffy, Ryan Tubridy, Miriam O'Callaghan, Bryan Dobson and several others all gave FF a free ride, due to their family connections and personal political inclinations...but my point is that the media have generally been very kind to FF.

I disagree, once it came to the point that it was the popular thing to do to jump on the government RTE ran with it all the way. At the time of the bank guarantee Brian Lenihan rang up Joe Duffy's show asking that they stop their story about the banks as they were in danger of creating a run on the banks, Joe Duffy refused to. You can argue whether he was right or wrong to do that but that's what happened. Ryan Tuberidy got stuck into Brian Cowen about his drinking on his first "hard hitting" interview. No one got stuck into Bertie for his pints of Bass and you can't tell me that other politicians from all parties don't like their few pints, but when the bandwagon started rolling in some sections of the media, RTE jumped on it and brought it to the wider audience. I don't watch Miriam O'Callaghan enough to comment on her but what I have seen is her challenging the FF interviewees with the oppositions arguments, in a way doing their job for them, and then only challenging FG and Labour on how their coalition is supposed to work considering how different they are.

http://thestory.ie/2010/02/07/the-closu ... ax-relief/
http://www.independent.ie/national-news ... 32634.html
And as well know, we could go on......

Once again, I'm not here to say that FF are clean, power corrupts and both these stories are sickly, but show me one of these stories about Brian Cowen.

There are 1.8 million people working, many of which are for businesses that are underwater, many more are collecting the dole at the same time, still more are self employed people who can't get dole so they don't bother deregistering, a huge chunk are in the public service where they are overstaffed in many sectors, more again are in contrived courses in Fás that achieve nothing but massaging the unemployment statistics and many more are in sectors where there is no future.

Can you get the figures for PAYE earners and income historically? I've had a look at the CSO site myself and can't find it and since I should be working I can't look much longer! That should give us the true state of affairs and I'm all about facts!

The car example is typical - Bill Cullen has done a hell of a PR job here. High numbers of new car sales, from an Irish point of view, are a BAD THING...

I don't think I got my point across on this, my point wasn't that these new car sales were a good thing for the Irish economy, in fact your argument holds weight, but my point was that in the national media they are only interested in bombarding you with negative statistics. To me this shows that 56% more people than last year felt they had enough money to splash out on a new car, and that is a VERY GOOD thing, because if they are spending it on new cars they're spending it else where too, but instead you get the 3-4 minute piece on how consumer confidence is low.

Yes huge numbers of people have digital TV, but how many of those people have no health insurance? Why are we in a country where the need for health insurance is just accepted but the idea that the Six Nations mightn't be free to air gets us all up in arms? Bread and circuses.

There are huge problems in our health care system with regards to wastage, most of that coming clogging up of the system with middle management, and yes there is now a filtering through of issues due to the staff shortages on the frontline, this problem could be solved by savings on wastage. However, if you are a citizen of lesser means and you have a serious accident, you will get rushed to a hospital, get seen straight away, have your recuperation and walk out healthy again and if you can't afford it you'll do so without paying a cent. In America you will be charged thousands of euro and in the UK they are always up in arms about their health system. I know we should never judge ourselves against the worst in anything and always the best, which I believe is Sweden? But Sweden have a socialist government and pay the taxes to pay for these things. The nub of my point is that while we have far from a perfect health system we are also far away from a 3rd world health system but these phrases are thrown around the place all the time by commentators and it is just accepted as fact when it's simply not true.

It's great that there are new job announcements by times, but in the overall scheme of things there might be two or three new job announcements for 100 new jobs a month at best, in the meantime 100 people a day are leaving Ireland, splitting up families and causing huge heartache because they can't get work here.

Irish people have always spent time in other countries, it's part of who we are. As far as I'm concerned those emigration rates are broken down into 4 sections. Immigrants who came during the boom and are now leaving, Graduates\Young people who would always have gone travelling anyway as they always did during the boom, graduates who are forced to go travelling now even though they would rather stay at home and people whose only option left now is to emigrate, devastating families. I don't know how you do it but those figures would need to be separated to get a more accurate view of the situation, if people come to the country because of a boom, it's not unreasonable to say they'll leave when its over, it's entirely understandable that some graduates would want to travel for a year or two and it's not ideal but may even be beneficial for Irish graduates to get experience in another country for a year and bring best practices back home. There is nothing good to say about the last group, that's horrible and it's affects are felt everywhere, but it's important we get a true reflection on that number to see what we can do. There was a girl on Matt Cooper last night trying to tell us she was emigrating when really all she was doing was going travelling for a year and "had always intended to". But her number will be reported as another heavy hearted emigrant leaving Ireland never to return again which is complete bull.

