eamonn gilmore on the frontline.

DrumSteve

see pat gave eamonn a real grilling there. He's setting himself up for the public service vote however i don't know how he is planning on slashing 5%of the public service bill just by getting rid of overtime and a few other bits and pieces...the more i see of him the more think he is more populist than ff.

Pride Fighter

DrumSteve wrote: »

see pat gave eamonn a real grilling there. He's setting himself up for the public service vote however i don't know how he is planning on slashing 5%of the public service bill just by getting rid of overtime and a few other bits and pieces...the more i see of him the more think he is more populist than ff.

If he cut the wages of people like Pat Kenny, who earns nearly 1 million a year, he can do it.

starbelgrade

Damn - I thought he'd been shipped off to Iraq. I'd visions of him & Willie O'Dea doing a Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid against the "insurgents". Misleasing title thread of the week. :mad:

thebman

DrumSteve wrote: »

see pat gave eamonn a real grilling there. He's setting himself up for the public service vote however i don't know how he is planning on slashing 5%of the public service bill just by getting rid of overtime and a few other bits and pieces...the more i see of him the more think he is more populist than ff.

Funny how RTE can grill the opposition :-/

jank

Pride Fighter wrote: »

If he cut the wages of people like Pat Kenny, who earns nearly 1 million a year, he can do it.

The usual PS pipe dream. Tax the invisible billionaires to make up the 20+ billion deficit...yea right.

10000maniacs

I have said it many times on this forum. Labours Eamon Gilmore and Joan Burton seem to oppose any strategy that is taken by Fianna Fail, yet devoid of any alternatives to the proposals themselves.
Last nights Frontline interview with Gilmore is nearly a carbon copy of an interview between Joan Burton and Vincent Browne about 6 months ago.
She was asked by Vincent, ok, you oppose the bank guarantee, what is your alternative? Browne kept pushing her for an answer until she was nearly in tears.
Last night Pat Kenny used the same tack and kept pushing Gilmore for an answer on how to claw back €4 billion+ in the public finances, and he was also left stumped, reverting to his wounded bear routine.:p
The sooner people realise that NAMA is Bankruptcy Lite for the Irish Republic, the sooner we will get out of this mess. Labour have done more damage in the last year with their idiocy than any other party.

MrMicra

10000maniacs wrote: »

Labour have done more damage in the last year with their idiocy than any other party.

Are you seriously claiming that Labour have done more damage to this country that Fianna Fail in the past year?
So Labour have done more damage by not having policies than Fianna Fail have done with the Anglo bailout?

Interesting; there really is a section that supports Fianna Fail that puts party above country.

10000maniacs

MrMicra wrote: »

Are you seriously claiming that Labour have done more damage to this country that Fianna Fail in the past year?
So Labour have done more damage by not having policies than Fianna Fail have done with the Anglo bailout?

Interesting; there really is a section that supports Fianna Fail that puts party above country.

Heres the facts.
1: I am not a Fianna Fail Supporter. Never was (or never will be)
2: If we were to follow Labours manifesto since September of last year, the banks would be bankrupt, peoples savings would be gone, salaries in the Public Service would have increased by 10%, the IMF would be running the countries finances. (maybe not such a bad thing):rolleyes:
Property tax would be in place. etc etc

Euro_Kraut

10000maniacs wrote: »

Heres the facts.
1: I am not a Fianna Fail Supporter. Never was (or never will be)
2: If we were to follow Labours manifesto since September of last year, the banks would be bankrupt, peoples savings would be gone, salaries in the Public Service would have increased by 10%, the IMF would be running the countries finances. (maybe not such a bad thing):rolleyes:
Property tax would be in place. etc etc

Eh no. Number 1 is a fact, number 2 is an opinion.

jonsnow

I don,t support any party (and I especially don,t support Fianna "fail":D).But while i respected Gilmore for having the guts to oust O,Donoghue it seems to me that Labour is far too concerned with protecting the public sector than protecting the country.Whatever strategies they put forward seem vague and populist.Gilmore was spouting some guff about him being taoiseach and kenny being tanaiste.But while he can lock up dublin and the PS vote hes always going to lose people like me when he won,t tackle the public sector workers in any meaningful way.

