People Before Profit Candidate John Flanagan.

Lou.m

I am genuinely impressed by him.

He is a Mental Health Nurse and has worked with the Simon community.

I feel since to be honest we have not much choice between FF and FG i may as well pick a candidate that impresses me on a personal level.

Also his issues are more specific and he has mentioned the fact that discretionary medical cards are being refused to people who are very ill. He has made the health service and access to it his priority. I like the fact he has focused on this.

I am not campaigning for him or anything and I have not totally made up my mind.

There is little exposure for anything but FF and FG and co .

Bríd Smith is another candidate.

What do people think of people before profit?

Lou.m

I want to hear bad and good obviously.

porsche959

If you want an honest answer, I would be a bit concerned about the Trotskyite influence in People before Profit, which would tend to turn me off voting for them. I am not saying you shouldn't vote for them, just expressing my opinion.

comongethappy

I think the left could be taken more seriously if there wasn't 20 groups of them & they joined together.

Their message is the same, but it is diluted through factionism.

Not my cup of tea as they are against taxation yet are for ballooning public spending.
(Unless Boyd-Barrett really does know the location of the magic money tree & he's telling no one.)

schemingbohemia

They're a left-wing party that's opposed to a property tax, almost uniquely in Europe (but sadly not in Ireland) they seem to prefer tax on earned income rather than unearned income. I can't take them or the Socialist Party (or whatever they've renamed themselves this week) seriously because of that.

It seems to me that PBP and other parties are looking for the word discretionary to be removed from the discretionary medical card so that everyone seems to get one, but have not indicated how this would be paid for.

I don't know John Flanagan but did talk to Karl Gill(their candidate in Dun Laoghaire) for a little while and he seemed sound enough, but he'll only get a preference after Labour and Greens from me.

Godge

This is their manifesto

http://www.peoplebeforeprofit.ie/files/local%20manifesto%202014_0.pdf


"The long term government plan for local authority funding is based on a neoliberal model whereby the customer – not the citizen = seeks reduction in their property taxes by cutting or privatising public services. This framework, Fine Gael hopes, will lay the basis for the electoral mobilisation of the upper middle sectors of the population from fear that rising taxes will cut into their property values. It is a recipe for a nasty Thatcherite style society."


Can someone explain to me what this conspiracy-theory-like gobbledygook actually means?

Looking at the rest of it I see:

"2. A new funding model based on allocation from a central fund."

Where is the money for the funding mode to come from? More income taxes? More cuts in medical cards? More cuts to public servants? Social welfare cuts? Where exactly?

"7. Tackle the housing crisis – build more social houses: introduce rent controls.
8. Reverse the privatisation of local services"

Meaningless sound-bites. Where is the money for these to come from?

Their manifesto is full of holes. Unless someone can explain how this will all work all I can see is councillors refusing to vote for a realistic budget and having their powers taken over by the Minister.

comongethappy

It was heavy on the sound bites alright!

Lou.m

I agree whole heartedly with the poster who said the left should unite.

I wonder at their tactical intelligence. FF and FG gain greatly and have gained greatly for years because of the splintered nature of the left.

I no longer consider FF and FG to be centrist parties. There is no political theory or agenda and there has been no real progression in reforming the institutions that got us into this mess.

I am reluctant to support labor as they are a part of this govt.

I have never been at this much of a loss in an election of which candidates to support.

endacl

He's not FF, and didn't break the country, so he's in with a chance of a vote from me.

He's not SF, and doesn't carry that suspicious aroma of fertiliser (works on two levels...), so he's in with a chance of a vote from me.

Basically, he seems like a nice chap. We actually went to the same school. I was finished long before he started though... He doesn't wear a suit, and he's got a sense of social justice that he's backed up in the way he's lived his life. I approve of him. He'll get a nod from me.

Honestly, I don't know what way I'll be voting. I know I will, but for the first time ever since I first voted, I only know for sure who I won't be voting for.

RayM

In fairness, the right is equally splintered. Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are ideologically no further away from each other than the Socialist Party and People Before Profit. And let's not pretend that, if they had been in government between 1997 and 2011, Fine Gael wouldn't have done just as much damage to the economy as Fianna Fail. The left-wing parties might be economically illiterate, but I feel uncomfortable about mocking them when the country was bankrupted by the centre-right.

I'm probably going to vote for People Before Profit in the local elections, not because I agree with all of their policies, but because they're more likely to be a thorn in the side of the bigger parties.