An honest question for the right-wing

southsiderosie

anymore wrote: »

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Well I presume to be the most right wing, the starting point is to be right wing !

No, it would be relative. In the US, 'Blue Dog Democrats' are the most right wing members of a left-wing party, but they are not the most right win in Congress. Within Ireland, they are the furthest to the right on the political spectrum.

Look at Europe as a whole. Of the political left, the British Labour party is probably one of the most 'right wing' within that specific bloc. But that doesn't mean they are right-wing in the way that the Tories are.

K-9

anymore wrote: »

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Well I presume to be the most right wing, the starting point is to be right wing !

The OP asked which party or politician would suit a right wing opinion, seeing as there aren't any really, FG are the next available option.

ILikeBananas

+1 for voting for Murpaph's socially liberal, fiscally conservative party.

Godge

murphaph wrote: »

Personally I would define myself as fiscally conservative and socially liberal but with a firm view that law and order is important to society to enable people feel safe.

I believe government should balance its books like anyone else and not borrow inordinately to fund today's expenditure.

I simply believe it is unfair to burden the next generation with debt (save for infrastructure which will serve them).

I believe in a social safety net that catches people when they fall out of employment, but not one that then proceeds to carry them indefinitely.

I believe in a system of universal health care that is almost free at the point of delivery (almost free means a nominal charge like €5 to see your GP and perhaps a €5 charge on prescriptions, so as to prevent people wasting the doctor's time to get a few painkillers). The exact method is less important to me, so long as it doesn't encourage waste.

I believe that government has an important role to play in regulating financial institutions and should be able to institute legislation to prevent an overheating in the lending market.

I do not feel that any party fits even 50% of my outlook. As for individual TDs? Well, I think the likes of Peter Matthews would be closest.

I would broadly agree with most of this. Obviously, it is broad principles and there would be some devil in the detail.

FG under Garret Fitzgerald would have been closest to this vision but nobody before or since has come any way close to this view. Certainly not FF, nor the madmen of SF and ULA. A fiscally conservative Labour person (Ruairi Quinn?) might be close too.

irishh_bob

Godge wrote: »

I would broadly agree with most of this. Obviously, it is broad principles and there would be some devil in the detail.

FG under Garret Fitzgerald would have been closest to this vision but nobody before or since has come any way close to this view. Certainly not FF, nor the madmen of SF and ULA. A fiscally conservative Labour person (Ruairi Quinn?) might be close too.

FG under garrett were a social democratic party , if garrett were alive and still in politics , his natural home today would be labour , garrett was socially liberal but was of the left economically

anymore

irishh_bob wrote: »

FG under garrett were a social democratic party , if garrett were alive and still in politics , his natural home today would be labour , garrett was socially liberal but was of the left economically

Fitzgerald it should be said was one of the original politicians to take a ' Bail Out' from the banks after his foray into the world of business ended so disastrously. His income was more than enough to continue to pay back the big bank loans he had taken out in order to make a big killing on the shares he had bought in GPA. But no 'Saint Garret' took the easy way out and so it was the bank's shareholders who ultimately paid for his disastrous investments. Sound familiar at all ????

Duke Leonal Felmet

None, really. I wish there was a libertarian party, and I don't mean a loony, Christianity dominated Tea Party type, either.

JustinDee

Why must everyone keep banging on about right and left wing polemics? I'd wager most Irish are neither but a mixed-bag of both. A gestalt-political mindset if you will.
In my own view, Irish people tend to vote for what suits themselves and what suits them now. The Irish electorate voting in a general election on national issues is far rarer than voting on more local issues.
Whether its a pamphletic cause-du-jour championed by the so-called 'left-wing' party or a more conservative issue outside of that, one would be hard-pressed to actually find anyone who doesn't vote on issues from both the left and right of the political spectrum.

Permabear

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anymore

Permabear wrote: »

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In fairness to the public, it is politicians themsleves who actively go out and cultivate this attitude and expectation. Michael Mcgrath for example has repeatedly sent out advertising leaflets encouraging them to contact him in order to get help to get their entitlemesnts in regard to some issues. I am sure there must be others as well.