10000maniacs

Euro_Kraut wrote: »

Eh no. Number 1 is a fact, number 2 is an opinion.

If bank savings wern't guaranteed at the time, AIB, BOI, Anglo, EBS and Irish Nationwide WOULD have become insolvent in September 2008-FACT, not opinion.
People WOULD have lost all of their savings-FACT, not opinion.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

evercloserunion

10000maniacs wrote: »

I have said it many times on this forum. Labours Eamon Gilmore and Joan Burton seem to oppose any strategy that is taken by Fianna Fail, yet devoid of any alternatives to the proposals themselves.
Last nights Frontline interview with Gilmore is nearly a carbon copy of an interview between Joan Burton and Vincent Browne about 6 months ago.
She was asked by Vincent, ok, you oppose the bank guarantee, what is your alternative? Browne kept pushing her for an answer until she was nearly in tears.
Last night Pat Kenny used the same tack and kept pushing Gilmore for an answer on how to claw back €4 billion+ in the public finances, and he was also left stumped, reverting to his wounded bear routine.:p
The sooner people realise that NAMA is Bankruptcy Lite for the Irish Republic, the sooner we will get out of this mess. Labour have done more damage in the last year with their idiocy than any other party.

Good God man what on earth are you talking about. Labour have been saying for ages that they want to nationalize the banks. Say what you want about that policy but pretending they don't have one is called avoiding reality. Most of the arguments I have heard against nationalization have been along the lines of "ooh nationalization oooh, scary" and Labour have, IIRC, pointed to the success of nationalization in getting the economy moving in other countries. It's a hell of a lot more original an idea than FG's idea, which was NAMA taken and turned upside down.

10000maniacs

evercloserunion wrote: »

Good God man what on earth are you talking about. Labour have been saying for ages that they want to nationalize the banks. Say what you want about that policy but pretending they don't have one is called avoiding reality. Most of the arguments I have heard against nationalization have been along the lines of "ooh nationalization oooh, scary" and Labour have, IIRC, pointed to the success of nationalization in getting the economy moving in other countries. It's a hell of a lot more original an idea than FG's idea, which was NAMA taken and turned upside down.

On October 2nd 2008, Labour voted against the Government’s Irish bank-guarantee legislation. If the savings in Irish banks at the time wern't guaranteed, there would be no banks to nationalize now. Need I say more.

Euro_Kraut

10000maniacs wrote: »

If bank savings wern't guaranteed at the time, AIB, BOI, Anglo, EBS and Irish Nationwide WOULD have become insolvent in September 2008-FACT, not opinion.
People WOULD have lost all of their savings-FACT, not opinion.

No you are still not grasping the concept of a firmly held belief on your part and a fact.

I am reminded of Father Ted and the whole 'dreams V reality' battle in Dougals brain.

Euro_Kraut

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

In fairness Labour have won over very many supporters in Ireland recently with their leaders performance and their policies. If we are going to use opinion polls as metric for assessing the correctness of policy than Labour, like the Tories, are doing quite well.

10000maniacs

Euro_Kraut wrote: »

No you are still not grasping the concept of a firmly held belief on your part and a fact.

I am reminded of Father Ted and the whole 'dreams V reality' battle in Dougals brain.

If you think that any of the banks AIB, BOI, Anglo, EBS and Irish Nationwide would have survived everyone withdrawing their money in a short period of time (ie. a run on the banks), you have little grasp of Group Cert standard economics.

Sand

10000maniacs

If you think that any of the banks AIB, BOI, Anglo, EBS and Irish Nationwide would have survived everyone withdrawing their money in a short period of time (ie. a run on the banks), you have little grasp of Group Cert standard economics.

On October 2nd 2008, Labour voted against the Government’s Irish bank-guarantee legislation. If the savings in Irish banks at the time wern't guaranteed, there would be no banks to nationalize now. Need I say more.

