14 years of FF, what GOOD things did they do?

liammur

I'm struggling here, can think of about 4 good things. Shows just how desperate this party is.

Penalty points for no seat belts
SSIA (has it's critics)
Set up prension reserve fund
Smoking ban (has it's critics)

---

plastic bags

ballsymchugh

millennium spike/clock?

who what when

Plastic bag levy.
Better roads.
Lowest road fatalities ever.
Better standard of living.

liammur

who what when wrote: »

Plastic bag levy.
Better roads.
Lowest road fatalities ever.
Better standard of living.

Platic bad levy, yes, but again that's just a tax,

better roads - we can thank the eu

ninty9er

School Buildings Programme
Road network (M3, M4, M6, M7, M8, M9, Port Tunnel, Limerick Tunnel)
Education infrastructure
Sports facilities (Aviva, Croke Park, National Aquatic Centre, Equestrian Centre etc... as well as the hundreds of local facilities)
Local parks
Regeneration
Terminal 2 (has its critics and was finished at the wrong time, but it will be there for generations to come), Shannon New Terminal (wasted at the moment too)
Luas (despite not linking, it's still positive)
Harbour developments
More Gardaí
Multiple town bypasses
Trains

bacon&cabbage

ninty9er wrote: »

School Buildings Programme
Road network (M3, M4, M6, M7, M8, M9, Port Tunnel, Limerick Tunnel)
Education infrastructure
Sports facilities (Aviva, Croke Park, National Aquatic Centre, Equestrian Centre etc... as well as the hundreds of local facilities)
Local parks
Regeneration
Terminal 2 (has its critics and was finished at the wrong time, but it will be there for generations to come), Shannon New Terminal (wasted at the moment too)
Luas (despite not linking, it's still positive)
Harbour developments
More Gardaí
Multiple town bypasses
Trains

Good Friday agreement - Peace in Northern Ireland (not on their own obviously)

maxxie

Eventually showed their true colours and died!

Good riddance greedy corrupt lowlifes!

PeterIanStaker

bacon&cabbage wrote: »

Good Friday agreement - Peace in Northern Ireland (not on their own obviously)

Big Ian met Bertie and immediately realised that he and his party were no threat to Ulshtar.

steelcityblues

bacon&cabbage wrote: »

Good Friday agreement - Peace in Northern Ireland (not on their own obviously)

Minor player in it compared to Hume, Adams, Trimble, despite Bertie never failing to mention it during an election broadcast.

Bruton and Reynolds in fairness were always more modest than El Bert about the importance of their roles in NI!

more Gardai? useless if they couldn't prevent the rise in crime of the last two decades!

feicim

They fooled the irish electorate good.

BluntGuy

ninty9er wrote: »

School Buildings Programme
Road network (M3, M4, M6, M7, M8, M9, Port Tunnel, Limerick Tunnel)
Education infrastructure
Sports facilities (Aviva, Croke Park, National Aquatic Centre, Equestrian Centre etc... as well as the hundreds of local facilities)
Local parks
Regeneration
Terminal 2 (has its critics and was finished at the wrong time, but it will be there for generations to come), Shannon New Terminal (wasted at the moment too)
Luas (despite not linking, it's still positive)
Harbour developments
More Gardaí
Multiple town bypasses
Trains

Forgive me if I don't leap up and down with appreciation, but you can find problems with pretty much everything on that list;

School building programme didn't deliver nearly enough, use of a poor PPP model that took four years to get from announcement to any kind of construction, deliberate underspend.
Grangegorman - delayed unnecessarily, and still not even close to being built.
Aviva - overpriced and underwhelming, allowed local "concerns" to take priority over the common good.
Road network 4 years later than promised, some projects wrongly prioritised. M3 toll set up is a disgrace. No service stations. Huge wastes of money on dodgy signage.
A more comprehensive Luas was ready to go ahead before the FF/PD government scrapped it and then brought it back, along with a new quango, to give us two disconnected tramlines instead at far more than the original envisioned price. Then Luas extensions designed to serve the needs of developers rather than commuters. Then introduced Transport 21, a framework for achieving nothing. Previous plans binned.
Town bypasses incorrectly prioritised
Rail network still a shambles, Dublin-Cork is still slow by train despite promises in the 90s to upgrade speed, pointless WRC, removing perfectly good trains from service to replace with shiny new ones just to run the same slow, unpuncutal, unattractive service.

