The Independents in governement - why not?

nice_guy80

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/independents-alliance-keeping-options-open-ahead-of-election-1.2157399

It'd be nice to have a group of TDs who are able to think for themselves without the restraint of the party whip system.

They might actually think beyond 'party lines' on many issues and come up with some alternative ideas, which are badly needed at the moment in terms of
rural issues - farming and housing
job creation outside of Dublin
education investment

Anything that represents an alternative to the main parties is to be welcomed.

However, prepare for a lot of sneering from the core media and established political parties.

Fr Tod Umptious

Well the problem is in your opening line, "they think for themselves".

By virtue of being independent they only have their own voters needs to look out for.

So if solving thar rural issue comes at the expense of an urban issue they you have an empass.

Nothing would get done.

I'm voting for my local FG TD next year, not because I think he is a great politician, but because I want to see FG back in power as they are doing a good job.

First Up

nice_guy80 wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/independents-alliance-keeping-options-open-ahead-of-election-1.2157399

It'd be nice to have a group of TDs who are able to think for themselves without the restraint of the party whip system.

They might actually think beyond 'party lines' on many issues and come up with some alternative ideas, which are badly needed at the moment in terms of
rural issues - farming and housing
job creation outside of Dublin
education investment

Anything that represents an alternative to the main parties is to be welcomed.

However, prepare for a lot of sneering from the core media and established political parties.

And with bloody good reason.

Phoebas

To be in Government, wouldn't they have to agree some programme for Government?
If they agree a programme for Government, wouldn't they need some way of enforcing that agreement - something like a whip?

johnnyskeleton

I too would like to see more independents in the dail, and having good quality independents support a government would be a good thing.

But, if there are 20 independent tds, and a large party needs 5 for a majority, i cant see the independents sticking together and im sure 5 could be persuaded to break ranks.

So the next logical step is for them to form a voting block with a few core issues that they agree to support / not to support, and thereafter they have the freedom to vote as they like.

joe912

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Well the problem is in your opening line, "they think for themselves".

By virtue of being independent they only have their own voters needs to look out for.

So if solving thar rural issue comes at the expense of an urban issue they you have an empass.

Nothing would get done.

I'm voting for my local FG TD next year, not because I think he is a great politician, but because I want to see FG back in power as they are doing a good job.

So you intend voting for someone who will sit in government and yet never get to open their mouth are share their opinion. That's just 100k of taxpayers money down the drain.

Manach

Historically looking back at the English example prior to the crystallisation of the whip system, (c 1750s-1830s offhand historian David Thompson) there were more internal factions in parliament and less chances of government lasting a full term. On the other hand, there was more sensitivity to what the electorate of the day would/would not expect from executive/legislative elements and hence more carefully crafted decisions.
So on balance, the OP has a point on independents.

joe912

Phoebas wrote: »

To be in Government, wouldn't they have to agree some programme for Government?
If they agree a programme for Government, wouldn't they need some way of enforcing that agreement - something like a whip?

But the whip is only used to protect the parties interests or perceived interests. Independents would not have to worry about party interests.

nice_guy80

I also realised I spelled the thread title incorrectly!

My point about rural issues, is that most independents are from rural constituencies. The Independent TDs from urban constituencies are well able to air their own issues, as part of a group.
People living in and around Dublin are totally insulated from what is happening in rural Ireland at the moment.
Towns and villages are dying on their feet as all the young people have left for urban Ireland. There are no jobs.
Shops closing, reduced economic activity, banks closing down, people have to drive 25 mins to get to a bank, little house building, schools emptying, sports clubs struggling to field teams.


Could they be any worse than some of the recent parties who have been in government?

A Cabinet with one or two independent TDs in it would be very interesting.
I'd really like to see them tackle government appointees to state boards and other organisations

Phoebas

joe912 wrote: »

But the whip is only used to protect the parties interests or perceived interests. Independents would not have to worry about party interests.

That doesn't address the question at all.

In order to be in Government (as opposed to supporting individual government proposals on a case by case basis), you need to agree some form of programme for government. If you have an agreement then there needs to be some mechanism for enforcing that agreement.

Fr Tod Umptious

joe912 wrote: »

So you intend voting for someone who will sit in government and yet never get to open their mouth are share their opinion. That's just 100k of taxpayers money down the drain.

Two points.
1. The TD in question has certainly not set the Dail alight but its his first term.
Also there are many that will not vote for him thus time because "he has doing nothing for the area" since 2011. That's where I differ, I'll vote for him because I want national stability, not the crumbs from the top table.