Permabear

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anymore

Permabear wrote: »

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Whislt I agree with much of what you see, I reject the claim that 'constituents expect clientism'. As I said politicians actively go out and try to create this clientielist state. I have emailed Tds, councilors on a good many occassions but never, ever regarding a personal issue concerning myself or my family. I suspect the majority of irish people have never made contact with thier TDs or councillors. In fact i would suspect there is a small hardcore of people who do regularly contact TDs etc and many of these are loosely connected with politicis, .
There is of course nimbyism at work and one of the greatest examples I can personally think of is whem M Mcgrath and Michael martin were objectors to the building of a co located hospital in the gropunds of Cork University Hospital althouh co location was part of the FF mainifesto they had supported in the previous general election. Of course the hospital has never been built.

JustinDee

anymore wrote: »

I suspect the majority of irish people have never made contact with thier TDs or councillors. In fact i would suspect there is a small hardcore of people who do regularly contact TDs etc and many of these are loosely connected with politicis

I'd say you'd be in for disappointment if you ever went to look into this.

Its traditional. People vote for themselves in this country, not for the country.

anymore

JustinDee wrote: »

I'd say you'd be in for disappointment if you ever went to look into this.

Its traditional. People vote for themselves in this country, not for the country.

Tell me how I WOULD GO ABOUT FINDING THIS OUT SO

JustinDee

anymore wrote: »

Tell me how I WOULD GO ABOUT FINDING THIS OUT SO

Plenty of psephological data and studies for your perusal online.

Permabear

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anymore

Permabear wrote: »

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You prove my point that there are people who are ' multiple visitors' to clinics. And take out the numbers of people who have some party affiliation and I would say that most irish people dont make contact with thier politicians.

anymore

JustinDee wrote: »

Plenty of psephological data and studies for your perusal online.

i have a lfetime of oexperience and observations upon which to rely.

Permabear

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JustinDee

anymore wrote: »

i have a lfetime of oexperience and observations upon which to rely.

Guess what? So do I. So does almost every other poster who might happen to disagree with you, in fact.

anymore

Permabear wrote: »

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I and I am sure a lot of other people would be quite happy to vote for a politican who says we cant afford many of these things. I will guarantee my vote to any local politician who has the guts to say that the € 100,000 a year tax free allowance for artists and writers is corrupt undemocrtic nonsesne, and that at least half of the moeny spent on the arts is completely wasted - e,g, Cork City council spending € 20,000 to rent a work of art, for three months, that consists of a cow in a tree !
Others may have similiar views. It benefts me nothing if someone is wheedling a TD to support their dubious claims for even more of the taxpayers money

Duke Leonal Felmet

anymore wrote: »

JustinDee wrote: »

Plenty of psephological data and studies for your perusal online.

i have a lfetime of oexperience and observations upon which to rely.

Which of course trumps all datasets and studies. No matter how vast and indepth.

/sarcasm

anymore

Duke Leonal Felmet wrote: »

Which of course trumps all datasets and studies. No matter how vast and indepth.

/sarcasm

Feel free to make some point relevant to the thread subject matter - you can pm the sarcasm !

Duke Leonal Felmet

anymore wrote: »

Duke Leonal Felmet wrote: »

Which of course trumps all datasets and studies. No matter how vast and indepth.

/sarcasm

Feel free to make some point relevant to the thread subject matter - you can pm the sarcasm !

Well it was a fairly absurd thing to say, as if your personal experience is a window on the entire nation, trumping any study, which would involve dozens of people and tens of thousands of observations, empirically measured. I felt the sarcasm was warranted.

southsiderosie

Just to add to the point on data...you have to look at it in perspective. According to the European social survey, Irish people have more direct contact with their elected officials - by a significant margin - than the vast majority of citizens in Europe. Secondly, even if people don't go to representatives directly, they expect elected officials to come to them - Liam Weeks and Aodh Quinlivan have done extensive research on this at the local level, and since local politics is simply a waiting room for the Dail, taken together, Irish people have - and expect - extraordinary levels of access to their public officials. Not to mention the fact that it is a small enough country where you are likely to see your TD in a shop or at mass, etc. As an outsider it was very surprising to see that dynamic.

anymore

southsiderosie wrote: »

Just to add to the point on data...you have to look at it in perspective. According to the European social survey, Irish people have more direct contact with their elected officials - by a significant margin - than the vast majority of citizens in Europe. Secondly, even if people don't go to representatives directly, they expect elected officials to come to them - Liam Weeks and Aodh Quinlivan have done extensive research on this at the local level, and since local politics is simply a waiting room for the Dail, taken together, Irish people have - and expect - extraordinary levels of access to their public officials. Not to mention the fact that it is a small enough country where you are likely to see your TD in a shop or at mass, etc. As an outsider it was very surprising to see that dynamic.