The government delivered some, yes, but very little in the context of the enormous wealth that was there. And most of it was late, and far less than they promised.

emryan

Fianna Fail has left us a legacy of corruption - it was complicit in turning a blind eye to the property bubble along with the auctioneers, and legal people who gained a nice income from the property mania. Many clever people warned us but we decided to believe the F F lackies that we met at each street corner, passing on the message: this is a great country, never done so well we are all so wealthy look at the value of our home. Blah Blah Blah Where are those lackeis now ? The sly head of Bertie Ahearn as he lied about everything from the calibre of some of his T D 's to his banking arrangements brought us to a new low in the eyes of the rest of the world/

later12

Does this answer your question?

Patser

I've looked at that image a few times, and it is stark and a brilliant graphic, but where is social welfare. Old age pension is mentioned and single parents but no mnetion of social welfare. Should it be there?

As for good things form the last 13 years:

NCT - got rid of loads of old junkers from the roads
Roads Safety Auth - again massice reduction on road deaths
Peace in Norn Iron - Yes Hume, Paisley and Adams had huge part, but Blair, Clinton and mostly Bertie played key roles
Huge rise in standard of living - ok, ok it now looks like it was all on credit but compared to the 80s when people literally had nothing, now even on the dole most people will have a car or plasma screen, and many others will have seen the world, travelled all over the place

later12

Patser wrote: »

I've looked at that image a few times, and it is stark and a brilliant graphic, but where is social welfare. Old age pension is mentioned and single parents but no mnetion of social welfare. Should it be there?

Well pensions, child benefit and supplementary welfare costs are there independently, and JSA/ JSB was at record lows during the celtic tiger period, so I presume that is covered as one part of the (not insignificant) "other current goods and services" bubble.

johngalway

Smoking ban.

*ducks out before things get thrown*

steelcityblues

johngalway wrote: »

Smoking ban.

*ducks out before things get thrown*

Given some of Mr. Martin's fellow TDs weren't averse to drink driving home from work, it was a brash, populist, hyprocritical, big governmental move from him!

'One rule for them.......

chughes

sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health.


No, wait...... that was the Romans.

later12

steelcityblues wrote: »

Given some of Mr. Martin's fellow TDs weren't averse to drink driving home from work, it was a brash, populist, hyprocritical, big governmental move from him!

I presume you're talking about Christy O'Sullivan, which was many years after the smoking ban and hardly relevant anyway?

The smoking ban was a good Fianna Fail idea, what more is there to it.

This idea that Fianna Fail have been all bad 100% of the time is just not credible, and as such, people who perpetuate it lose their credibility too.

steelcityblues

later10 wrote: »

I presume you're talking about Christy O'Sullivan, which was many years after the smoking ban and hardly relevant anyway?

Risking killing someone is always relevant, and don't forget McDaid and GV either!

yoshytoshy

Fianna fail paid millions to wasters to prevent them from robbing people on the street and breaking into peoples homes.

yahoo_moe

chughes wrote: »

sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health.


No, wait...... that was the Romans.

I was shocked I had to wait till page 2 for that!

Thought I was going to have to do it myself

Holybejaysus

The Criminal Assets Bureau. We were the first in the world to implement such an organisation, if I'm not mistaken.

theparish

Limerick regeneration,money ring fenced and all that.

freyners

ninty9er wrote:

Harbour developments

http://www.dredgingtoday.com/2010/02/23/ireland-eur-300m-greystones-harbour-project-on-halt/
like this half finished one?
and while we are on the subject of harbours and such, this is the same government who took ages to fund 4m to secure the galway volvo ocean race stopover for 2012 because the weren't sure it was a viable proposition, even though the stopover generated 55.8m turnover on an investment of 8m

actually, wait now i see how the made the economy go down the tubes

chughes

Holybejaysus wrote: »

The Criminal Assets Bureau. We were the first in the world to implement such an organisation, if I'm not mistaken.

