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The Independents in governement - why not?

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Comments

  • #52
    micosoft
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,367 ✭✭✭micosoft


    View wrote: »
    Could you provide us with a list of these countries?

    Offhand, the only institution I can think which comes close is the European Parliament which has a very weak system where the parties recommend positions - positions which MEPs tend to follow in 95% of the cases for the larger parties (which are the primary decision makers for the legislation the EP votes on).

    A lot of these arguments are disingenuous because they don't take account of other factors in other democracies. Ireland has an extremely strong whip BECAUSE we have an over-representative political system (high political to population ratio) which leads to a lot of populism and localism. The Whip is a response to that.

    You will find that countries with very different political systems have less of an emphasis on whipping or none because of their configuration. For example Belgium like a lot of Continental countries have list systems insulating politicians from localism and the threat of deselection. Belgium is an interesting example as the power of parties is so strong they have a name for it - Particracy

    Those calling for reform need to understand why the system is the way it is first. Because like everything - you can make it worse.


  • #53
    Brian Shanahan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,232 ✭✭✭Brian Shanahan


    Saipanne wrote: »
    What of his first point, there? Are countries without a whip system falling apart?

    Name one and I'll look at it.


  • #54
    micosoft
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,367 ✭✭✭micosoft


    nice_guy80 wrote: »
    Ireland is not NZ. Much bigger country, less populated, much more rural/urban divide

    Lack of access to banks is a huge issue.
    How can people start new businesses or get access to credit and deposit small business takings if they don't have a bank nearby?

    Businesses are dying on their feet from lack of credit and investment funds.
    The rates charged by local councils are also exorbitant and a huge deterrent to business start ups.
    County councils are inefficient models of local government and need huge reform.

    There is no real input from locally elected councillors as to where money is spent in council budgets. This has to change.

    Have you not heard of online banking?
    20km is nothing to travel to get a business loan.
    Small business takings? So small cash businesses? I thought we were talking about new businesses not a couple of sweet shops selling to locals.

    Rates charged by councils are exorbitant because they have no other funding source..... and reform is important but......

    Water charges which will reduce rates (burden of water charges moved to households) resisted tooth and nail by "local" populist politicians.
    Local politicians in general oppose merging of country councils.
    Local politicians in general oppose developments like pylons for better distribution of power across the country.

    TBH your cure will make things worse...


  • #55
    nice_guy80
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,722 ✭✭✭nice_guy80


    micosoft wrote: »
    Have you not heard of online banking?
    20km is nothing to travel to get a business loan.
    Small business takings? So small cash businesses? I thought we were talking about new businesses not a couple of sweet shops selling to locals.

    Rates charged by councils are exorbitant because they have no other funding source..... and reform is important but......

    Water charges which will reduce rates (burden of water charges moved to households) resisted tooth and nail by "local" populist politicians.
    Local politicians in general oppose merging of country councils.
    Local politicians in general oppose developments like pylons for better distribution of power across the country.

    TBH your cure will make things worse...

    You sir, haven't a clue about business in small towns.
    what do filling stations, supermarkets, clothes shops, pharmacies, hardware stores etc do with their takings every day/week? They cannot keep them in the shop.

    Most rural areas have their own water schemes already and are paying for them, and so are generally not really opposed to water charges. What they are opposed to is the behemoth that is becoming Irish Water and the failure to ensure that water will be delivered for the lower price possible.
    I think most of the opposition is coming from urban working class areas and the left leaning parties.

    Councils are meant to now be funded from local property taxes.
    There are businesses closing in rural and urban towns due to the rates charged.

    would you like giant pylons going past your house, child's school? They can be put underground. future generations will thank us.
    local politicians of all parties have opposed merging of county councils. so I don't see what that has to do with Independents.


  • #56
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,820 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    nice_guy80 wrote: »
    would you like giant pylons going past your house, child's school? They can be put underground. future generations will thank us.

    Thank us for saddling them with a more expensive, less reliable grid because of "concerns" that amount to little more than superstition?

    I doubt it.


  • #57
    Chips Lovell
    Moderators, Politics Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,269 Mod ✭✭✭✭Chips Lovell


    nice_guy80 wrote: »
    People living in and around Dublin are totally insulated from what is happening in rural Ireland at the moment.

    [...]banks closing down, people have to drive 25 mins to get to a bank...

    Seriously? I've worked at several places in suburban Dublin where going to the bank at lunchtime would be a one hour round trip. I don't see anyone calling on the government to do anything about it though.


  • #58
    Morpheus
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 2,688 Mod ✭✭✭✭Morpheus


    Independents are all either one trick ponies with one main agenda and vote platform or else as mad as a hatter, a tree hugging way far left loony, a pot smoking super villain or a grubby ex developer with the nuttiest of agendas and more interest in CIA rendition flights than actually doing anything constructive. as far as i can see anyway.

    Ultimately i'm disenchanted by the selection of options available so it will be FG again, they have been bad at times, but not as horrendous (for me anyway) as they seem to have been for others, hmm... maybe some FF heads, but ultimately not labor and ultimately ... if there were no other party, id still vote ABSF , because well.... they are just too messed up with a far too checkered past and are more or less run by a dictator who refuses to step down AND blatantly they are the ultimate double talkers.


  • #59
    micosoft
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,367 ✭✭✭micosoft


    nice_guy80 wrote: »
    You sir, haven't a clue about business in small towns.
    what do filling stations, supermarkets, clothes shops, pharmacies, hardware stores etc do with their takings every day/week? They cannot keep them in the shop.