Well certainly I have seen two of my Tds in a social/family context on occassion and one was a Minister at the time. But i wouldnt dream of imposing with my political thoughts or requests on those occassions. Indeed thinking about it, I also knew a third Td and also a Minister in a personal capacity from my home town, and my extended family would him on a personal first name basis.

southsiderosie

anymore wrote: »

Well certainly I have seen two of my Tds in a social/family context on occassion and one was a Minister at the time. But i wouldnt dream of imposing with my political thoughts or requests on those occassions. Indeed thinking about it, I also knew a third Td and also a Minister in a personal capacity from my home town, and my extended family would him on a personal first name basis.

Yes, but that is what you would do - thousands of your fellow citizens do things differently, and it is not hard to see why. Logically, what do you think is more likely to happen: someone with a problem will approach their representative who they are on a first-name basis with and see about town, or that same person will make a request from a namely, faceless bureaucracy to solve their problem. The proximity, both physical and social, of Irish elected officials to their constituents encourages personalized requests and clientelistic behavior in a way that would be far more difficult in larger countries or in places where elected officials aren't expected to show up at every other community event.

anymore

southsiderosie wrote: »

Yes, but that is what you would do - thousands of your fellow citizens do things differently, and it is not hard to see why. Logically, what do you think is more likely to happen: someone with a problem will approach their representative who they are on a first-name basis with and see about town, or that same person will make a request from a namely, faceless bureaucracy to solve their problem. The proximity, both physical and social, of Irish elected officials to their constituents encourages personalized requests and clientelistic behavior in a way that would be far more difficult in larger countries or in places where elected officials aren't expected to show up at every other community event.

Logically I expect people to at least in the first instance to approach institutions that politicians that legislated for and set up to serve the public. It is the function of politicians to set up efficient systems and I refuse to accept that we should allow them to undermine and manipulate the system and the public for thier own devious ends. I am not a beggar and I refuse to allow cute hoor politicians to treat me like one. Neither should you.

Godge

anymore wrote: »

Logically I expect people to at least in the first instance to approach institutions that politicians that legislated for and set up to serve the public. It is the function of politicians to set up efficient systems and I refuse to accept that we should allow them to undermine and manipulate the system and the public for thier own devious ends. I am not a beggar and I refuse to allow cute hoor politicians to treat me like one. Neither should you.

Fair play to you for your principles but that does not reflect the reality on the ground.

You would not believe that amount of wasted public service time taken up with replying to TDs and councillors asking about things like Mary's grant application when Mary has already been turned down at first instance and again on appeal. The usual outcome is that the TD has another refusal letter to show Mary that he asked on her behalf.

anymore

Godge wrote: »

Fair play to you for your principles but that does not reflect the reality on the ground.

You would not believe that amount of wasted public service time taken up with replying to TDs and councillors asking about things like Mary's grant application when Mary has already been turned down at first instance and again on appeal. The usual outcome is that the TD has another refusal letter to show Mary that he asked on her behalf.

Thank you.
Sometimes approaching PS institutions will work very well and occassionally not so good - particularily with some LAs.
However as you suggest approaching politicians frquently results in them just producing the letter you referred to and if that letter hasnt produced results, then they lose interest in following it up - last thing they want to do is upset the LAs - I have seen that myself on a few occassions whee the response from a LA wasnt satsifactory.
I did find one Fg Cork Cllr quite good though, to be fair, whereas one of her colleagues simply ignored the matter. However a willingness by the individual to persist following up with both the LA and politicans can be effective.
I suspect there is an unspoken rule that some people can be ignored if they only send one or two emails/letters, but if the individaul turns out to be a persistent nuisance, then it is ahrder to ignore them- particularily if they are willing to bring in local radio and newspapers into the equation.
Saying you are going to email Liveline in an attempt to get a reply can be very effective. Also indicating you are aware of your right to contact the Ombudsman's office also focusses attention.