CAB was introduced by the last Fine Gael/Labour coalition government.

We have Nora Owen and Ruairi Quinn to thank for CAB.

freyners

Holybejaysus wrote: »

The Criminal Assets Bureau. We were the first in the world to implement such an organisation, if I'm not mistaken.

:rolleyes:
criminal assest bureau founded in 1996, during a fine gael led coalition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Assets_Bureau




edit: sorry chughes didnt see your post tilll i posted :/edit:

Holybejaysus

chughes wrote: »

CAB was introduced by the last Fine Gael/Labour coalition government.

We have Nora Owen and Ruairi Quinn to thank for CAB.

Aha, Thanks for that. Back to the drawing board for me then..... :eek:

kaiser sauze

ninty9er wrote: »

School Buildings Programme
Road network (M3, M4, M6, M7, M8, M9, Port Tunnel, Limerick Tunnel)
Education infrastructure
Sports facilities (Aviva, Croke Park, National Aquatic Centre, Equestrian Centre etc... as well as the hundreds of local facilities)
Local parks
Regeneration
Terminal 2 (has its critics and was finished at the wrong time, but it will be there for generations to come), Shannon New Terminal (wasted at the moment too)
Luas (despite not linking, it's still positive)
Harbour developments
More Gardaí
Multiple town bypasses
Trains

Nope, not more Gardaí, less according to 4 year plan.

Dots1982

Deregulation of the taxi industry was long overdue. Presume this was FF.

wyndhurst

The most imprtant of all - Low income tax regime......allowing people to decide for themselves how they spent their income (Boston V Berlin)

2010
13% of earners at higher tax rate
42% of earners at standard rate
45% of earners exempt from income tax!

2004
23% of earners at higher tax rate
43% of earners at standard rate
34% of earners exempt from income tax!

Of course the fact that many (possibly majority) of people decided to piss away their extra income is the source of much of the current difficulties.

kaiser sauze

wyndhurst wrote: »

The most imprtant of all - Low income tax regime......allowing people to decide for themselves how they spent their income (Boston V Berlin)

2010
13% of earners at higher tax rate
42% of earners at standard rate
45% of earners exempt from income tax!

2004
23% of earners at higher tax rate
43% of earners at standard rate
34% of earners exempt from income tax!

Of course the fact that many (possibly majority) of people decided to piss away their extra income is the source of much of the current difficulties.

*facepalm*

You do realise that the narrowing tax base is part of the reason for this debaclé?

This is not a good thing, in case you are confused, which from this post I think you are.

kaiser sauze

Dots1982 wrote: »

Deregulation of the taxi industry was long overdue. Presume this was FF.

The taxi-driving cartel would disagree with you!

wyndhurst

kaiser sauze wrote: »

*facepalm*

You do realise that the narrowing tax base is part of the reason for this debaclé?

This is not a good thing, in case you are confused, which from this post I think you are.

You are kidding right?
The narrowing of the taxbase does not account for even a small fraction of the "current debacle".
As I already stated - allowing people to decide for themselves how they spend their earnings is a good thing (as opposed to incompetent gov / public service deciding for them)

kaiser sauze

wyndhurst wrote: »

You are kidding right?
The narrowing of the taxbase does not account for even a small fraction of the "current debacle".
As I already stated - allowing people to decide for themselves how they spend their earnings is a good thing (as opposed to incompetent gov / public service deciding for them)

No, I am not kidding. Take your eyeballs away from the Laffer curve and deal with facts.

Almost 50% of workers do not pay tax, that is unsustainable.

You are aware of the little matter of the €19-21Bn deficit? Having more people paying tax will help address this gap.

Dots1982

kaiser sauze wrote: »

The taxi-driving cartel would disagree with you!

God yeah, wouldn't want to put them out.

I don't want to get into a huge debate about the blame game currently being played but I personally don't think anything would be different if fine Gael had had 14 years unbroken power. People may disagree but what I take out of all this, being philosophical, is that greed is an overpowering infectious emotion and it looks like it will get you in the end.

wyndhurst

kaiser sauze wrote: »

No, I am not kidding. Take your eyeballs away from the Laffer curve and deal with facts.

Almost 50% of workers do not pay tax, that is unsustainable.