Of course there is personal responsibility, ...Those who are willing to work, often can't. It's not Fianna Fáil's fault that a tradesman or a hairdresser can't afford two sun holidays a year and a new 30k car every three years, but it is their fault if they are trapped in a mortgage that does not allow them to move, or if there is no work out there to be had.

This I do agree with and this is somewhere I feel FF have fallen down. There needs to be some sort of structured, well publicised way of people being able to put their mortgages on hold if they are taking up work somewhere else in the country, something could even be worked where they paid their mortgage on a house that is owned by the same bank in another part of the country. Radical things like these don't ever seem to happen here and that would be a criticism that I have.

The banks got in such bother because they were allowed run amok unsupervised. It was the government's job to supervise them and they didn't do it.

True, no argument.

Of course it would be chaos if someone went to withdraw their own money and the ATM was empty, but is there anyone on this board who has their current account with Anglo Irish Bank? Why did we save them? Why save Irish Nationwide? We don't need that many banks, we just need the "systematic" ones.

Because they were all inter-twined, if you took out one card, either in the middle or on the fringe, the effect would be the same and the whole house would fall. It should never have happened that this was the case but when it was they had to protect everyone.

Why did Brian Lenihan block an amendment to legislation that would mean that if a developer had 5m on deposit in one bank and 10m in loans in another, he couldn't take out the 5m?

I wasn't aware of this and would like an answer on that one.

Why wait so long before sending in the fraud squad into Anglo's head office?

Who sends in the Fraud Squad, surely not the Minister for Finance?

The problem is not that a guarantee was put in place, the problem was the FF allowed the conditions to come about that on a fateful night in September over two years ago, they gave themselves six hours to make the biggest decision in the history of the state

This goes back to the lack of regulation, the lifestyles we all enjoyed, the international situation and a whole range of other things most of which we've already touched on. Yes we should never have let this happen, but it happened in the UK as well, maybe not to the same proportional size but we were told all during the boom how we were punching well above our weight anyway. Like I said we should never judge ourselves on the worst but I don't think there’s anything to say we should be crawling back to Britain either.

If they still manage to poll 20% or anything close to it, it's time to give Betty Windsor a call and ask if we can come home.

I've mentioned above why we shouldn't feel like we're somehow below the British on this but it brings up a point. It's a bit hypocritical to harp on about democracy and our forefathers and all of that craic and then come out with a statement like that when you don't get the democracy you want of feel we should have. Those men and women didn't die because they thought we'd run ourselves perfectly, they didn't even do it because they thought we'd run ourselves better, they did it because if these mistakes were going to be made, they were going to be made by Irish people doing what they thought was best for Irish people and IMHO, that is exactly what Brian Cowen was doing.

[TheManFromFerbane]

The man from Ferbane does appear to have a political affiliation though.

Nope, I'm unashamedly a fan of Brian Cowen even though I don't claim to be perfect but on another thread I actually said that the party system should be dismantled, with a view of having and Economics person in charge of the economy, health professional in charged of health etc... LS made some points about why it wouldn't work but I still think something along those lines could and should be done.

He makes some interesting and entirely plausible points about personal responsibility where individual people borrowed too much for new cars or fancy houses etc. However he contradicts himself by stating that the new car sales figures that have been promoted by government policy is a good thing somehow.

I cleared this up above.

Yes people do need to take more personal responsibility for their actions, the first way of showing this is by wiping out Fianna Fail for good and demanding a more mature and intelligent form of governance from our politicians going forward (as Cowen used to say). By the way it looks like Cowen isn't going to run in the next General Election, hopefully that'll leave FF in serious bother in Laois/Offaly. As I said earlier we don't need Fianna Fail and Fine Gael clogging up our political system, they essentially offer the same thing. One or the other must go if our political system is to develop and undergo the radical changes that are needed.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely and if you are going to have a party political system you need to have valid alternatives. It's definitely time FF sat on the sidelines for a term or two and re-engaged themselves with the public but if FG stay in power for too long you'd be in the same cycle. For me I love the way Labour talk but disagree with them on their core socialist polices and the Greens are a lovely fluffy extra when you're in the middle of a boom, not a recession so I actually have no problem with a FG government now and hope they can continue to pull us out of this recession and get us back on track again.

