Transparency, transparency, transparency...

xoxyx

I am fully fed up with the lack of transparency that we are accepting in the ruling of our country.

I was listening to an interview recently with Joan Burton (a politician who I, generally, admire), but every question that was put to her was met with a response of doublespeak, avoiding the question, and turning the topic into her agenda, avoiding the actual point.

I thought nothing of it at the time because, isn't this how interviews with politicians always go!?!

It was only later on that I started thinking about this. About the fact that the simplest questions asked of our elected representatives seem to always end up being answered vaguely, or not at all.

I'm getting so fed up of this. It seems impossible to get a straight answer to a straight question from the people who are making the important decisions about our country. I cannot help but remember the days when we were being told that we weren't going to get a bailout - when it was blatantly obvious to all and sundry that we were. More revelations, recently, have shown that promises made by high standing politicians don't, necessarily, mean jack.

It seems like a matter of course that we are being lied to. Our questions are going unanswered, and we are being led by the nose from one disaster to another, without being told what is really going on.

I'd rather take the pain that a lot of us are going through (the pain being lost jobs, reduced wages; people struggling to pay their bills) if I could be told, straight out, what is going on in the running of our country. But, the people who are deciding on what pain is going to be inflicted on us are still living the life where they can "boo" speakers in their meetings (like little kids) (Healy Ray reference), and then put on a serious face and refuse to answer relevant questions as to what is going to happen to our economy when asked.

We need transparency in our government. We need to know what is being debated and decided on. We are all fallible - I don't expect a host of angels in the Dail - but, some of our representatives are a little too fallible.

What bad decision is going to come next that will f*** us over some more???

Sorry for rant, but I am boiling over right now. I am finding it very hard to take the people that we voted for seriously right now. I think we have some very poor practices in place - particularly, as I mentioned, the "don't ask, don't tell" messing that makes it impossible to get a straight answer about upcoming policy and practice.

Manach

It might be case of living in the internet age. Even the smallest slips can be repeated ad nuseum.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZtVm8wtyFI - which is an example of how common this is in the UK, with Ed Milliband repeating the same type of phrases through-out the interview.
So politicians craft simple messages to keep on script and then let the perpetual civil service draft the polices.

anymore

Politicans spend money, probably taxpayers funds, being coached in how to be evasive and they hire consultantd aka ' advisors' again at tax [ayers expense to ensure they ' stay on side'.
It might be simpler if we elected the advisers rather than the politicians.

Liam Byrne

Earlier on tonight Richard Crowley asked Alan Shatter if he thought he would ever see a bishop or monsignor jailed in this country.

Shatter waffled off the point for a good 3 minutes and Crowley didn't repeat the question despite the non-answer.

A good interviewer would pull them up on it, like Anton Savage did when Healy-Rae tried to avoid the "is it wrong" question re the telephone calls defrauding.

So while the interviewer might not get an answer, they can expose the weasellers and hopefully the electorate will spot the evasion and recognise that the interviewee is sub-standard!

xoxyx

But it shouldn't be this way.

Not to be an idealist, but the fact that my post is raging against the fact that we are being governed from behind a veil, and the next two posts are acknowledging it, while accepting it as common practice, surely shows that things are not as they should be.

xoxyx

Liam Byrne wrote: »

So while the interviewer might not get an answer, they can expose the weasellers and hopefully the electorate will spot the evasion and recognise that the interviewee is sub-standard!

Will they though? I'm starting to wonder.

Liam Byrne

xoxyx wrote: »

Will they though? I'm starting to wonder.

Believe me, I wonder too! That's what SHOULD happen, and what DOES happen in my house.

Considering that Bertie Ahern declared on TV that he gave people jobs "because they were my friends" and didn't get done for nepotism (or the subsquent criminal negligence of appointing an unqualified incompetent) I don't think anyone - whether the electorate or those who should prosecute such offences - is willing or able to act on what politicians say.

He also claimed that no-one warned him but 2 mins later apologised for his infamous suicide comments about those who warned him (strangely non-existent people?) yet some people still defend and admire him.

So how it SHOULD work and how the electorate ACTUALLY react are things that unfortunately don't intersect.