You are aware of the little matter of the €19-21Bn deficit? Having more people paying tax will help address this gap.

The OP is about GOOD things they did do.
There is no arguement from me that they now need to row back on this due to the "current debacle".

kaiser sauze

wyndhurst wrote: »

The OP is about GOOD things they did do.
There is no arguement from me that they now need to row back on this due to the "current debacle".

You don't get it!

It was never a good thing to take so many people out of the tax net.

wyndhurst

kaiser sauze wrote: »

You don't get it!

It was never a good thing to take so many people out of the tax net.

That's just your opinion - does not make it right.
I happen to disagree with you (does not make me right either)

Your solution of keeping low paid workers in the tax net over the previous years means that either
1. those on higher incomes would have paid lower taxes or
2. the gov would have had a higher over all tax take and just wasted even more of our money!

kaiser sauze

wyndhurst wrote: »

That's just your opinion - does not make it right.
I happen to disagree with you (does not make me right either)

Your solution of keeping low paid workers in the tax net over the previous years means that either
1. those on higher incomes would have paid lower taxes or
2. the gov would have had a higher over all tax take and just wasted even more of our money!

You are honestly going to try and argue that having 50% of workers paying zero tax is ever a good thing?

It is clear that logic is not one of the things you deal with so I bid you adieu.

Your two points are just teapartakers bait for someone to get riled up about, and I am not biting.

luckylucky

wyndhurst wrote: »

2. the gov would have had a higher over all tax take and just wasted even more of our money!

Well you are without doubt somewhat right about just more money having got wasted, however it seems to make sense to me that if they had taken more money out of the economy during the good times and kept aside - then a. It would have slowed down the crazy rise in house prices.
b. Have money left aside for a 'rainy day' - maybe even enough to get through this sh€t€.

Augmerson

later10 wrote: »

Does this answer your question?

Is there a graph for what we earned our money from during the same time period? Now that would be interesting.

kaiser sauze

Augmerson wrote: »

Is there a graph for what we earned our money from during the same time period? Now that would be interesting.

Erm, selling property 99.99%, selling fags and beer 0.01%!

Liam Byrne

Best thing they did - let people see them for what they really are.

jank

ninty9er wrote: »

School Buildings Programme
Road network (M3, M4, M6, M7, M8, M9, Port Tunnel, Limerick Tunnel)
Education infrastructure
Sports facilities (Aviva, Croke Park, National Aquatic Centre, Equestrian Centre etc... as well as the hundreds of local facilities)
Local parks
Regeneration
Terminal 2 (has its critics and was finished at the wrong time, but it will be there for generations to come), Shannon New Terminal (wasted at the moment too)
Luas (despite not linking, it's still positive)
Harbour developments
More Gardaí
Multiple town bypasses
Trains

A bit of a pathetic list of achivements for 13 years managing a boom. Each one of those "achivements" have had majour issue e.g. Luas
We blew it basicly!

donkey balls

jank wrote: »

A bit of a pathetic list of achivements for 13 years managing a boom. Each one of those "achivements" have had majour issue e.g. Luas
We blew it basicly!

Also the likes of the UK and most of our major european neighbours had motorways in place from the early 60s/70s linking major cities together without any tolls,I wonder does Dempsey have any shares in these toll operators:rolleyes:after all he signed off on them that if they dont break even we the tax payer will foot the bill,And if they do make a profit we get SFA jaysus you could not make this crap up.:mad:

could you imagine if the bertie bowl went ahead that could have been another achivement:rolleyes: more than likely in the arse end of now where with no public transport etc.:rolleyes:

BluntGuy

donkey balls wrote: »

Also the likes of the UK and most of our major european neighbours had motorways in place from the early 60s/70s linking major cities together without any tolls,I wonder does Dempsey have any shares in these toll operators:rolleyes:after all he signed off on them that if they dont break even we the tax payer will foot the bill,And if they do make a profit we get SFA jaysus you could not make this crap up.:mad:

could you imagine if the bertie bowl went ahead that could have been another achivement:rolleyes: more than likely in the arse end of now where with no public transport etc.:rolleyes:

The M3 to which I presume you refer is the worst example of a PPP project.