[Lone Shark]

Ah man I was never good at debating, I don't like anything that I can't do better by getting angry!

You'rre in now, so you may as well keep going ....

I'm not debating about Bertie Ahern, this thread is about Brian Cowen and his time as leader, and I suppose Minister for Finance and how those actions led to the state we're in now. I personally don't like Bertie Ahern, as far as I'm concerned he is the type of politician that's all smooze and no content. I'm sure Bertie supporters somewhere could come up with their arguments against that point but that's the way I feel about him.

If you're looking for a "what we stand for" from FF, well I'm sure you'll get it during the election, but in my opinion, FF and FG are a right of centre party that believe everyone should have the basic human rights of food in their bellies, a roof over their heads, access to health care and access to education. Maybe they need to do better getting that message across but I'd say at that level it's an accusation that could be made against FG as well.

My point about Bertie was not to try and move the goalposts, but to illustrate that in FF there is a mindset that power is the goal - the advancement of the Irish society is the means to achieve power, rather than the other way around. Bertie had nothing to show for his time, and aside from giving the department of health the name "Angola", I don't know what Brian Cowen has achieved either. I honestly can't think of anything. Most of the real growth in this country was pre 2002, the rest was credit bubble - and Cowen had nothing to do with any of the areas where you could say there was advancement.

FF are right of centre when it comes to the tax side because that's what people want, but they aren't right of centre for any of the hard stuff, like public service numbers, culling quangos, allowing business to stand and fall by itself. FG in fairness have put their views on record that we pay too much for the services we receive as a country and that this must be addressed. They've earned the right to stand for low taxes, FF haven't. Charlie McCreevy famously said that if he had the money he'd spend it, and if he didn't he wouldn't. Note how that philosophy fell by the wayside when they had to act on the second bit.

I disagree, once it came to the point that it was the popular thing to do to jump on the government RTE ran with it all the way. At the time of the bank guarantee Brian Lenihan rang up Joe Duffy's show asking that they stop their story about the banks as they were in danger of creating a run on the banks, Joe Duffy refused to. You can argue whether he was right or wrong to do that but that's what happened. Ryan Tuberidy got stuck into Brian Cowen about his drinking on his first "hard hitting" interview. No one got stuck into Bertie for his pints of Bass and you can't tell me that other politicians from all parties don't like their few pints, but when the bandwagon started rolling in some sections of the media, RTE jumped on it and brought it to the wider audience. I don't watch Miriam O'Callaghan enough to comment on her but what I have seen is her challenging the FF interviewees with the oppositions arguments, in a way doing their job for them, and then only challenging FG and Labour on how their coalition is supposed to work considering how different they are.

Disagree hugely. Attacking Brian Cowen over the few pints was music to FF strategists' ears. The whole country knew that while it was a bit unprofessional, it was harmless in the greater scheme of things - optics and no more. It spared him having to explain about real things that affected the country instead.

As for Joe Duffy, well pulling a discussion on a bank run would have exacerbated the problem and I'd say Joe was media savvy enough to realise that it was better to let it run, and manage it - which he did. However when the real dirt was rang in - about how the national mint was taking a delivery of enough note paper to reprint the punt, you'll notice that never made it on air. And calls were made, that I can promise you.

As for Miriam, her approach to FG/Lab is pure FF strategy - lump both parties together, as if it can only be a coalition ofthe two, the idea that one might have enough support by themselves is sheer lunacy. Those parties each stand on their own merits and talking of how they would co-exist is no different to asking FF how they would co-exist with Labour - it's just hypothesising. However in the voters minds these questions reinforce the idea that the options are either FF government, or a combination which doesn't work together. Personally, I also think she lets FF TD's away with waffly answers that she'd never allow an opposition TD to get away with.

Once again, I'm not here to say that FF are clean, power corrupts and both these stories are sickly, but show me one of these stories about Brian Cowen.

