Dublin South East

Fungus wrote: »

Paul Somerville will be getting my number one vote. FG/Enda do not represent real change to me.

Gormley does not have a hope of been elected.

Just make sure that if Lucinda comes to your door, wether you tell her what way you vote or not, that you want to know that FG will use the skills and knowledge of expert independants.

Its no use having people like him in the dail if the Dail don't use them.
If everybody who sees them self giving a top three to the likes of Sommerville, Ross, donnelly etc, say this to labour and FG candidates, then they might just get the message.

Anyone know if Noel Ivory is running again?

Fungus wrote: »

Paul Somerville will be getting my number one vote. FG/Enda do not represent real change to me.

Gormley does not have a hope of been elected.

i'm delighted to see Paul Somerville is running, on his website he's got the support of Brian Lucey & Constatine Gurdgiev, any time i've seen him on TV or listened to him on Radio he's been excellant.

i hope a bit of momentum builds behind his campaign as we need smart guys like him in Dail Eireann.

odbod wrote: »

FG are as week and feeble as the greens, feckin useless bunch of muppets, and labour well they're just part of the problem, to close to the damn greedy feckin unions, well the bigger ones anyway, actually all established political parties are inadequite, filled with incompetent cronies with a cynical self serving agenda, I believe nothing that comes out of any of their mouths. just read paul somervilles policies on his site and i think i passed out with boredom. it reads like some sort of corporate training manual. dylan haskins may look like a hormonal teenager, but for me it grabs my imagination and inspires me, he doesn't talk like most of the equivocating, answer swerving politicians. he also has principled policies that i find more comprehensible than the others, maybe i am just stupid and have no idea about politics. but i have a vote. at least im not voting sinn fein. or any crazy leftys. the middles fine for me.

odbod, try to make your posts more readable and less reliant on cursing.

moderately,
Scofflaw

Koyasan wrote: »

That's not how I remember the Greens putting it
http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0907/green.html
Besides, he doesn't decide. 66.6% of his party decided for him. Get rid of Gormley and you loose your last chance for blocking the incinerator and the other dodgy FG/FF Council developments

There's a myth that hangs over the whole business with the Green coalition. As you've linked to, the Green Party conference before the election decided not to rule out any coalition in advance, including coalition with Fianna Fáil. Since the vote of the party is what sets the policy of the party, that was therefore the policy of the party going into the election.

People tend at this point to rely on subsequent statements by Green TDs to show that party policy had changed, or that the Green TDs had at least pretended it had changed. Party policy had not changed, indeed could not have done so, because there had not been another conference. The statements by individual TDs are somewhat more open, but have been grossly misreported, at least in the case of Trevor Sargent's famous "u-turn" of stepping down as leader only to accept a position in the coalition administration. Sargent actually said in advance, and on the same occasion (TV3), as part of the same sentence that he would do both those things - that he wouldn't lead, but would be happy enough to accept a position. Strangely, the Independent only reported one half of the comment, saving the second half for later use.

The Greens don't like Fianna Fáil, but there wasn't another option at the last election, and the party membership voted to go into coalition with them. After all, Fine Gael were supposed to have won the 2007 election by a landslide, but instead it was just another non-event in a quarter century of non-events.

cordially,
Scofflaw

fred252 wrote: »

if that's the case then all politicians will be on your blacklist.

i'm new to this constituency. hadn't heard of sommerville but i will look into him based on this thread.

I've seen Sommerville on Vincent Brown & he was on Marian Finucanne a few months back and i think he's excellant, there's been a few threads on him on politics.ie since he started appearing in the media, he talks an awful lot of sense, its refreshing to see articulate, intelligent people running.

TunaSaladBB wrote: »

I hope we can all move away from the posters culture of Irish politics. How good your poster is, its location etc. has nothing to do with governing our country effectively and honestly.

www.paulsommerville.com
www.dylanhaskins.ie

Scary - of the two, Haskins comes across as having more credible ideas. Now if I can just delete the quiff from memory...and get over the fact that his hairdo campaign is endorsed by the floppy-haired one...he might get a vote...

cordially,
Scofflaw

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I shouldn't really have used the word 'credible' - let's say I prefer Haskins' aspirations to Somerville's commitments. Some of what Somerville says sounds far too like the political views of the less informed and angrier voter. Point by point where I have an opinion:

1. Renegotiate the EU/IMF deal.

* Start Negotiating for the Irish people not the banks.
* The deal done reads like a suicide note.
* It was forced upon us by the ECB and our negotiators were weak.

The end game of this whole European crisis is debt restructuring and debt forgiveness

Yeah...no. The more I look at this, the more uninformed an opinion that seems to me - it's just a popular thing to write at the top of your manifesto. Haskins, same point:

We all have the right to talk to our creditors and see if we can manage our finances better. As a nation, Ireland is beholden to international financial markets, and that is not going to change in the foreseeable future. But, no family, company or country can repay debts it cannot afford, and from time to time, we need to admit this. Nobody gains if Ireland falls. I will support a new government in an honest appraisal of our obligations to the IMF and the European banks.

Somerville is taking a "talk tough" populist line - Haskins' view is more realistic. Given that neither of them are likely to be in a position to renegotiate the deal anyway, Somerville putting it as item 1 is far more dishonest than Haskins putting it at the bottom of the list.

Somerville also makes the issue his point 2:

# 2. Bank debt is not sovereign debt

* Separate Bank debt from Sovereign Debt and restructure Bank debt.
* This is a European banking problem.
* Stop punishing Irish citizens for the sins of reckless bond traders.
* We need to be at the forefront of debtor nation's. Don’t act like victims and wait for Europe to come to us with solutions. Set the agenda in Europe.