For a start the motorway shouldn't have been necessary, it was made necessary by the fact that poor development patterns were allowed to emerge - I think most people know the rough cut of the story at least. You had an increasing number of people in places like Navan commuting to Dublin, just complete and utter sprawl, no strategic planning, no regard given to public transport apart from the Navan Railway which was meant to open in '04. However, of course it was never going to open as it would undermine the motorway.

And by "undermine the motorway", I mean undermine the insane tolling agreement. An agreement in which essentially, the private sector takes no risk at all (we compensate if not enough cars use the road). So of course the Navan Rail Link was never going to open under Dempsey's watch, a pretence of progress on the rail front whilst keeping the toll operators happy on a project that shouldn't have been needed in the first place was (and is) his priority. In other words, pretending to support public transport and getting vehicles off the roads, whilst keeping traffic on the roads and supporting unsustainable commuting was his real agenda.

This is Noel Dempsey's legacy and the legacy of FF. A pretence of serving the people, with vested interests at the heart of everything they do. For every apparent good, there's 10 questionable things that make the good seem not-so-good.

jmayo

To add to Bluntguy's opinions.

ninty9er wrote: »

School Buildings Programme

Does that include portacabins ?
Actually one company that did well out of that was owned at one stage by clsoe friend of biffo.

ninty9er wrote: »

Road network (M3, M4, M6, M7, M8, M9, Port Tunnel, Limerick Tunnel)

Port Tunnel not future proofed for large trucks.
Yes thery are illegal, but at least somehting like that should have the CAPABILITY of using them from the start.
BTW how much over budget and behind time was it ?

Motorways built where not one service station between Lucan and Galway or between Kilmacanogue Co. Wicklow and the border north of Dundalk. :rolleyes:
Oh and what about the cheese grating wire that was put down on M50 instead of armco barrier, only to be ripped up again less than a couple of years later when the M50 was redesigned. :rolleyes:

ninty9er wrote: »

Sports facilities (Aviva, Croke Park, National Aquatic Centre, Equestrian Centre etc... as well as the hundreds of local facilities)

How many millions were wasted on bertie bowl again ?
Oh national aquatic centre flooded and had section of roof blow off and was run by compnay that had absolutely no experience of such an operation.
Were not some of the local facilities build by Lottery money, but also in the constituency of ff ministers.
Don't forget all the facilities built by john o'donoghue in Kerry South. :rolleyes:

ninty9er wrote: »

Local parks

What about all the developments that were allowed that did not have proper play areas for children, etc ?
Might not the government have brought in legislation that learnt the lessons from the likes of Tallaght ?

ninty9er wrote: »

Regeneration

Ah yes Section 23 and Section 50 tax rights off I presume you mean ?
Or perhaps you mean the Dublin inner city redevelopments that the very big ff developer mcnamara was going to do until he reckoned he would not make enough money out of it ?


Or perhaps you mean the fine work done by the DDDA quangoe where they helped redevelope the Dublin Docklands, but ended paying way too much for a contaminated glass bottle plant site, using public money while in cahoots with two Anglo Bank directors and the aforementioned ex ff councillor developer mcnamara ?

ninty9er wrote: »

Terminal 2 (has its critics and was finished at the wrong time, but it will be there for generations to come), Shannon New Terminal (wasted at the moment too)

How much did Terminal 2 costs again and how much over budget ?
Must ask our largest airline who doesn't use it and offered to help build one without public money. :rolleyes:

Speaking of Shannon wasn't it the partially state owned airline that pulled the very necessary direct flights to one of the biggest hubs in Europe ?

ninty9er wrote: »

Luas (despite not linking, it's still positive)

Just very expensive as well and way behind schedule.:rolleyes:

ninty9er wrote: »

Harbour developments

Are we talking about the likes of Greystoens where some developers decided they would redevelop harbour areas and plonk thousands of apartments into them ?

ninty9er wrote: »

More Gardaí

Huge increase in population so had to up Garda numbers.
Speaking of Law and Order ...
We had huge increae in organised crime.
Murder and intimation of witnesses wholesale especially in your own city.
Gang warfare.

Huge increase in very high value white collar crime often involving your own ff party.