I'll agree he doesn't appear to have the same interest in self-enrichment, albeit he doesn't have to because he raised his own salary to a level whereby it was the second highest of any politician in the free world for a good while. However the whole concept of quiet, golf course meetings where he has to be forced to admit to who he was talking to does not paint a picture of a man who is trying to get things done in a responsible and transparent fashion. An agreement to intervene on Anglo's behalf, as he is accused of, would be a highly treasonous act if it occurred.

Can you get the figures for PAYE earners and income historically? I've had a look at the CSO site myself and can't find it and since I should be working I can't look much longer! That should give us the true state of affairs and I'm all about facts!

Will have a look later. What I can see is that 1.8m at work has been reduced to 1.55m for the last quarter of 2010. Income has dropped slightly overall at a time when public service income (as opposed to take home pay) is going upwards. Of course a lot of this is anecdotal as well, but people are generally working harder for less money, while self employed people are generally under a lot of pressure and the absence of a social welfare safety net prevents them from removing themselves from the workforce.

I don't think I got my point across on this, my point wasn't that these new car sales were a good thing for the Irish economy, in fact your argument holds weight, but my point was that in the national media they are only interested in bombarding you with negative statistics. To me this shows that 56% more people than last year felt they had enough money to splash out on a new car, and that is a VERY GOOD thing, because if they are spending it on new cars they're spending it else where too, but instead you get the 3-4 minute piece on how consumer confidence is low.

I see what you're driving at ( ) but that said, I'd prefer to see us spending money we had as opposed to a purchase which for a large proportion of Irish people, is on the never never. Still, there may be some merit in this point.

There are huge problems in our health care system with regards to wastage, most of that coming clogging up of the system with middle management, and yes there is now a filtering through of issues due to the staff shortages on the frontline, this problem could be solved by savings on wastage. However, if you are a citizen of lesser means and you have a serious accident, you will get rushed to a hospital, get seen straight away, have your recuperation and walk out healthy again and if you can't afford it you'll do so without paying a cent. In America you will be charged thousands of euro and in the UK they are always up in arms about their health system. I know we should never judge ourselves against the worst in anything and always the best, which I believe is Sweden? But Sweden have a socialist government and pay the taxes to pay for these things. The nub of my point is that while we have far from a perfect health system we are also far away from a 3rd world health system but these phrases are thrown around the place all the time by commentators and it is just accepted as fact when it's simply not true.

Accident, certainly. Cancer care very good, and heart conditions not bad. After that, it's appalling by any measure, and that's before we look at other outlying areas such as mental health which are a genuine nightmare.

Secondly, all this middle management and demarcation schyte is due to - yes, you guessed it - a huge expansion in numbers under FF government, including Cowen as minister for health and Cowen as minister for finance.

Irish people have always spent time in other countries, it's part of who we are. As far as I'm concerned those emigration rates are broken down into 4 sections. Immigrants who came during the boom and are now leaving, Graduates\Young people who would always have gone travelling anyway as they always did during the boom, graduates who are forced to go travelling now even though they would rather stay at home and people whose only option left now is to emigrate, devastating families. I don't know how you do it but those figures would need to be separated to get a more accurate view of the situation, if people come to the country because of a boom, it's not unreasonable to say they'll leave when its over, it's entirely understandable that some graduates would want to travel for a year or two and it's not ideal but may even be beneficial for Irish graduates to get experience in another country for a year and bring best practices back home. There is nothing good to say about the last group, that's horrible and it's affects are felt everywhere, but it's important we get a true reflection on that number to see what we can do. There was a girl on Matt Cooper last night trying to tell us she was emigrating when really all she was doing was going travelling for a year and "had always intended to". But her number will be reported as another heavy hearted emigrant leaving Ireland never to return again which is complete bull.

Well broken down, in fairness. I have no numbers here but all I'll say is that from a situation where the last group was non-existent some years ago, I suspect it's the biggest one now.

Because they were all inter-twined, if you took out one card, either in the middle or on the fringe, the effect would be the same and the whole house would fall. It should never have happened that this was the case but when it was they had to protect everyone.