Tough talk, and almost guaranteed meaningless from an Independent.

# 3. Put small business at heart of recovery

JOBS, JOBS, JOBS.

* We must firstly do everything to keep the jobs we have.
* Break the cosy cartels and fee structures across all sectors of the sheltered domestic economy.
* Electricity prices, Rates, employer PRSI should be lowered. (The current Green Party plan to raise electricity prices is a great example of how it believes in the humane treatment of animals but not the humane treatment of the taxpayer).
* Examine lease laws of upwards only rents: Viable businesses destroyed not by the recession, but by greedy landlords. In any other country in Europe the leases would be renegotiated and the businesses saved.
* Agri -Food sector must be supported and enhanced.

OK, I agree with a couple of those, but I'm hardly going to like the side-swipe at the Greens. I don't know whether it represents a genuine feeling on Somerville's part, or whether he's hoping to trade on Gormley's unpopularity, but it suggests a man who doesn't give a toss about issues like climate change, because his little jab is not an informed one.

# 5. Attack Cronyism at all levels

* Cosy cartels and quangos must be dealt with.
* Stop talking. Act.
* Committees with teeth. Fully televised with witnesses being compelled by law to turn up and answer questions about how their semi-states, etc., are spending money, who and why individuals have been appointed to prominent positions.
* Accountability and transparency!

Abolish quangos...and create new ones.

# 6. NAMA

* NAMA should be abolished; there is no point to NAMA other than to generate fees for professionals. So close it down.
* As I'm a realist it is unlikely to be closed immediately so the first step is to expose the secrecy and hypocrisy surrounding its dealings.
* Transparency and accountability must be increased. The banks should collect their debts not NAMA.
* Our public servants and the consultants they employed should be asked why they agreed to such onerous leases on behalf of the Irish citizen during the boom years (in front of our committees mentioned above, no tribunals). This system guaranteed an increasing stream of income for developers and investors for 35 years. It fueled the property bubble and destroyed the country. Are any of these people working for Nama?
* NAMA is a monster and if not reined in has all the hallmarks of our next tribunal and we can all do without that!
* They need to start off loading property immediately.
* There is no such term as 'Long term economic value'. It is a figment of the imagination.

Subtle, nuanced, and appreciative of the complexity of the issues - all words and phrases that don't describe this piece of populist rubbish.

# 7. Reform Semi-states

* Our semi states should not be sold off but run efficiently.
* The Salaries at the higher echelons must be slashed.
* If these people say they would get more in the private sector let them go.
* Pensions and benefits must be reined in.
* These bodies are there to provide efficient services to us the citizens, not for the benefit of the sheltered employees. The customer is not happy

That's pretty aspirational - and again it's populist stuff that's very easy to sound tough about. If we ignore law and other minor impediments, it sounds good. As to the customer is not happy - the individual customer never is, and never will be, because large semi-states don't really cater for individuals.

# 12. Renegotiate the Shell deal

The deal is unfair. If the Israelis can do it so can we.

Yeah...no, again.

# 13. Incentivize our non-domiciled citizens to bring their money back onshore

Money is hemorrhaging from the Irish banking system. We must restore confidence and persuade Non-domicile's to pay tax here.

# 14. Reform the department of finance

Recruit outside expertise with world financial markets expertise.

Like who - Merril Lynch? The same Merril Lynch who issued a report rubberstamping the guarantee, which DoF officials opposed? And how would we pay them...oh, wait, they'll need the world-class salaries he's talking elsewhere about cutting. And when he's defaulted on bank debt owed to non Irish residents (according to him), he expects to get Irish non-domiciled money to flood into our banks? Mm, no.

To me, Somerville comes across as a PD-wannabe who's hoping to pick up the McDowell vote. The PDs...the party that brought us Mary Harney's HSE:

# 4. Abolish HSE

* I support the policy of money following the patient.
* Fixed budgets mean closed doors and closed wards.
* Money must be concentrated on the frontline not in the black hole of bureaucracy, administration posts must be cut.
* A & E problems are a symptom of how the system is broken not the root of the problem.

First rule for a politician is the same as for a doctor - first, do no harm. Somerville is calling for the same simplistic populist solutions as Sinn Fein, but dressing them up in pinstripe. This is not 'new thinking' by any stretch of the imagination - it is kneejerk populist reaction to anything currently perceived to be bad by the man in Ranelagh high street.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Chucky the tree wrote: »

The Haskins fella seems like a spoofer. His policies say all the right things but doesn't to make any mention cuts, or how to sort out the deficit. It's all well and good saying the Public sector needs to be reformed but unless you put your balls on the line by stating exactly how(cuts? Voluntary redundacies? early retirment? Or plan getting sacked?) then I've little time for that candidate. Free third level education? Who's going to pay for all of this?

I think he'd would be better offer running under a specific campaign. For example I agree a lot with his policies like same sex marraige, pro choice. Personnally I'd loved a economically right party with very liberal social polcies, chances of that are slim. So outside of that the best hope in a coalition with independents pushing for similar.

Thing is there that Haskins at least has some policies that effectively cost nothing (those being the sort we can currently afford), and some others that require relatively little legislative input but a good deal of effort from someone in a public position. Most of the stuff on his list may be aspirational, but they do represent fairly cheap and small-scale bargaining points for political support - and that's what an Independent candidate has to do to get something done. Somerville's list doesn't have any items on it cheap enough to make his support worth buying. Looked at kindly, you could say he's thinking nationally - looked at unkindly, I would say that he'll want his support to be bought, so the shopping items will be stuff he hasn't laid out in his manifesto, but instead a grab-bag of populist local pork thrown together on the basis of what's likely to win votes.

perhaps a touch cynically,
Scofflaw