    Given I live in a rural area I do. Again you seem to believe that all rural inhabitants share your opinion. We do not.
    Plenty keep them in safes and drop off once or twice a week. I suspect there is no rural location except for some wilds in Donegal, West Cork that are more then 25km from a bank. Cards are taking over the bulk of payments. It's not a serious issue and certainly not a reason businesses are shutting down. Show me a quote from a business man who says they shut down because the commute to the bank was too much.
    nice_guy80 wrote: »
    Most rural areas have their own water schemes already and are paying for them, and so are generally not really opposed to water charges. What they are opposed to is the behemoth that is becoming Irish Water and the failure to ensure that water will be delivered for the lower price possible.
    I think most of the opposition is coming from urban working class areas and the left leaning parties.

    Most rural Towns and Villages are on public supplies. Simply not true to imply that everyone outside of a city is drawing water.
    I entirely reject your view that IW is a behemoth or anything of the like. I've seen no evidence that IW is any more costly then it's equivalent anywhere else in Europe and plenty of evidence it will be far more efficient then the current system.
    So I guess there was no resistance when the Govt. introduced septic tank charges then? An appalling rural campaign by those who could not care less that their tanks were leaking into their neighbours water supply. I remember having some sharp exchanges with the usual local suspects who were agin it.
    nice_guy80 wrote: »
    Councils are meant to now be funded from local property taxes.
    There are businesses closing in rural and urban towns due to the rates charged.
    This thread is about a vague notion that more independents would be better for rural Ireland. Show me one Independent that was for Property Charges.... As far as I can see they all opposed them.
    nice_guy80 wrote: »
    would you like giant pylons going past your house, child's school? They can be put underground. future generations will thank us.
    They could - who is going to pay for that? Should we tax local businesses to pay for this? I grew up with pylons less then 50 ft away. Nobody "wants" pylons but if locals like you make it cost prohibitive to have reliable power in the hinterlands then don't complain when businesses don't appear.

    The level of fear mongering and lies by the anti pylon crowd is key to why I don't like independents. A giant billboard (eyesore in itself) nearby has mockup of a pylon. If the wires were as thick as they are on the billboard they'd be a metre thick. Laughably there are pylons nearby that nobody notices because you know what - people get used to them. A bit like Silage. Which makes me think a lot of the people opposing this stuff aren't working country but people who have come for the view.
    nice_guy80 wrote: »
    local politicians of all parties have opposed merging of county councils. so I don't see what that has to do with Independents.
    Whipped Politicians can be pushed to do things that are unpalatable for themselves in the short-term. Independents will do whatever is opportune.


  • #60
    imme
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,200 ✭✭✭imme


    nice_guy80 wrote: »
    New TD in talking waffle shocker.

    As a business man, who actually runs his own business and employs people he's probably more qualified to talk about that than most TDs
    I was contrasting the trumpeting of Fitzmaurice as being new/fresh/visionary with the reality.

    I'm not familiar with the guy other than the media since his election. His business acumen wasn't highlighted in any interviews I heard him in.


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  • #61
    micosoft
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,367 ✭✭✭micosoft


    imme wrote: »
    I was contrasting the trumpeting of Fitzmaurice as being new/fresh/visionary with the reality.

    I'm not familiar with the guy other than the media since his election. His business acumen wasn't highlighted in any interviews I heard him in.

    Fitzmaurice runs a plant hire business which rents out plant to "traditional" turf cutters who strip mine our priceless and irreplaceable raised bogs. He is without doubt the worst TD in Dail Eireann and a disgrace on every single person who voted him in. Worse then Liam Lawlor. Worse then Lowry. Worse then Ahern. Worse then any Kerry Politician. We can't undo what he has helped do to our environment.

    I honestly think Environmental Terrorism should be legislated for and severely.


  • #62
    nice_guy80
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,722 ✭✭✭nice_guy80


    micosoft wrote: »
    Fitzmaurice runs a plant hire business which rents out plant to "traditional" turf cutters who strip mine our priceless and irreplaceable raised bogs. He is without doubt the worst TD in Dail Eireann and a disgrace on every single person who voted him in. Worse then Liam Lawlor. Worse then Lowry. Worse then Ahern. Worse then any Kerry Politician. We can't undo what he has helped do to our environment.

    I honestly think Environmental Terrorism should be legislated for and severely.

    He runs an agri supply business
    Cutting turf is one part of it.
    As is sillage cutting, fertiliser spreading, drainage etc

    People in rural Ireland use turf, what's the shock in that?
    The real destruction of peatlands is being done by Bord na Mona, Harte Peat and others.


  • #63
    Good loser
    Registered Users Posts: 3,212 ✭✭✭Good loser


    There's only one Independent I've any time for - Maureen O'Sullivan.


  • #64
    micosoft
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,367 ✭✭✭micosoft


    nice_guy80 wrote: »
    He runs an agri supply business
    Cutting turf is one part of it.
    As is sillage cutting, fertiliser spreading, drainage etc

    People in rural Ireland use turf, what's the shock in that?
    The real destruction of peatlands is being done by Bord na Mona, Harte Peat and others.

    Nonsense. He ran under the banner of the turf cutters and his lucrative rental business there.

    I'm not a fan of the strip mining by BNM or any of the others but we are talking about the deliberate destruction of raised bog which is less then 6% of total bogland. And that all those who had turbury rights removed were given the option of alternative bogs. Yet Fitzmaurcice and crew still rented out equipment to destroy these areas by mechanically strip mining them.

    But you already knew that.
    And you know your comment that BNM etc is also completely untrue as it applies to blanket bogs.

    This article gives the reason why Independents like Fitzmaurice and Ming are responsible for the destruction of our inherited environment in return for personal gain. Which can never be undone.


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