I'm disappointed in you on this one - you were the man saying to be wary of the slant in the news and to look for the facts. We have been fed this line that they are all intertwined, but nobody has done a good job of explaining why. If overnight, just like the guarantee, all balances up to 100k covered by the old guarantee were transferred to either an Post or another bank, and then the bank wound down, there would be no reason for a systematic run. Large deposits could be offset against loans and when the whole lot cleared, then wind the bank down and pay cents in the euro. Not nice for those burned, but no systematic issue whatsoever if done alongside a guarantee of the meaningful banks. That's 50bn or so saved in one fell swoop, which is half our huge bailout now, or roughly €300k per income tax payer. That's more than most of us will pay in a mortgage, all for one failed bank - of course FF will tell you the alternative was disaster. What they don't tell you is that it was just disaster for their mates.

Who sends in the Fraud Squad, surely not the Minister for Finance?

No, and theoretically the department of corporate enforcement is independent so I would never accuse a government of interfering. That doesn't preclude however that I have no idea why they took so long and have my own suspicions.

This goes back to the lack of regulation, the lifestyles we all enjoyed, the international situation and a whole range of other things most of which we've already touched on. Yes we should never have let this happen, but it happened in the UK as well, maybe not to the same proportional size but we were told all during the boom how we were punching well above our weight anyway. Like I said we should never judge ourselves on the worst but I don't think there’s anything to say we should be crawling back to Britain either.

It's a bit hypocritical to harp on about democracy and our forefathers and all of that craic and then come out with a statement like that when you don't get the democracy you want of feel we should have. Those men and women didn't die because they thought we'd run ourselves perfectly, they didn't even do it because they thought we'd run ourselves better, they did it because if these mistakes were going to be made, they were going to be made by Irish people doing what they thought was best for Irish people and IMHO, that is exactly what Brian Cowen was doing.

If I had a two year old child and I left them in the charge of a six year old, I'd be a negligent parent and rightly so. The six year old could have the best of intentions but that still doesn't endow them with the capacity to be responsible. As a nation we hate authority (ask anyone who gets a suspension in the GAA!) we look on cutting corners on things like taxes as the done thing, we have no problem with the concept of using access to TD's to jump up waiting lists for operations and the like despite the fact that it's a zero sum game and someone else misses out, and we look after our mates rather than do our own job at every available turn.

Our politicians are a reflection of ourselves and FF are a reflection of an immature, short sighted population that doesn't know what's best for itself.

This is why I say they need to be wiped out now - if they are, it's a sign that we've grown up and although our parents have gone away and we've wrecked the gaff, we have shown some intention of tidying up and trying to undo our mistakes and learning from them.

If we "lend" the opposition our vote and then give it back to FF for good in five years time, it shows that we're not actually trying to make up for what happened, we're putting on a sad face, saying I'm sorry and grumbling under our breath that we've been grounded, biding our time for the next time they go away and leave us in charge. That's why I'd say it's time for a full time Nanny from across the water, if that turns out to be the case.

[The Magpie]

That's why I'd say it's time for a full time Nanny from across the water, if that turns out to be the case.

Obviously a closet Sinn Fein man

All jokes aside, isn't this the same Nanny that also knew what was best for Africa, India, etc?

And what was that somebody said about absolute power?

[turk]

Great debate between NEO-CON Man from Ferbane and Postcolonialist Lone Shark!!

[Lone Shark]

That's why I'd say it's time for a full time Nanny from across the water, if that turns out to be the case.

Obviously a closet Sinn Fein man

All jokes aside, isn't this the same Nanny that also knew what was best for Africa, India, etc?

And what was that somebody said about absolute power?

I guess it depends where independence falls on your heirarchy of needs. I'd guess that even a half a century later, the citizens of Zimbabwe might be happy to return to how things were under the crown.

Independence worked for the USA and Australia, it didn't for Zimbabwe or indeed most of sub-saharan Africa. Only time will tell which group of people we are closest to.

[The Magpie]

Independence worked for the USA and Australia, it didn't for Zimbabwe or indeed most of sub-saharan Africa.

So, it worked where small indigenous populations were brutalized, but not anywhere else?

Surely that means that independence worked for the masses of incoming people that staked-out a piece of something for themselves in both of those countries? I can see how that model of independence is attractive

Africa was quite the opposite, of which sub-saharan makes up the vast majority.

[Lone Shark]

Independence worked for the USA and Australia, it didn't for Zimbabwe or indeed most of sub-saharan Africa.

So, it worked where small indigenous populations were brutalized, but not anywhere else?

Surely that means that independence worked for the masses of incoming people that staked-out a piece of something for themselves in both of those countries? I can see how that model of independence is attractive

Africa was quite the opposite, of which sub-saharan makes up the vast majority.

It's a different take on it, but okay. I was looking at it from the point of where the citizens of that country are now, whether they be descended from "settlers" or "natives". Either way, it still leads back to the same point - many of these small, indigenous populations are simply unable to look after themselves. From the point of independence onwards, some countries thrived and others didn't. Of course the process of colonisation is brutal and there was no shortage of evildoing as it went on, but the fact remains that the commonwealth countries tended to be much better off than their neighbours in general, and I include the independent ones in that. The only African country that escaped colonisation was Ethiopia and they have perhaps endured more hardship than any other of a similar size. Obvious if scaled up, the disasters in Rwanda and Somalia were at least as severe if not more so.

We didn't mismanage our situation quite that badly, but some would argue that it took a special kind of feck up to turn a country with a great location and with so many natural advantages into a basket case economy.

Again I stress through all this that even the best of countries make huge internal mistakes - the important part is whether or not they learn from it. That is why I'll be interested to see how FF poll, to see if we've learned.

[Bord na Mona man]

On the post colonial issue. Places like the US and Australia diverged from British rule reasonably smoothly. In the case of Ireland and other places there is a different legacy which has left a lasting effect on the mindset.

I would suggest that our disobedience, lack of civic mindedness and desire to pull one over the system as being traits passed down from the resistance to British Rule.

We could reverse the debate on political parties and say that the parties are shaped to the desires of the public. You get the politicians you vote for...and deserve. A large amount of people expect politicians to act in a corrupt manner on their behalf. As in lobbying for things people aren't entitled to under a fair system.

Moving on from that...

I would also question the motives of some people who are adamant they won't be voting Fianna Fail in the next election. Is it motivated by a short-termist sense of entitlement? - 'My salary/dole/pension has been cut, they're a shower of ###s'.

Are people actually realising what they might have been earning 3 years ago was another illusion of the bubble?
I have no problem in saying that I pocketed a few bob extra that realistically I should never have gotten.
Taxes were (and might still be) too low and unsustainable.

I would like to think that instead people are at last voting for a change in the way we run the country.
Perhaps the desire to see an end to crony capitalism, corruption, clientelism and everything else that has left the place in its current state.

If a strong message goes out that running the country for the benefit of elite groups of developers, bankers and well connected insiders is not on, then maybe we are going places.

I'd still fear that the overriding desire of many voters is to grab from the hand that is offering the most goodies and to hell with the long term consequences.

[durra1]

Sorry lads - have to get this off me chest ....

The real elephant in the rule is the fact that FF and FG are doctrinally speaking , one and the same as each other.

They are the modern day manifestation of the two factions formed at the foundation of the state which are of little or no relevance to the vast majority of the population under the age of , say , 60.

There are to my mind no equivalent ‘political cleavages’ in Western states which are two parts of the same ‘tribe’. Ordinarily polictocal divisions are defined along left/right , ethnic, linguistic or religious lines. Despite the influx of non nationals in the last 20 years we remain a largely homogeneous nation.

The right –v- left debate , a division that defines the political system in Britain largely due to the first-past-the-post electoral system and the odious class system has never been thrashed out in this country. This was despite an active and militant explosion in the labour rights movement in the early part of the last century under the leadership of James Larkin and James Connolly.

The Labour movement effectively buckeled and divided under the national sovereignty issue 1921/1922.

Thereafter the collective mindf&ck of De Valera’s Ireland took over where an all-absorbing and all-inclusive political ideology took root allowing religious conservatism and token nationalism to dominate. A 26-county nation-state mindset took root.

Unrealistic, almost North Korean, economic policies were pursued and the labour movement was effectively snuffed out and the great dupe of FF being a working man / small farmers party took hold.

While the De Valera government was happy to impose trade tarrifs and maintain isolationist economic policies , it was more than happy to acquiesce in the importation of anti-communist and anti-left rhetoric from the Vatican which its agents in collars billowed out in Sunday sermons. The message was – if you were of left political persuasion you had to be voting FF – or you had to explain yourself in Purgatory.

The left then had the misfortune to have prominent activists attach itself to the revolutionary politics in the North which of itself, flew in the face of all Marxist/ Leninist and mainstream labour movement principles were the conflict fault lines were divided not on class, but creed and nationality.

Apart from some, at times , worthy leaders , Brendan Corish and , arguably, Dick Spring, the Labour Movement has lacked leaders of the stature and charisma of a Connolly or a Larkin to open up and take on those great contradictions that infest the Irish political system.

The PR-STV system, a bona fide political system designed to be a representative as possible has denied the left a decent political mandate and consequentially , the country has been denied, a true functioning political system. The system allows little or no possibility for the election of industry-specific talent something that has plagued the Executive of our governments for years and has played its part in the contemporary economic catastrophe. We don’t need to look to far to France, a republic like our own, to see one of the most effective government bureaucracies in the world.

The onus in on the young Turks of FG and FF to see more in their ideological siblings in the rival party than they do with some in their own parties who ride the merry-go-round that is the current political system.

By those I mean all the FG backbenchers who voted for Enda Kenny in the recent heave who are institutionalised in opposition, and in securing their pension/expenses and dynastical succession. Case in point : that drink driving auld codger who told the Garda she would loose her job if she stopped him driving out of the Dail car park.

I also mean all FF backbenchers who voted for Cowen in the recent heave who remain institutionalised in the mirage of contradictory, non-committal and unaccountable FF policy.

Political Parties are needed for a functioning democracy and to allow effective policy formation and legislative change. While all of us see the merits in voting for the single-policy independent to deliver on the local Hospital or to save a local industry, the more the system fragments and the more independents that get elected, the more likely the legislature will have to bow to the likes of Healy Rae , Lowry at all at the national expense.

Change starts with internal political initiative and must be followed by real reform of the electoral system.

[uibhfaillian]

Good post Durra1. You might be interested in watching this. A fine speech, his last one in the Dail. About 11:30 into it he has a dig at Michael McDowell which I enjoyed. He's running for the Presidency and I hope he wins. We could do with more exposure to this quality of discourse about the different layers and aspects of our political system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJJ5q1_5jX8

[OffalyGal]

Ok, I'm not a fella, but I do have a view. Am I wrong in this. I calculated last night that if the bank bailout is 75billion and I know the figures vary. I reckon that is 75 with 12 noughts after it. Divide that by the population of approx 4million. Then the bailout is costing 18 million 750 thousand for every man, woman and child in this country. Figure that out. And it's increasing by the day as young people emigrate. And, I don't know if the 75Billion includes interest?

[Plain of the Herbs]

My understanding is that a billion is a thousand million rather than a million million. That doesn't invalidate your point though. And yes, the €75bn is just the capital portion.

Ok, I'm not a fella, but I do have a view. Am I wrong in this. I calculated last night that if the bank bailout is 75billion and I know the figures vary. I reckon that is 75 with 12 noughts after it. Divide that by the population of approx 4million. Then the bailout is costing 18 million 750 thousand for every man, woman and child in this country. Figure that out. And it's increasing by the day as young people emigrate. And, I don't know if the 75Billion includes interest?

[joe bloggs]

Ok, I'm not a fella, but I do have a view. Am I wrong in this. I calculated last night that if the bank bailout is 75billion and I know the figures vary. I reckon that is 75 with 12 noughts after it. Divide that by the population of approx 4million. Then the bailout is costing 18 million 750 thousand for every man, woman and child in this country. Figure that out. And it's increasing by the day as young people emigrate. And, I don't know if the 75Billion includes interest?

Maths not one of your strong points.
This is €75,000,000,000.
Divide that by 4,000,000. and you will find a much more manageable figure at €18,750 plus interest.
Not quite as scary as your figures, but still a massive figure which will unfortunately take a long time to repay

[Lone Shark]

Outstanding post by Durra1 above, and one which I've been meaning to get back to for an age. I appreciate that we have diverged hugely from the Offaly-specific issue that was the legacy of Brian Cowen, however the issue of how we work so as not to repeat the unfortunate history of the last 5-7 years is a crucial one and one which I would like to teast out a little bit more.

The accusation that FF and FG are two sides of the one coin is one that I have never quite bought into, but that's as much because I've always felt I've had a reasonable grasp on where FG stood. I have no such comprehension of who FF are, or why anyone would vote for them other than all the wrong reasons such as the chance of getting a stroke pulled at some unforeseen point in the future. By definition a political party should have an ideology, or something they want to see achieved, an endgame of sorts. To me a political spectrum where we had FG, Labour, SF, Green, possibly some Socialist candidates and the PD's (or some more modern equivalent) would pretty much cater for every voter. I just don't see where FF fit into that, or indeed who they might be based on in terms of other political forces around the world. Indeed there are one or two FF hardcore souls on this board, one of which I have huge time for personally, and I'd love to hear their take on it. Not the manifesto filled with buzzwords reprinted, but what there is in the organisation that makes some appeal to good, otherwise rational people.

Equally, I'm curious as to what's the best way to go about addressing this, and for Ireland to politically "grow up" and finally make progress towards becoming a progressive and functioning independent state. We continue to define ourselves relative to the UK in so many ways, and I honestly don't see that as healthy. Again, part of FF's identity seems to be "not English" which is surely something that we've outgrown.

We all despise the clientism that pervades Irish politics, we all realise that when all our elected representatives are fighting for their own constituents then no-one is fighting for the common good, and we all realise that a system which sees Michael Lowry selling a crucial vote on the bailout in exchange for a Casino in North Tipperary is badly broken. Equally, it makes no sense that we have teachers, publican and solicitors in charge of national policy on business, enterprise, health and science. In this, the voters have little or no say. There isn't a voter in Ireland that wanted Mary Harney in charge of health, and people voting FF weren't voting on the basis that she was health spokesperson in Bertie's pre election front bench - and yet after the election, there she was.

However we all have varied opinions on what the perfect system is, and no matter what system we choose, nobody has a clue how to get there.

Short of taking our lead from Tunisia/Egypt/Libya, how do you get to a situation where you avoid the Peter Principle - everyone getting promoted to their level of incompetence? I mean seriously, for the average Irish politician, you get nominated to run for the council on the strength of how good you are at making friends, shaking hands, appearing on committees, being seen to be active in the community. Then, you get promoted beyond that if you are seen to be active on the council, making lots of noise about stuff in general, and winning influence. You get elected to the Dáil if you can win friends among the voters, sound sincere when promising change, then if you get there, you have to be good at wheeling and dealing, knowing when to talk and when to shut up, and looking after medical cards, speeding fines, passport applications and dodgy planning permission.

Do all those things well, and then you get promoted to the front bench, where you suddenly have to something like (i) administer a load of hospitals (ii) Handle complex legal and constitutional issues (iii) decide what equipment to buy for a modern but small army (iv) come up with a solution to widespread overcroding in school classes (v) attract high level scientific employers or (vi) come up with a strategy for dealing with drug use. Nothing remotely connected to anything you've done in your life so far. Lunacy.

But where is the answer? ManfromFerbane mentioned something in another thread, whereby he advocated individual elections for each minister and while that wouldn't work, he was right in that there should be a degree of autonomy within each department and some ability to pick specialists in certain areas. Whether that would be something like a smaller parliament with the ability for the winning coalition to draft in experts, or possibly even something whereby we don't vote on the people but we vote on the policy, I don't know.


Ultimately Brian Cowen's legacy may be that he highlighted for good and for glory that the Irish electoral system is simply not fit for purpose, and that we have created a monster that needs to be slain. One single act - the appointment of Mary Coughlan, who never had a job in her life, as minister for Enterprise - proved that he simply did not understand the concept that these are important roles that need to be filled by the best possible candidate - not part of some overall strategy designed to reward good FF bloodlines. (I have heard several rumours as to why she got the job, none of them good and none of them that bear repeating. The best answer I can come up with is that it was reward for being such pure blue FF blood, and that her loyalty was guaranteed. It's a bad state of affairs when that is the most benign answer to be found.)

If we take it that where we want to get to is a political system where every voter feels that they have some option on the ballot paper that reflects their views, where competent knowledgeable people are in control of various briefs, and where national politicians look after national issues and local politicians look after local ones WITHIN the framework of the law, then how in God's name does one effect that change? Where do you start? The easy answer is by voting on Friday, but for what?