For example :
stoke fahy Galway.
ray burke Dublin.
gerard killaly Offaly
Note these are just proven ones in court, not just the dodgy ones that can't be proved or have been in tribunals for the last 15 years.

ninty9er wrote: »

Trains

What, the ones that charge more than an airline to get from Dublin to Cork or Dublin to Galway ?

So for all your great achievements, they often did not match current requirements never mind future ones, they usually came in way over budget and behind schedule.
Thus in eseence most of these projects were failures.

Would you be braying what a great computer I built for you, if you intially ordered it in 2005, it took me 2.5 years to built it for you instead of the promised 3 months, it cost 5 times what I initially quoted and it will not play DVDs or allow Windows Vista be installed.
No you would not as it would have been a rip off.
Oh yes you had a computer but at what cost.

Note: Vista was relased worldwide in Jna 2007 so any machine built around that time should have been Vista capable.

Great idea for a thread as it draws all the ones still dyed in the wool ff out of hiding to bray about their achievements.

scr123

What an utter miserable load of sanctimonious waffling begrudgers the ABFF are !!
The useless wasters in the ABFF tave completely taken over the internet and spend their useless lives spreading misery around not only the country but the world. They are painting a picture of soup kitchens in every city and town and their lack of political and economic probity is becoming a legend. They analysis to the death the past but do not have a brain in their heads to even think of the future and ideas as we go forward. In simple terms they are a collection of misfits who have never taken a risk, never created a job, rob their employers time and money waffling on message boards, never worked and do not want to, in safe secure jobs and most of all, natural born begrudgers.
These people are warped in their minds by their party political brainwashing and are nothing but a burden to this country. They are so far twisted in their mindset the following dramatic things that have happened in this country have passed them by:

Workforce increased by ONE MILLION
The country achieved for first time ever FULL EMPLOYMENT
The country stopped for first time EMIGRATION
The country experienced for first time IMMIGRATION
The country experienced 7% + GROWTH RATE
The country achieved massive TAX REDUCTIONS
The country reduced to manageable levels its NATIONAL DEBT
The country achieved massive improvements in its INFRASTRUCTURE
The country increased massively PUBLIC SERVICES
The country increased massively funding to HEATH,EDUCATION AND WELFARE
These are only a few of the incredible mind boggling achievements of this country in last 14 years. I could spend a whole day making a full list of what we as a country have achieved
Despite the sudden shock downturn and the austerity we face over next few years we will retain at least 75% of our achievements.

As I said the ABFF spend their miserable lives flogging the dead horse of useless negativity. The ABFF are on the way to government and so far there is NOTHING to inspire and nothing to look forward to other than 5 years of the same anti FF crapology which they have mastered at the expense of rational and positive thinking.
I say to those who have ruined message boards and other sites on the internet as sources of intelligent discussion, switch your computers off and open the front doors of your houses and take a few hours looking at the real world before you are too old to put one foot in front of the other

UP THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND AND UP THE PEOPLE WHO WILL USE THE POSITIVES IN OUR COUNTRY TO GO FORWARD AND YOU KNOW WHAT TO THE BEGRUDGERS !!

murphaph

Dots1982 wrote: »

Deregulation of the taxi industry was long overdue. Presume this was FF.

It was actually the PDs that pushed this through against the will of many FFers including a certain Ivor Callely (bet he's glad he's dropped off the radar with all this bailout business) who was making a cosy (extra) living from the taxi business.

The PDs also wanted to deregulate alcohol licencing to introduce european style cafe bars with patio seating etc. and this was staunchly opposed by FF (well, it wasn't in the publican's party interest) backbenchers who saw that idea binned.

FF does what FF has always done....looked after FF members and friends (contributors) first an foremost. It's a club really, and the sad thing is a lot of people are stupid enough to vote for this club to run our country.

donkey balls

Excellent points there Jmayo also to add to some of them,The cost of the consultants work for the bertie bowl without a sod been turned cost more than what the Cardiff staduim was built for:rolleyes:.
And before some FF head comes back and attacks your post about motorway services they have just opened recently on the M1 and M4 the problem though you have to use the toll roads to access them.:eek: