Aftershock - The Second Republic?

Dara Robinson

Anyone else watching this? Some very interesting points of view

Denerick

A whole load of whinging. he complains about the way Irish TDs represent their constituency's, yet this is the same in every parliamentary democracy. These post boom whingebags, who've been waiting on the sidelines for decades, are now basking in the general mood of despondancy, and I have to honestly say that I'm sick and tired of these cretins telling me that how righteous they are and how vengeful they're prepared to be. (This in relation to any Irish journalist generally. Especially that Fintan O'Toole prat)

gurramok

The political system has failed. Parish pump politics aka Jacky Healy-Rae is more important to the voter than national issues.

jumpguy

Denerick wrote: »

A whole load of whinging. he complains about the way Irish TDs represent their constituency's, yet this is the same in every parliamentary democracy.

Now, I'm only going by what the programme's saying, but we're very much in the minority with this system? I think you're being rather cynical, Irish journalism isn't that bad. And being opinionated is what it's all about...

I think it's very interesting and I agree with a lot of the issues raised. The political system, and many systems in Ireland, lag behind and lack the change other parliament's have had. It's slow and I remember at the height of the economic crisis, in October 2008, when everything was in melt-down, we acted extremely slowly. There were ridiculous ideas of a unified government thrown around to make decisions faster.

Clearly, change is needed. But who's gonna make them? What has ever has caused radicle change in this country? Is it not sad that we must wait until the tipping point of crisis to make nessicary change...

amacachi

gurramok wrote: »

The political system has failed. Parish pump politics aka Jacky Healy-Rae is more important to the voter than national issues.

I'd like to see a referendum on the issue because I'd be almost certain it wouldn't pass. People give out about "parish pump" politics, but enough people vote for those same idiots year after year and know what they're voting for.
The beauty of democracy.

Also Denerick, most places with votes as transferable as us have semi-list systems, and in most constituencies in the UK it may as well be a list system.

Denerick

Our system elects TDs for constituencies, who in turn do their best to represent their constituencies. I fail to see how this is different in any other parliamentary democracy (Personally I'd like to see a second Republic with a Liberal constitution, but the kind of gob****es who'd end up drafting it would have me heading for the first boat of this island.)

gurramok

Denerick wrote: »

Our system elects TDs for constituencies, who in turn do their best to represent their constituencies. I fail to see how this is different in any other parliamentary democracy (Personally I'd like to see a second Republic with a Liberal constitution, but the kind of gob****es who'd end up drafting it would have me heading for the first boat of this island.)

Other countries have strong local government to take care of local issues, here as you just said, its each constituency competing against another for national funds when in fact that is just wrong on a national level.

Its about time people(voterS) copped on about putting their country first instead of putting fixing that pothole first at a national level.

amacachi

Denerick wrote: »

Our system elects TDs for constituencies, who in turn do their best to represent their constituencies. I fail to see how this is different in any other parliamentary democracy (Personally I'd like to see a second Republic with a Liberal constitution, but the kind of gob****es who'd end up drafting it would have me heading for the first boat of this island.)

Are you just being facetious here?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Germany#Election_system Half come from a list system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_Netherlands All from a list.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Sweden#Riksdag_elections 310/349 from the list.
And in Britain for the most part it may as well be a list system, with candidates moving between safe constituencies.
Add to this Ireland's already small size and population and there's even more of a problem with too much focus on local issues that a lot of other countries won't have.

Dara Robinson

yea, I get the whole whining thing but the reality that this has happened to us before in the 50's and 80's and I think they might have hit a cord there. I most certainly feel that the TD/minister situation in Ireland is a joke and (this is something I have been saying for ages) Ministers should be experts in their fields and not Part-timers who are stressed about getting re-elected

Plus I do like the idea of a Nama for the people. I am lucky that I never went into the property market and I will probably be one of the ones that will benefit from this situation now but the reality is that its completely unreasonable to ask someone to pay the bank back negative equity. That's just taking the piss, young people between 30-45 will never be out of debt if that is the case

amacachi

Dara Robinson wrote: »

Plus I do like the idea of a Nama for the people. I am lucky that I never went into the property market and I will probably be one of the ones that will benefit from this situation now but the reality is that its completely unreasonable to ask someone to pay the bank back negative equity. That's just taking the piss, young people between 30-45 will never be out of debt if that is the case

A NAMA for the people would never happen because the money would never, ever come back. No government is going to kick people out of their houses directly.
Also, asking people to pay back negative equity, do you mean it's stupid to ask us who never took out a loan to pay it back or the people to pay it back? If you mean the people who took out the mortgages then I don't see your point, people are expected to pay back "negative equity" on their cars from the second they're bought.

Dara Robinson

yea but cars dont cost €400,000. One of the people interviewed on the show said that the young generation need to be helped out in this regard because they are the ones that the future of the Irish economy is standing on. If they dont recover neither will the Irish economy. If thats not a good argument I dont know what is. We bailed out the banks for the good of the economy, why not individuals. The banks, financial regulators and the government have a duty of care to the citizens and specifically people who took out mortgages and in a lot of cases these people were grossly neglected.

amacachi

Dara Robinson wrote: »

yea but cars dont cost €400,000. One of the people interviewed on the show said that the young generation need to be helped out in this regard because they are the ones that the future of the Irish economy is standing on. If they dont recover neither will the Irish economy. If thats not a good argument I dont know what is. We bailed out the banks for the good of the economy, why not individuals. The banks, financial regulators and the government have a duty of care to the citizens and specifically people who took out mortgages and in a lot of cases these people were grossly neglected.

Negative equity means nothing.
A lot of the people on these types of shows are complaining about negative equity etc., yet seem not to want to move out and rent, but when they bought their houses planned to move on a few years later when they could make a profit. If you're still in work then negative equity means **** all. People were stupid enough to pay over the odds and tough ****.
I didn't agree with the bank bailout, however I think it's hilarious listening to others' reasons for disagreeing, all while complaining about the cutbacks made in services so far. I already gave one example of why the "individuals" can't be bailed out, as well as this it still would've left the banking system completely broke, leaving us all way more ****ed.

Aidric

I thought Dan O Brien's analysis was a worthy one and merits closer attention. The system as we know it is badly flawed and the national interest often comes second in the minds of a lot of our elected representatives. No surprise that Martin & Varadkar both opposed it.