Yeah, you could say a little more. Im guessing you view Labours voting against the govts guarantee as a bad thing. Evidence of how terrible and awful Labour are. I could be wrong?

But assuming I've interpreted you correctly:

Labour are a joke when their best representitives are people like Joan Burton, and Eamonn "Whatever you want to hear!" Gilmore.

BUT - in voting against Lenihans disastrous, boneheaded, poorly informed and thought out guarantee of not only deposits, but also bonds Labour made the right decision. Lenihans policy was perhaps the most rushed, dumbest decision made in the crisis, and the entire government policy since then has been rushing around trying to react to the sheer scale of the stupidity of the blanket guarantee.

In fact, as Morgan Kelly pointed out in a recent article, anything and everything Lenihan has said and done has been shown to be disastrously wrong and mistaken. Voting against any of his policies in the recent crisis is actually right and correct by default because Lenihan has yet to get anything right.

Recap:

- Lenihan guarantee was terrible policy. Terrible. As in the opposite of great.
- Labour voting against it is evidence of common sense.
- Labour are terrible, but for reasons other than you have cited.

PomBear

thebman wrote: »

Funny how RTE can grill the opposition :-/

They shouldn't be grilling them with the chances of FF staying in power in 2 years

evercloserunion

10000maniacs wrote: »

On October 2nd 2008, Labour voted against the Government’s Irish bank-guarantee legislation. If the savings in Irish banks at the time wern't guaranteed, there would be no banks to nationalize now. Need I say more.

Labour voted against the guarantee as it was. According to Finfacts:

Labour finance spokesperson Joan Burton refused support, because the Government would not accept amendments - including a call for the legislation to only come into operation when full particulars of the terms and conditions were published.

Ivana Bacik later said of the topic:

I believe, just as I did when we were discussing the guarantee to the banks, that we are debating in vacuum, without access to the real facts and on the basis of assurances provided to us by the Government last September, which now ring hollow.

It's quite clear that what Labour wanted was proper information and transparency in the way the guarantee was drafted and implemented. Now, unless you are alleging that, had the guarantee been drafted in a more transparent way and fuller details been made available to the Oireachtas, the banks would have failed, your argument is flawed. And if that is what you are alleging, you would really want to produce more evidence or ellaborate on your reasoning.

---

Anyway, within the context of the debate that point is moot because you are wrong anyway. You said that Labour had no proposal. Even if Labour opposed any and all bank guarantees, their alternative was nationalization.

thebman

Yeah sands right, guaranteeing bonds was just wreckless and unrequired

Those were people that took a risk and knew that it was a risk and would have accepted the consequences.

thebman

PomBear wrote: »

They shouldn't be grilling them with the chances of FF staying in power in 2 years

lol who ya telling :P

I won't mind seeing a few people getting what their owed for pursuing their own agenda though I don't want to see RTE become a propaganda house for any other political party either.

Can't believe I have to pay for that privilege

Soldie

PomBear wrote: »

They shouldn't be grilling them with the chances of FF staying in power in 2 years

Are you suggesting that RTE should be biased?

irish_bob

Euro_Kraut wrote: »

In fairness Labour have won over very many supporters in Ireland recently with their leaders performance and their policies. If we are going to use opinion polls as metric for assessing the correctness of policy than Labour, like the Tories, are doing quite well.

thier are two reasons why labour have seen an increase in popularity of late , the public sector has to significant degree deserted fianna fail and secondly , labour under gilmore have engaged in populism which would shame one bartholemew aherne , irish people have always lapped up populism , we love whoever will promise us more pork or less pain

evercloserunion

irish_bob wrote: »

thier are two reasons why labour have seen an increase in popularity of late , the public sector has to significant degree deserted fianna fail and secondly , labour under gilmore have engaged in populism which would shame one bartholemew aherne , irish people have always lapped up populism , we love whoever will promise us more pork or less pain

And FG are promising us pain are they?

dresden8

irish_bob wrote: »

the public sector has to significant degree deserted fianna fail

Ah, the old chestnut, c. 300k public servants foisted a FF government on 1.8 million private sector workers.

Keep pushing it out there bob.

Euro_Kraut

10000maniacs wrote: »

If you think that any of the banks AIB, BOI, Anglo, EBS and Irish Nationwide would have survived everyone withdrawing their money in a short period of time (ie. a run on the banks), you have little grasp of Group Cert standard economics.

I do think that actually. But its my opinion not a fact. Get it?


By the by, I have a Masters in Economics.

thebman

evercloserunion wrote: »

And FG are promising us pain are they?

No lol if there was an election tomorrow all their promises would assume a recovery next year with 900% growth and flying pigs.

meglome

Euro_Kraut wrote: »

In fairness Labour have won over very many supporters in Ireland recently with their leaders performance and their policies. If we are going to use opinion polls as metric for assessing the correctness of policy than Labour, like the Tories, are doing quite well.

You know in may ways I like Eamonn Gilmore, I think he really is one of our better politicians. The problem is Labour cannot afford to really tell the harsh truth to many of the people who might vote for them. I watched him on the Frontline and honestly he's talking nonsense. I don't know a huge amount about economics but my maths is perfectly good. Anyone who is suggesting that some sticky plasters will fix our finances (and especially the public service pay bill) is talking straight out of their arse. It's a shame really because we desperately need our politicians to tell the harsh truth so we can face up to it.

thebman

I'm beginning to dislike Eamon Gilmore more every day TBH.

He just says what people want to hear and I know all politicians say that but when it is so clear it isn't true he might as well say something more realistic.

meglome

thebman wrote: »

I'm beginning to dislike Eamon Gilmore more every day TBH.

He just says what people want to hear and I know all politicians say that but when it is so clear it isn't true he might as well say something more realistic.

Didn't say it in my previous post but I was very disappointed to say the least by what he had to say. There's no hope of me voting for Labour if they don't start coming clean.

starbelgrade

The last time Labour had a leader with any charisma or voting sway was Dick Spring. The last time they had a leader with any real conviction or political ideals was..... hmmm. Though that last sentence could apply to any party, except perhaps Sinn Fein.

starbelgrade

meglome wrote: »

There's no hope of me voting for Labour if they don't start coming clean.

If you had to vote on the choice of which party comes clean, you wouldn't have a whole lot of choices.

PomBear

Soldie wrote: »

Are you suggesting that RTE should be biased?

No but they know they know where their money's coming from

meglome

starbelgrade wrote: »

If you had to vote on the choice of which party comes clean, you wouldn't have a whole lot of choices.

The party (or persons) who I feel are being the most honest and showing the most wherewithal will get my vote. True it might be a short list.

Euro_Kraut

Euro_Kraut wrote: »

I do think that actually. But its my opinion not a fact. Get it?


By the by, I have a Masters in Economics.

Masters.so what? I presume hedge fund managers in square mile had more qualifications in econmics and see how many of them messed up. If I messed up to the extent that the finicial sector messed up.I'd be struck off.

MaceFace

meglome wrote: »

The party (or persons) who I feel are being the most honest and showing the most wherewithal will get my vote. True it might be a short list.

Unfortunately I think this is FF as they are following through with what they are saying - whether you like what they are saying or not.
It is very easy for the likes of Gilmore to say he would achieve savings through overtime and reform (when there is no overtime anymore and reform never gave savings). What he says now might get him into power but once he is in there, either he goes back on his promises or Ireland gets a whole lot worse!

10000maniacs

Sand wrote: »

10000maniacs
BUT - in voting against Lenihans disastrous, boneheaded, poorly informed and thought out guarantee of not only deposits, but also bonds Labour made the right decision. Lenihans policy was perhaps the most rushed, dumbest decision made in the crisis, and the entire government policy since then has been rushing around trying to react to the sheer scale of the stupidity of the blanket guarantee.
.

The day Lenihan announced the guarantee, I had booked the morning off to transfer my savings from Irish Nationwide to HBOS. When Lenihan made the guarantee speech I cancelled my morning off.
I'm sure a couple of hundred thousand like minded people were planning a similar move that morning. If it wasn't for the Irish bank-guarantee, we would have an Iceland type situation here. Thats how important the Irish bank-guarantee was at the time. (And why it was rushed through). He had only a matter of hours to react. One of the econonomic commentators at the time said that we were only hours from bankruptcy.

GUIGuy

The public absolutely needed that reassurance in those crazy days... I witnessed secretaries in a state of sheer panic back then - they calmed down with the guarantee. The bond holders? Well this is an interesting one... many have said the bond holders should take the hit, they knew the risks etc. I agree strongly in principal... but principal and pragmatism are generally far apart. But who are they and what 'might' happen if the govt said 'oops sorry' to them?

In the majority they are (our) pension funds, other banks/institutions and govts.

Possible Alternative Scenario (just for fun... but not so far fetched!)

1. Rumblings on the street that the banks are in trouble, general public and insitutions begin to panic and withdraw large amounts of money(as happened)
2. Irish banks hold emergency meeting MoF(joan Burton) and inform her they will fold next week (as happened... except it was BL).

---

3. Joan Burton govt issues guarantee to cover all customer deposits, but not insitutional deposits and she tells bond holders to feck off. She declares it would be socially unacceptable to guaruntee international capitalists... posits that her firm stand has reduced the theoretical 'liability' of guaruntee (but don't worry we won't actually have to pay it)

4. Public panic averted for a day or two. The Irish Times and 'social partners' shout "here here!"

5. Insitutions continue to withdraw money. Bond holders vent fury, but suck it up. Banks hold second emergency meeting with MoF... they need immediate support because they will not be able to cover customer deposits as insitutions have withdrawn their funds.

6. Public panicked again, run begins on banks irrespective of guaruntee.

7. Govt have to actually pay for the guaruntee that previously only was a theoretical liability.

8. Govt has no money to actually pay for this guaruntee. Joan Burton appeals to international institutions and bondholders for money. They politely say "feck off... you diodn't back us, we won't back you".

9. Joan goes cap in hand ECB. ECB asks why she broke agreement not to let any systematic euro area bank fail.
They say a quick 'theoretical' guaruntee for all would have averted this disaster. She whimpers that she wanted a smaller potential liability but events overtook us & we've ended up with a very real bill we can't pay.

10. Our Euro partners are quite busy with their own banking problems. They say that they can issue funds to nationalise some but not all the banks (competition rules).

11. We have already breached ECB borrowing limits so we must raise the funds to rescue the remaining banks ourselves. There will be no EU aid to cover customer deposits.

12. Unrest in Ireland. Joan Burton nationalises all banks by expropriation rather than purchase. Customer withdrawls from accounts/ATMs limited.

13. International community uses anti terrorist legisation to freeze all Irish assets (same as Iceland). Eamon Gilmore denounces the move and asks the IMF for help. Sure... but there are conditions! See how Serbia's public sector faired!

Ok, it's a fiction but even though I hated that we have to 'guaruntee' those bond holders who freely entered into a risky deals... to do otherwise 'might' have had far worse results.

A stitch in time saves nine!

10000maniacs

GUIGuy wrote: »

The public absolutely needed that reassurance in those crazy days... I witnessed secretaries in a state of sheer panic back then - they calmed down with the guarantee. The bond holders? Well this is an interesting one... many have said the bond holders should take the hit, they knew the risks etc. I agree strongly in principal... but principal and pragmatism are generally far apart. But who are they and what 'might' happen if the govt said 'oops sorry' to them?

In the majority they are (our) pension funds, other banks/institutions and govts.

Possible Alternative Scenario (just for fun... but not so far fetched!)

1. Rumblings on the street that the banks are in trouble, general public and insitutions begin to panic and withdraw large amounts of money(as happened)
2. Irish banks hold emergency meeting MoF(joan Burton) and inform her they will fold next week (as happened... except it was BL).

---

3. Joan Burton govt issues guarantee to cover all customer deposits, but not insitutional deposits and she tells bond holders to feck off. She declares it would be socially unacceptable to guaruntee international capitalists... posits that her firm stand has reduced the theoretical 'liability' of guaruntee (but don't worry we won't actually have to pay it)

4. Public panic averted for a day or two. The Irish Times and 'social partners' shout "here here!"

5. Insitutions continue to withdraw money. Bond holders vent fury, but suck it up. Banks hold second emergency meeting with MoF... they need immediate support because they will not be able to cover customer deposits as insitutions have withdrawn their funds.

6. Public panicked again, run begins on banks irrespective of guaruntee.

7. Govt have to actually pay for the guaruntee that previously only was a theoretical liability.

8. Govt has no money to actually pay for this guaruntee. Joan Burton appeals to international institutions and bondholders for money. They politely say "feck off... you diodn't back us, we won't back you".

9. Joan goes cap in hand ECB. ECB asks why she broke agreement not to let any systematic euro area bank fail.
They say a quick 'theoretical' guaruntee for all would have averted this disaster. She whimpers that she wanted a smaller potential liability but events overtook us & we've ended up with a very real bill we can't pay.

10. Our Euro partners are quite busy with their own banking problems. They say that they can issue funds to nationalise some but not all the banks (competition rules).

11. We have already breached ECB borrowing limits so we must raise the funds to rescue the remaining banks ourselves. There will be no EU aid to cover customer deposits.

12. Unrest in Ireland. Joan Burton nationalises all banks by expropriation rather than purchase. Customer withdrawls from accounts/ATMs limited.

13. International community uses anti terrorist legisation to freeze all Irish assets (same as Iceland). Eamon Gilmore denounces the move and asks the IMF for help. Sure... but there are conditions! See how Serbia's public sector faired!

Ok, it's a fiction but even though I hated that we have to 'guaruntee' those bond holders who freely entered into a risky deals... to do otherwise 'might' have had far worse results.

A stitch in time saves nine!

At last, somebody with a grasp. Cheers GUIGuy.;)
By the way Euro_Kraut is probably going through your post looking for syntactical errors.:rolleyes:

Euro_Kraut

Deleted User wrote: »

Masters.so what? I presume hedge fund managers in square mile had more qualifications in econmics and see how many of them messed up. If I messed up to the extent that the finicial sector messed up.I'd be struck off.

It was a response to another poster who suggested that I had 'Group Cert* level knowledge of Economics'.

I think it was reasonable to respond to that baiting and just because other with similar qualifications may have done a poor job recently does not undermine my Masters. In the same way just because some Doctors are incompetent it does not mean others should training is invalidated.

*The old name for Junior Cert as far as I know

Euro_Kraut

10000maniacs wrote: »

At last, somebody with a grasp. Cheers GUIGuy.;)
By the way Euro_Kraut is probably going through your post looking for syntactical errors.:rolleyes:

You stated your own opinion as an expilct fact. That is not a 'syntactical error'. It is dishonesty.

I do not think that should be left unchallanged. Do you?

irish_bob

dresden8 wrote: »

Ah, the old chestnut, c. 300k public servants foisted a FF government on 1.8 million private sector workers.

Keep pushing it out there bob.

way to take my post out of context , i was pointing to labours recent large increase in popularity , never mentioned previous elections

irish_bob

meglome wrote: »

You know in may ways I like Eamonn Gilmore, I think he really is one of our better politicians. The problem is Labour cannot afford to really tell the harsh truth to many of the people who might vote for them. I watched him on the Frontline and honestly he's talking nonsense. I don't know a huge amount about economics but my maths is perfectly good. Anyone who is suggesting that some sticky plasters will fix our finances (and especially the public service pay bill) is talking straight out of their arse. It's a shame really because we desperately need our politicians to tell the harsh truth so we can face up to it.

gilmore cannot come down hard on public sector pay , the public sector are all labour have , no party can turn on thier base and remain a force , fine gael have no such excuse yet despite this have been incredibly timid on public sector pay cuts

evercloserunion

Pretending that we can come out of this crisis without having to feel any pain is populism, yes. What is equally if not more populist is claiming that
a) the public sector is to blame for all our troubles, and
b) savagely attacking public sector workers in terms of job security and pay would not have any negative side effects (wave of mortgage defaults, increased dole bill, complete breakdown in delivery of some essential services etc).

Some of the tripe I have seen in this thread and elsewhere on teh internetz where everyone is an expert at everything is far more populist than anything I have heard from Gilmore. At least Labour are trying to justify their alternative (and they *are* trying to justify it even if you are not listening) and not just saying "GRAAARRR PUBLIC SEKTUR GRARRRR"

Taxipete29

irish_bob wrote: »

gilmore cannot come down hard on public sector pay , the public sector are all labour have , no party can turn on thier base and remain a force , fine gael have no such excuse yet despite this have been incredibly timid on public sector pay cuts

The public sector have been voting FF for years now, the majority anyway.

The simple fact is that Labour wont be in power to reduce the PS wage bill so they can afford to be timid about it. FF will have to do it. If and when FG and Labour get into power then alot of the wage cuts will already be implemented.

Unless there is some major split in FF this government is going to run its full term. The opposition can afford to play politics until an election is called. No opposition party is going to reveal all their intentions until the voters can actually decide on them. Thats politics.

irish_bob

Taxipete29 wrote: »

The public sector have been voting FF for years now, the majority anyway.

The simple fact is that Labour wont be in power to reduce the PS wage bill so they can afford to be timid about it. FF will have to do it. If and when FG and Labour get into power then alot of the wage cuts will already be implemented.

Unless there is some major split in FF this government is going to run its full term. The opposition can afford to play politics until an election is called. No opposition party is going to reveal all their intentions until the voters can actually decide on them. Thats politics.

labour stand to gain by opposing public sector pay cuts , i believe fine gael stand to gain by supporting public sector pay cuts more agressivley than fianna fail are , the question is why fine gael are not doing this

Euro_Kraut

irish_bob wrote: »

labour stand to gain by opposing public sector pay cuts , i believe fine gael stand to gain by supporting public sector pay cuts more agressivley than fianna fail are , the question is why fine gael are not doing this

From a poltical point of view I think its pretty obvious,

A. They are need Labour to form the next Government
B. They risk losing their traditional support base among Teachers and Gardai

bridgitt

Euro_Kraut wrote: »

From a poltical point of view I think its pretty obvious,

A. They are need Labour to form the next Government
B. They risk losing their traditional support base among Teachers and Gardai

Some teachers and Gardai know public sector pay cuts are necessary for the good of the country. Why are Fine Gael not going with the majority in the country, who realise we cannot go on borrowing to support government spending ? F.G. risk losing those people who look at economics in a realistic way.

DJDC

Kenny did an excellent job at exposing Gilmore's populist rhetoric and showing that Labour's approach towards the massive leech sucking the life out of the nation's finances is to hold off or increase taxes.I despise FF and I have never voted for them but I respect Lenihan for having the balls to do whats right for the country.He knows that any further increase in taxes on high earners will have a negative effect through turning away enterprise and employment.If he makes the right decision and slashes PS pay and entitlements this Dec, he will go down in history as one of the best Finance ministers we have ever had. And you know what...a huge section of the PS will still vote FF/FG because lots of nurses, gardai, civil servants come from gombeen FF/FG families so Gilmore is not only wasting a valuable political platform but probably wasting his time as well.

Taxipete29

irish_bob wrote: »

labour stand to gain by opposing public sector pay cuts , i believe fine gael stand to gain by supporting public sector pay cuts more agressivley than fianna fail are , the question is why fine gael are not doing this

If FG begin to start supporting FF policy, people will start to ask why would we vote for them if its just more of the same. The fact is the worst thing FG could do now from a political point of view is to start agreeing with the Government.