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do we live in a fair and equal country

  • 11-08-2010 01:36PM
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 147 ✭✭


    Hands up out there in forum land who think that Ireland is a fair and equal country to live in for the ordinary person

    Lets take a look

    1. Banks are bailed out by the taxpayer and will leave us with a bill for the next 20 years but yet they increase their charges and interest rates to prop up their bottom line and inflict suffering on the very people that saved them in the first place

    2. Ordinary joe soap who is unable to pay a fine is being sent to prison by a legal system which has not changed since 1820 , Yet Ivor the engine scams the system for 80k gets caught and gets 20 days suspended from the senate on full pay no jail for him

    3. We were told at the last budget that this was going to be the toughest ever and we were on the road to recovery , yet we hear that budget 2011 will take 800-1000 euro out the pockets of each family through extra charges be it increased income tax , green tax, etc etc etc

    4. Our state services are top heavy and are one of the most expsensive not just in europe but the world, how many in the public sector have been made redundent as per the McCarthy report ..... NIL


    Finally how many think that FF party will start giving goodies away in 2011 to try and buy the next election from the gob****es who voted them in the last one ..


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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 24,639 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    no its not, not in any way


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,619 ✭✭✭fontanalis


    I think Ireland takes the saying "it's not what you know but who you know" to a completely different level.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,916 ✭✭✭RonMexico


    It is in me bollix.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,121 ✭✭✭RichardAnd


    Of course it isn't and only a fool would expect it to be. If you look at history, one over bearing constant is human in equality and there is absolutely no reason to think this has gone away or will ever cease. You will never beat the system that is in place and no matter how irritating it is, your best bet is simply to make the best of what you can and not let yourself become bogged down by others.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 959 ✭✭✭changes


    Finally how many think that FF party will start giving goodies away in 2011 to try and buy the next election from the gob****es who voted them in the last one ..

    Yeah they most certainly will start giving away the goodies in the runup to the next election and will prob get back in..... god help this country.

    Our political system is rotten, we end up with useless people running for office. Its very sad.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 24,639 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    Its not only politics though, every aspect of Irish society is unequal and unfair.

    Hard working people carry the most burden, those who do little get the most benefit.
    Crime goes unpunished, sentencing is a joke
    Ageism and sexism are alive and well in most services and industries in one form or other. Legislation backs this up in many cases.
    Few state services actually operate in the customers favour, IE and hospitals a major case in point
    Prices are extremely high for everything


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,364 ✭✭✭ei.sdraob


    define "fair"


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,235 ✭✭✭The_Honeybadger


    Hard working people carry the most burden, those who do little get the most benefit.
    Crime goes unpunished, sentencing is a joke
    Ageism and sexism are alive and well in most services and industries in one form or other. Legislation backs this up in many cases.
    Few state services actually operate in the customers favour, IE and hospitals a major case in point
    Prices are extremely high for everything
    +1 I think this is a fair summary. Why we tolerate it is a very interesting question, in 99% of other democracies Ivor Callely and others who have abused the espenses sytem would have resigned by now and would be facing police charges, NAMA would have been at least debated properly before being bulldozed through and people would be in jail for corporate crimes etc, I could go on. Why are we so tolerant as to let this go on, I don't think FF will get back in next term, but will probably only be out for one term, as FG / Labour will have to take some really unpopular decisions during their stint at the helm. "Ah sure what can ya do" is the response you would get from most people if you asked them for their thoughts on our current crisis. In answer to Op no this is not a fair and equitable country but what would have to happen in order for people to take to the streets I wonder?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,932 ✭✭✭hinault


    Ireland is a deeply unfair and a deeply inequitable society.

    For a society which is supposed to be founded on republican ideals (by republican I mean everyone being treated equally), we're a long way from that.

    I also think that for a society who's educated class came through Roman Catholic educational system, it says it all that the main practitioners of deceit/deception are all products of that same education system.
    (before anyone accuses me of being anti -Catholic, I am a practicing RC).