2. He is not on 100k. He only took half his salary this term, and unlike others it did not just give the remainder to his party.

First Up

nice_guy80 wrote: »

I also realised I spelled the thread title incorrectly!

My point about rural issues, is that most independents are from rural constituencies. The Independent TDs from urban constituencies are well able to air their own issues, as part of a group.
People living in and around Dublin are totally insulated from what is happening in rural Ireland at the moment.
Towns and villages are dying on their feet as all the young people have left for urban Ireland. There are no jobs.
Shops closing, reduced economic activity, banks closing down, people have to drive 25 mins to get to a bank, little house building, schools emptying, sports clubs struggling to field teams.


Could they be any worse than some of the recent parties who have been in government?

A Cabinet with one or two independent TDs in it would be very interesting.
I'd really like to see them tackle government appointees to state boards and other organisations

Even more interesting if local communities contained some entrepreneurial types who would start some businesses to create wealth and employment. Or is it always "government's" job to do it?

joe912

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Two points.
1. The TD in question has certainly not set the Dail alight but its his first term.
Also there are many that will not vote for him thus time because "he has doing nothing for the area" since 2011. That's where I differ, I'll vote for him because I want national stability, not the crumbs from the top table.

2. He is not on 100k. He only took half his salary this term, and unlike others it did not just give the remainder to his party.

Presumably he took no expenses either then

joe912

First Up wrote: »

Even more interesting if local communities contained some entrepreneurial types who would start some businesses to create wealth and employment. Or is it always "government's" job to do it?

If people waited for the government to do it they'd have a long wait. The government should within reason create the situation whereby this is possible and encourage and facilitate it. But unfortunately this government concentrated on multinationals for the headline grabbers

Fr Tod Umptious

joe912 wrote: »

Presumably he took no expenses either then

Why do you presume that ?

I've no idea what expenses he got, you can check it up.

Continue to move the goalposts since you started.

First Up

joe912 wrote: »

If people waited for the government to do it they'd have a long wait. The government should within reason create the situation whereby this is possible and encourage and facilitate it. But unfortunately this government concentrated on multinationals for the headline grabbers

The "headline grabbers" including stuff like the capital inflow, the technology transfer, the exports and the jobs?

How is our success at attracting multinationals at the expense of local enterprise? If the "situation" makes it possible to entice some of the world's fastest growing companies to set up here, how come the same "situation" isn't available to local business?

joe912

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Why do you presume that ?

I've no idea what expenses he got, you can check it up.

Continue to move the goalposts since you started.

You were the one claiming he doesn't cost the taxpayer 100k to keep his mouth shut.
Just out of interest have you always voted finegael or is it just that this government has impressed you that much.

Fr Tod Umptious

joe912 wrote: »

You were the one claiming he doesn't cost the taxpayer 100k to keep his mouth shut.
Just out of interest have you always voted finegael or is it just that this government has impressed you that much.

Both

joe912

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Both

Front page headline lifetime supporter of finegael blindly supports party. including voting for a waster to help his party retain power.

dinny_byrne

nice_guy80 wrote: »

I also realised I spelled the thread title incorrectly!

My point about rural issues, is that most independents are from rural constituencies. The Independent TDs from urban constituencies are well able to air their own issues, as part of a group.
People living in and around Dublin are totally insulated from what is happening in rural Ireland at the moment.
Towns and villages are dying on their feet as all the young people have left for urban Ireland. There are no jobs.
Shops closing, reduced economic activity, banks closing down, people have to drive 25 mins to get to a bank, little house building, schools emptying, sports clubs struggling to field teams.


Could they be any worse than some of the recent parties who have been in government?

A Cabinet with one or two independent TDs in it would be very interesting.
I'd really like to see them tackle government appointees to state boards and other organisations

whats the big deal about having to travel twenty five minutes to a bank ? , i have to travel that far but luckily i dont need to go to a bank all that often , when i lived in new zealand i had to travel 100 km to get to a bank and a supermarket for that matter

ThisRegard

You only have to look back at the "independents" during the previous government to see that they're only out for themselves and local votes. Any government with them will be very short lived or compromised.

joe912

First Up wrote: »

The "headline grabbers" including stuff like the capital inflow, the technology transfer, the exports and the jobs?

How is our success at attracting multinationals at the expense of local enterprise? If the "situation" makes it possible to entice some of the world's fastest growing companies to set up here, how come the same "situation" isn't available to local business?

well if our locally elected representatives are to be believed, when they are claiming the credit for these announcements they have put a lot of time and effort in to getting these companies here, admittedly they have a lot less to say when they leave.

