Hugh Sheehy running in Dublin South East

hsh

Hi,

I want to let everyone know that I'm registered as a candidate in the General Election for Dublin South East.

Our website is at www.hughsheehy2011.com

I'm also up on twitter as hughsheehy, and have a new Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hugh-Sheehy/140586212671945

Thanks!

Hugh

johnnyskeleton

Best of luck. I'd vote for you if I could, but I can't.

Tipp Man

Best of luck Hugh - I had a quick glance through your policies and i agree with a huge amount of what you say

I am just curious though why you are running as an indo - surely FG are similar thinking to you??

As my name suggests I can't give you a vote (but if i could i would;))

vallo

Good luck Hugh and fair play to you for standing. But you need to get your election machine cranked up pretty quick!
I am looking at voting Ruairi Quinn and Paul Somerville at the moment. I like the look of your website and I think I could be persuaded to vote your way too.
How come you aren't on the boards election simulator?

Dionysus

Best of luck, Hugh. Great to see a fresh face around the place.

hsh

On the question "Why not FG", I guess it's a lot of things. If I was a practiced politician I could answer in bullet points, but in the end I just don't think FG can drive the change we need.

If I'm wrong I'll be happy, but I'm not prepared to bet on it. I waited for FG to fix the country in the 80s...spent 20 years outside on the basis of that bet.

Meantime, the election machine is a work in progress. We're working on it! The biggest part of the machine is people who give a ****, so if you give a **** then lend a hand.

On the boards.ie poll, I wasn't there because the boards people ran their poll before registrations closed....naughty.

Seriously though, I have some pretty clear ideas on what I think should happen, but always open to suggestions.

I hope i'll never be the kind of guy who can never admit that someone else's idea is right.

H

UpTheSlashers

Why did you leave it so late to register as a candidate?

mikemac

Remember, one poster costs €50.

Your printer is ripping you off.
It's late now but find someone else

hsh

Hi

The €50 was someone in our office misreading a price list, unfortunately. The price current is €6 and a bit, apparently, at the volumes we're buying. A silly error, but there you go. A mistake, but we didn't hurt anyone besides ourselves.

As for registration, we didn't register late. I was at the returning officer's office at the same time as Dylan Haskins, for instance

We're getting posters late (see above), but have been out on the street in Rathmines, Sandymount, Ringsend, Camden Street, very briefly in Ranelagh, and hitting churches and schools.

If the only determinant of success is posters, then we are late to the game. Still, we are going at it as hard as we can. If the electorate wants change then we're a choice.

We'll try, then it's up to voters.

www.hughsheehy2011.com

H

steelcityblues

If the Senate is to have only 15 representatives, what would be the point in holding onto it?

hsh

My belief is that Ireland lacks effective checks and balances. The Seanad should be one, but isn't.

So rather than abolish I would like to see a stronger 2nd house, but we don't need a pre and post TD kindergarten/care home. This has all been said before and I don't want to re-open a whole thread on this one topic.

IMHO we need small and strong, even if not able to ultimately resist the lower house - particularly on money bills and emergency items (another discussion). If you want to have such a seanad then I think it needs to have a couple of characteristics..

1. to be people who are less concerned with day-to-day politics
2. to be people who are essentially all known and respected (maybe fifteen is too many, but can you name more than 5-7 of the current bunch? most people can't. )
3. to be people with both moral authority and courage (so probably older, mostly, with nothing to lose by peeving govt)
4. to be entitled and able to significantly delay legislation and to propose changes the govt would have to consider (see above)
5. to have a duty to speak out...a tendency to be argumentative
6. could consist of ex-Taoisigh (with a limit on the number from any one party and yes, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of Charlie in such a seanad), presidential appointees (no politicians in this group), directly elected, etc.
7. I'd probably go for rotating memberships, long terms with the possibility of dismissal by the president only, for instance, to reduce any immediate govt influence

Look, the future of the Seanad is deeply intertwined with the future of the Dail. I'm sure boards.ie and politics.ie have been through it a bunch of times, as has any constitutional expert worth his salt. There are a number of possible solutions. My view is if we reform the Dail standing orders we get a long way to a better system, but that's not constitutional change so we'd need to follow up. Rather than fighting for decades over one huge integrated reform package, I think we'd be better off going stepwise.

An all powerful lower house worries me - at least for a country like Ireland where politics has a history of fairly radical moments. You can say "New Zealand doesn't have a Senate", but New Zealand doesn't have lots of things that we've had.

If we had a Seanad of 15 known and respected figures from various walks of life, we'd have a start. As others have described it, a kind of frequent council of state. Cheaper than what we have now, but worth the money. One bad govt decision stopped would pay for it for years.

H

doopa

How are your policies on copyright reform?

RE: http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/01/hope_1.html
And
http://hughsheehy2011.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/hope-12.jpg

Don't see any reference to the original copyright holder on your site - or does photoshopping it to make it grainer count as fair use? Are you in favour of the Pirate Party?

hsh

Didn't know about that.

Will fix immediately.

As far as I know all the other images are free, or ours in the first place.

doopa

The site was down for a bit last night too - I'd check with your providers?

Or use google sites

hsh

Looks as if that was the only one. Other images (well, all images) were supposed to be public domain or ours. We've replaced a couple of images where the guys couldn't swear they were public domain. AFAIK they all are now.

hsh

doopa wrote: »

The site was down for a bit last night too - I'd check with your providers?

Or use google sites

Wordpress is prettier than sites, fraid to say.

The site was down due to database server problems at the host. It's one of the best hosts in the country and they were on it fast. The conversation is visible on my twitter feed....