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,017 ✭✭✭invinciblePRSTV


    Ireland is a classic banana republic where the interests of the wealthy and political elites and pampered middle classes are put to the fore above all others. Let's do a checklist;

    Endemic political corruption

    State subsidies directed to those who need them the least

    Cosseted professional classes

    two tier health, law and education systems

    old boys network

    Political patronage/gombeenarchy


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 22 Gestapo


    Hands up out there in forum land who think that Ireland is a fair and equal country to live in for the ordinary person

    Lets take a look

    1. Banks are bailed out by the taxpayer and will leave us with a bill for the next 20 years but yet they increase their charges and interest rates to prop up their bottom line and inflict suffering on the very people that saved them in the first place

    2. Ordinary joe soap who is unable to pay a fine is being sent to prison by a legal system which has not changed since 1820 , Yet Ivor the engine scams the system for 80k gets caught and gets 20 days suspended from the senate on full pay no jail for him

    3. We were told at the last budget that this was going to be the toughest ever and we were on the road to recovery , yet we hear that budget 2011 will take 800-1000 euro out the pockets of each family through extra charges be it increased income tax , green tax, etc etc etc

    4. Our state services are top heavy and are one of the most expsensive not just in europe but the world, how many in the public sector have been made redundent as per the McCarthy report ..... NIL


    Finally how many think that FF party will start giving goodies away in 2011 to try and buy the next election from the gob****es who voted them in the last one ..

    Fair for who the people or the politicians?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 585 ✭✭✭MrDarcy


    This country is a joke. I was driving down last Cherry Orchard Hospital on Monday morning and I couldn't help but notice all the junkies getting out of and back into taxi's, there was a queue of taxi's outside the place where they get their drugs, all being paid for by the HSE no doubt, to collect their Methadone.

    The same evening I met a friend who is trying to start a business to get himself off the dole but can't get assistance from any quarter. There is no government agency that will gve him a loan to get him off the ground and we are talking about a few hundred quid here.

    However we have money to pay for taxi's to collect junkies at their house, bring them down for their drugs, pay for their taxi and their drugs and bring them back to their house, all paid for by the taxpayer.

    And this is called "treatment" and if you object to this, you are told that these drug addicts need treatment and that you are anti-treatment of disadvantaged people/citizens. This sounds to me like about as much sense as giving an chronic alcoholic a gift voucher for a Molloy's Liquer store every week, paying for a taxi for them to go down to Molloy's and back and doing all of this in the name of "much needed treatment"...

    I feel as a country we seriously need to cop the f*ck on and have a look at ourselves. Paying tax payers money for drug addicts to get free drugs and taxi's for collecting drugs?!?!?!? Why don't the HSE just not give them a f*cking carry out/"Phone your drug order into us", service and drop the drugs to their house???

    We are so stupid in this country, we'd put up with anything. There is nothing that could be put on the 9 O' Clock news tonight or any other night that would cause us to look at ourselves...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,629 ✭✭✭ART6


    An electoral system that permits a number of individual votes (first, second, preferences etc) is bound to lead to inequalities of the type to which the OP refers. It was that which got the Greens into power and kept the PDs there long past their sell by date. It is that which keeps FF in power when the majority of the population, it appears, want them out and preferably sunk in the Atlantic with concrete wellies. It leads to deals with (very) minority parties in coalitions who represent vested interests that are not necessarily in the interests of the majority. It leads to carbon taxes in a recession, public money spent on counting bats and frogs and building road underpasses for badgers while failing to provide safe roadside footpaths for children walking to school (and then culling said badgers to limit bovine TB -- cheaper to not build the underpasses and let 'em get run over).

    In the same political system there is also the matter of political donations that lead to big finance and big industry funding FF and FG, and the unions funding Labour. He who pays the penny calls the tune. At the moment we have a government that won an election using funds provided by big finance and big industry (via the Galway tent perhaps?). Can we really believe that a bank, for example, might make a large donation to FF without having any interest in whether or not they get elected or what they do afterwards?

    Given those considerations it would be niaive to expect anything resembling equality. FF/Greens represent the bankers, FG don't know who they represent, and Labour represent the unions. That would seem to leave getting on for 3 million people who are not represented by anyone.

    And before anyone asks, no I don't have masses of figures and statistics to support what I say. I have just been around long enough to understand how Irish politics operates.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 24,612 ✭✭✭✭Sleepy


    Can there be such a thing as a fair AND equal society?

    If everyone is rewarded equaly, there's no incentive anyone to perform to their best.

    We can strive for equality of opportunity i.e. everyone has the same entitlement to education, health care, security and opportunity to apply for a job and to be hired / promoted based on ability etc. That's fair. However, since we're not all equal, there will always be an imbalance in rewards received for working to the best of one's ability e.g. a Ronaldo will always be paid more than a Kevin Kilbane.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 736 ✭✭✭Dilynnio


    I think in order to have a good quality of life in this country, you need to have a nice stash of money for a rainy day!

    You either need to be very well off or be getting social welfare benefits in order to survive.

    If you fall into the middle class/upper working class you are screwed.....as there is no breaks/help/benefits for you really you only survive to make ends meet and the odd bit of fun on a rainy day.

    So no it is not really fair or equal!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 580 ✭✭✭shampon


    One day I want to know what it is like to live in a real country.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,819 ✭✭✭dan_d


    As I said in a previous thread - I'd like to live in a real country for a while. I was referring to Canada at the time, for the simple reason that the quality of life is good, cities are developed with the needs of the people in mind, with outdoor sports areas, interconnected,, thought-out public transport. Medical insurance is paid for through a tax to the Gov, that means your doctor visit costs you about 20 dollars, and your prescriptions 10-20 dollars. Laws are made in the interest of the citizens of the country, not the ruling parties.

    I couldn't care less what I might earn elsewhere - I just want to live in a real country for a while, instead of this backwater of a country.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,163 ✭✭✭✭Liam Byrne


    Sleepy wrote: »
    Can there be such a thing as a fair AND equal society?

    If everyone is rewarded equaly, there's no incentive anyone to perform to their best.

    We can strive for equality of opportunity i.e. everyone has the same entitlement to education, health care, security and opportunity to apply for a job and to be hired / promoted based on ability etc. That's fair. However, since we're not all equal, there will always be an imbalance in rewards received for working to the best of one's ability e.g. a Ronaldo will always be paid more than a Kevin Kilbane.

    Fair point, however in Ireland Kilbane is paid more because his auntie once shagged an FF minister behind the Galway Tent.

    * Disclaimer : names have been used only to tie-in with the previous example, and suitable apologies in advance to Ms Kilbane for even fictionally / analogically suggesting that she has such poor taste...there is no intention to infer that such an encounter ever occurred


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,121 ✭✭✭RichardAnd


    Sleepy wrote: »
    Can there be such a thing as a fair AND equal society?

    If everyone is rewarded equaly, there's no incentive anyone to perform to their best.

    We can strive for equality of opportunity i.e. everyone has the same entitlement to education, health care, security and opportunity to apply for a job and to be hired / promoted based on ability etc. That's fair. However, since we're not all equal, there will always be an imbalance in rewards received for working to the best of one's ability e.g. a Ronaldo will always be paid more than a Kevin Kilbane.


    Yes but in the case of those two, Ronaldo is a far better player than Kilbane. So to an extent, that situation is fair.

    But talent and ability doesn't always mean success for an individual. Rubbish like Twilight and Harry Potter makes millions whilst brilliant works of fiction might never make it through a publisher. Is is fair that second rate talent makes a fortune? No, but it happens.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,353 ✭✭✭✭jimmycrackcorm


    The middle class will get more taxed such as water and property taxes while those on social welfare get now benefits and exemptions so that working will become something that you do to stave boredom. In that sense, yes indeed, the country is becoming fairer albeit unfairly so.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 425 ✭✭daithicarr


    ART6 wrote: »
    An electoral system that permits a number of individual votes (first, second, preferences etc) is bound to lead to inequalities of the type to which the OP refers. It was that which got the Greens into power and kept the PDs there long past their sell by date. It is that which keeps FF in power when the majority of the population, it appears, want them out and preferably sunk in the Atlantic with concrete wellies. It leads to deals with (very) minority parties in coalitions who represent vested interests that are not necessarily in the interests of the majority. It leads to carbon taxes in a recession, public money spent on counting bats and frogs and building road underpasses for badgers while failing to provide safe roadside footpaths for children walking to school (and then culling said badgers to limit bovine TB -- cheaper to not build the underpasses and let 'em get run over).

    a first past the post system isint any fairer, in fact id say its more unfair, a minority of the population can win a majority of the seats most of the time and some people will disengage from the politicla system when partys they support wont ever get a seat, plus it makes it near impossible for a new party to enter the system


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 24,639 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    daithicarr wrote: »
    a first past the post system isint any fairer, in fact id say its more unfair, a minority of the population can win a majority of the seats most of the time and some people will disengage from the politicla system when partys they support wont ever get a seat, plus it makes it near impossible for a new party to enter the system

    its much fairer. one vote per person. Now you can have effectively 12 votes in some constituencies and only 4 in others depending on running numbers, its such a stupid system IMO.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 425 ✭✭daithicarr


    its much fairer. one vote per person. Now you can have effectively 12 votes in some constituencies and only 4 in others depending on running numbers, its such a stupid system IMO.

    i would completely disagree, proportional representation is more representative of the population, with one vote the party with the biggest amount of votes can from the goverement, so if say across the country ff got 35%, FG got 30% labour got 20% other got 15% between them it would mean FF got in to power with a massive majority, despite only having support of 35% of the population, it would squeeze out smaller partys, make it hard for any one to challange the established parys and make people disconect even more as they would feel theyr views cant be represented and they have no hope of getting anyone in to power.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,849 ✭✭✭professore


    What are you going to do about it ?? You make your own "fair".

    If the architects of the French Revolution or the 1916 patriots had sat around bellyaching then nothing would have happened. Piss or get off the pot. The world doesn't owe you a living.

    Life isn't fair. Get used to it.

    Have a go at doing something to improve your local community and you will quickly see what's really wrong with Ireland. You will meet a wall of resistence to any change.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 24,639 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    daithicarr wrote: »
    i would completely disagree, proportional representation is more representative of the population, with one vote the party with the biggest amount of votes can from the goverement, so if say across the country ff got 35%, FG got 30% labour got 20% other got 15% between them it would mean FF got in to power with a massive majority, despite only having support of 35% of the population, it would squeeze out smaller partys, make it hard for any one to challange the established parys and make people disconect even more as they would feel theyr views cant be represented and they have no hope of getting anyone in to power.

    what, just like it is currently?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 24,612 ✭✭✭✭Sleepy


    RichardAnd wrote: »
    Yes but in the case of those two, Ronaldo is a far better player than Kilbane. So to an extent, that situation is fair.

    But talent and ability doesn't always mean success for an individual. Rubbish like Twilight and Harry Potter makes millions whilst brilliant works of fiction might never make it through a publisher. Is is fair that second rate talent makes a fortune? No, but it happens.
    Art is entirely subjective so perhaps a bad area to look at, if more people want to read JK Rowling's books than, for the sake of argument Douglas Coupland's why shouldn't she make more money than him? She's doing the job of writing books that sell better than he is.

    You could equally argue that Cowon make far better mp3 players than Apple but because Apple do a far better job of marketing their products they make more money.

    Once you give everyone the same access to education, health etc. their success after that will come down to their talent, work ethic, personal choice, market preferences, talent and blind luck. Since you can't legislate for any of those factors, they have to be discounted when adjudicating if the society is 'fair' imho.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 425 ✭✭daithicarr


    what, just like it is currently?

    no not at all, if you had say 150 constituancys, and the election results were as above you would get 150 FF members of parliment for 35% of vote, the way we have now gives a closer reflection of the electorates wishs, it could be reformed to make it more representative with things like a list system. first past the post is even less representative not more and there for less fair to the wishs of the people if it excludes a lot if not most of their wishs


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 24,639 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    daithicarr wrote: »
    no not at all, if you had say 150 constituancys, and the election results were as above you would get 150 FF members of parliment for 35% of vote, the way we have now gives a closer reflection of the electorates wishs, it could be reformed to make it more representative with things like a list system. first past the post is even less representative not more and there for less fair to the wishs of the people if it excludes a lot if not most of their wishs

    I just don't see it as fair that depending on where you live and how you vote your vote can be worth 1, or 2 or 10.

    A single non transferable vote with still 3-4 seats per area is the fairest way IMO, well actually democracy isin't exactly a good form of gov but its what we are stuck with due to limits of technology and interest.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 425 ✭✭daithicarr


    id rather see larger constituancys of 10 or more TD's, which would allow greater representation, a party with 10% support could get in canidates, and hopefully a larger area might remove some of the localism in irish politics along with a national list system. so say 50 canidates in 5-6 regions and 50 taken from a national list system . or something along these lines


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 459 ✭✭PattheMetaller


    By no means do we live in anything like a fair and equal country.

    Public Servant numbers are reducing (most certainly where i work) through non-renewal of temporary contracts and retirements combined with the recruitment embargo.

    While there are plenty of middle to senior management types triping over each other and carrying files under their arms to look good, fornt line services are suffering. I took my father to his Alzheimer's Consultant this morning and his hands are tied in what he can offer due to cuts. Be it care in the community or day care. He stated that if we were in the UK it wouldn't be an issue.

    It turns my stomach when the banks come in looking for more billions from the tax payer and the Government finds it but can not fund a proper health care system which is a basic human right. Meanwhile, with our money, the banks are paying bonus's and gym fees right, left, and centre.


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