Fr Tod Umptious

joe912 wrote: »

Front page headline lifetime supporter of finegael blindly supports party. including voting for a waster to help his party retain power.

More or less.
But calling him a waster is a big strong.
If he had a ministerial position , junior or senior, I would be in a better position to judge him

But in the absences of that, voting for him helps get the party I want in power back in power.

quadrifoglio verde

joe912 wrote: »

So you intend voting for someone who will sit in government and yet never get to open their mouth are share their opinion. That's just 100k of taxpayers money down the drain.

You could apply that to every rd whether they're a memeber of party or not, that they'll cost the tax payer at least 100k.
Just because this individual gets elected, it doesn't add another 100k to salarys. It just gets given to this td instead of some would be td.

nice_guy80

dinny_byrne wrote: »

whats the big deal about having to travel twenty five minutes to a bank ? , i have to travel that far but luckily i dont need to go to a bank all that often , when i lived in new zealand i had to travel 100 km to get to a bank and a supermarket for that matter

Ireland is not NZ. Much bigger country, less populated, much more rural/urban divide

Lack of access to banks is a huge issue.
How can people start new businesses or get access to credit and deposit small business takings if they don't have a bank nearby?

Businesses are dying on their feet from lack of credit and investment funds.
The rates charged by local councils are also exorbitant and a huge deterrent to business start ups.
County councils are inefficient models of local government and need huge reform.

There is no real input from locally elected councillors as to where money is spent in council budgets. This has to change.

I'm struggling to see how electing independents over party members will keep bank branches open or create extra credit.

If anything a government dependent on independents for a majority would create less stability which would probably lead to less credit being available.

The problems you describe have existed since before the creation of this state, electing independents lobbying for their own constituency won't change that.

I too will probably vote to return the current government.

johnnyskeleton

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I'm struggling to see how electing independents over party members will keep bank branches open or create extra credit.

If anything a government dependent on independents for a majority would create less stability which would probably lead to less credit being available.

The problems you describe have existed since before the creation of this state, electing independents lobbying for their own constituency won't change that.

I too will probably vote to return the current government.

Not all independents are only concerned wih benefits for their local constituency.

The ones referred to by the OP are the other kind.

In fact, it seems like the main opposition to independents appears to be because the Jackie Healy Rea types have ruined it for the rest of then.

Im not sure theres any evidence to suggest that more independents makes for a less stable or less creditworthy govenrnment

dinny_byrne

nice_guy80 wrote: »

Ireland is not NZ. Much bigger country, less populated, much more rural/urban divide

Lack of access to banks is a huge issue.
How can people start new businesses or get access to credit and deposit small business takings if they don't have a bank nearby?

Businesses are dying on their feet from lack of credit and investment funds.
The rates charged by local councils are also exorbitant and a huge deterrent to business start ups.
County councils are inefficient models of local government and need huge reform.

There is no real input from locally elected councillors as to where money is spent in council budgets. This has to change.

the primary school closest to me ( which i attended in the eighties ) has eighteen pupils and two full time teachers , a quater of a million was spent on the school around ten years ago , this despite the fact that their is a school with over a hundred pupils only two miles away

their is huge waste when it comes to rural spend

the problem is largely cultural attitudes , too many irish people think all sorts of services should be available in sparsely populated parts of the country , we hear talk about roscommon hospital closing and people then having to either travel to athlone or sligo etc , so what !

if you live in rural parts of australia , you would be lucky not to have to travel for several hours to a hospital , an hour to a hospital is not far and twenty five minutes to a bank is a piece of p155

johnnyskeleton

joe912 wrote: »

Presumably he took no expenses either then

Is there anything wrong with taking legitimate expenses? If a paye workers boss tells them to go to Cork for a job, he hardly expects them to pay for their own transport and accommodaion do they?

Saipanne

Manach wrote: »

Historically looking back at the English example prior to the crystallisation of the whip system, (c 1750s-1830s offhand historian David Thompson) there were more internal factions in parliament and less chances of government lasting a full term. On the other hand, there was more sensitivity to what the electorate of the day would/would not expect from executive/legislative elements and hence more carefully crafted decisions.
So on balance, the OP has a point on independents.

That's very interesting.

First Up

joe912 wrote: »

well if our locally elected representatives are to be believed, when they are claiming the credit for these announcements they have put a lot of time and effort in to getting these companies here, admittedly they have a lot less to say when they leave.

Maybe they helped, maybe they didn't. That doesn't answer the question. If government (not just this one) policies have made Ireland a good place to do business, why blame government if local business can't or won't take more initiative? We have national and regional enterprise agencies, state training bodies and plenty other aids and instruments available to nurture prospective business.

If you have a point or a suggestion to make about how to better invigorate our towns and villages, lets hear it. But if you are just intent on aimless sniping for its own sake, I'm not really interested.

Brian Shanahan

nice_guy80 wrote: »

It'd be nice to have a group of TDs who are able to think for themselves without the restraint of the party whip system.

I detest it when people come out and decry the whip system, because it betrays their fundamental lack of understanding about the parliamentary system. Under the current system of government (and pretty much any system of government which relies on a representative body) the whip is pretty much necessary to ensure that a ruling party in parliament manages to get anything done.

The UK didn't have a whipping system until Parnell invented it for the Irish Nationalist party. Prior to his intervention, a political party in Westminster was a very loose group of vaguely like minded people who voted together on some issues, had to be heavily bribed to vote on other issues (the UK parliament was massively corrupt for most of its existence, with plum jobs carrying high salaries and much opportunity for peculation, peerages and land grants being given for votes openly in parliament) and flat out wouldn't vote on more (even if they had originally agreed to vote that way when joining the party). Members crossed the benches on the most trivial of reasons, often switching between Whig and Tory many times over their parliamentary career. However, that all changed almost overnight when the Nationalists became a force to be reckoned with when looking for votes, the two main parties the Conservatives and the Liberals almost immediately adopting the same whipping system, because it was so damned effective at keeping their people in line.

And the last argument "but it doesn't allow my TD to vote to their conscience" is so bloody ridiculous that it barely merits rebuttal. But here goes, if they knew the party had policies incompatible with their conscience why did they join, of if adopted after joining why didn't they resign? The fact of the matter is that "votes of conscience" are all too often made by a politician not in the national interest but to pander to a constituency of voters they believe they can capture or to ensure the groups throwing money at them keep doing so, and has sweet fanny adams to do with what their conscience tells them.

If you want to rail against the current system, why not look at actual problems with it, like nepotism within parties and constituencies, the lack of accountability for parties to keep to their promises, or worst of all the total capture of political systems by big business through blanket funding of parties, provision of people to high state positions (think of all the accountants from the big four or consultants from the likes of Arthur Anderson Accenture or McKinsey {or in Ireland their Irish equivalents} who have been seconded to head up departments or money-spending quangos for five years only to give all their money to their private sector employers and their clients and go back to them when the contract is up)? These are serious problems facing the world's parliamentary systems (not just Ireland's) which if not remedied will lead to utter disaster. The whip manufactorversy is simply a three card monte pulled on us by those in power to distract from the real problems with politics.

nice_guy80

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

I detest it when people come out and decry the whip system, because it betrays their fundamental lack of understanding about the parliamentary system. Under the current system of government (and pretty much any system of government which relies on a representative body) the whip is pretty much necessary to ensure that a ruling party in parliament manages to get anything done.

The UK didn't have a whipping system until Parnell invented it for the Irish Nationalist party. Prior to his intervention, a political party in Westminster was a very loose group of vaguely like minded people who voted together on some issues, had to be heavily bribed to vote on other issues (the UK parliament was massively corrupt for most of its existence, with plum jobs carrying high salaries and much opportunity for peculation, peerages and land grants being given for votes openly in parliament) and flat out wouldn't vote on more (even if they had originally agreed to vote that way when joining the party). Members crossed the benches on the most trivial of reasons, often switching between Whig and Tory many times over their parliamentary career. However, that all changed almost overnight when the Nationalists became a force to be reckoned with when looking for votes, the two main parties the Conservatives and the Liberals almost immediately adopting the same whipping system, because it was so damned effective at keeping their people in line.

And the last argument "but it doesn't allow my TD to vote to their conscience" is so bloody ridiculous that it barely merits rebuttal. But here goes, if they knew the party had policies incompatible with their conscience why did they join, of if adopted after joining why didn't they resign? The fact of the matter is that "votes of conscience" are all too often made by a politician not in the national interest but to pander to a constituency of voters they believe they can capture or to ensure the groups throwing money at them keep doing so, and has sweet fanny adams to do with what their conscience tells them.

If you want to rail against the current system, why not look at actual problems with it, like nepotism within parties and constituencies, the lack of accountability for parties to keep to their promises, or worst of all the total capture of political systems by big business through blanket funding of parties, provision of people to high state positions (think of all the accountants from the big four or consultants from the likes of Arthur Anderson Accenture or McKinsey {or in Ireland their Irish equivalents} who have been seconded to head up departments or money-spending quangos for five years only to give all their money to their private sector employers and their clients and go back to them when the contract is up)? These are serious problems facing the world's parliamentary systems (not just Ireland's) which if not remedied will lead to utter disaster. The whip manufactorversy is simply a three card monte pulled on us by those in power to distract from the real problems with politics.

Not every country has a whip system.

Belgium didn't even have a government for over a year and still trundled along without major incident

Saipanne

nice_guy80 wrote: »

Not every country has a whip system.

Belgium didn't even have a government for over a year and still trundled along without major incident

What countries don't have it? Google didn't reveal much.

First Up

nice_guy80 wrote: »

Not every country has a whip system.

Belgium didn't even have a government for over a year and still trundled along without major incident

Any stable democracy with an efficient civil service should be able to "trundle along" for a period - assuming there are no crises to be addressed or new polcy directions to be decided.

Our politicians stand for election on a combination of party manifesto/track record and personal/local issues. The balance between these factors varies case by case. But tolerating or accommodating the Tony Gregorys or Jackie H-Rs of this world is a luxury only made possible by robust and effective government.

ArmaniJeanss

Isn't the whip system just putting an official stamp on what happens naturally in politics anyway, or indeed in any sphere of life.

If me and you are both independents (me urban, you rural) I may happily vote for more rural industrial investment but only if you also vote for my increased subsidy for Dublin public transport systems. Working together we can come up with a financial plan that enables both projects.

But if however you just want the rural investment but are going to vote no to the transport subsidy then you can consider our voting bloc ceased, and in order to protect the finances of my project I will have to vote against yours as there is only so much money to go around. In effect I'd have lost the whip of our bloc.

So it becomes clear in realpolitik that in order to get some of your own favoured things passed, you will have to support many things to which you are opposed. Are you willing to do that OP?

Brian Shanahan

nice_guy80 wrote: »

Not every country has a whip system.

Belgium didn't even have a government for over a year and still trundled along without major incident

Yes, they were very lucky that nothing happened when they had no government and their civil service was effectively paralyzed which would have cause Belgium trouble.

And the moment that the Euro financial crisis looke to be heading Belgium's way they managed to form a coalition. So your analogy is as useless and devoid of any appreciation of the situation as your original proposition.

Saipanne

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

Yes, they were very lucky that nothing happened when they had no government and their civil service was effectively paralyzed which would have cause Belgium trouble.

And the moment that the Euro financial crisis looke to be heading Belgium's way they managed to form a coalition. So your analogy is as useless and devoid of any appreciation of the situation as your original proposition.

What of his first point, there? Are countries without a whip system falling apart?

HooleyBooley

nice_guy80 wrote: »

I also realised I spelled the thread title incorrectly!

My point about rural issues, is that most independents are from rural constituencies. The Independent TDs from urban constituencies are well able to air their own issues, as part of a group.
People living in and around Dublin are totally insulated from what is happening in rural Ireland at the moment.
Towns and villages are dying on their feet as all the young people have left for urban Ireland. There are no jobs.
Shops closing, reduced economic activity, banks closing down, people have to drive 25 mins to get to a bank, little house building, schools emptying, sports clubs struggling to field teams.


Could they be any worse than some of the recent parties who have been in government?

A Cabinet with one or two independent TDs in it would be very interesting.
I'd really like to see them tackle government appointees to state boards and other organisations

Re: rural Ireland.

This rural-to-urban shift is happening across the entire world and is neither new nor unique to Ireland. Rural areas will always be good for employment in agriculture, teaching and small-scale employers like shops, mechanics, fuel distributors and, to an extent, construction. But if you don't want to work in those areas, you will likely need to move to an urban centre. This has always been the way of things.

Young, ambitious, educated people do not want to stay in rural areas. They vote with their feet and move to urban areas where there are more opportunities, more entertainment and more room for socialising and meeting a partner. Rural areas cannot compete with this. The government cannot force high-end industries to locate in a small town in the west of Ireland, where young people simply do not want to live and where there are few opportunities in life.

And what's more - rural areas expect that they can buy a nice, big house for half or a third the price they would pay for a similar house in Cork or Dublin, and that they will nonetheless have the same level of urban conveniences that can only be provided with the economies of scale that exist in urban areas. If you live in rural areas, you have a lower cost of living and housing, but that is accompanied by a lower level of public and private services and economic opportunities. This is self-evident and should not be a surprise to anyone.

Also, I grew up in the open countryside of rural Ireland, FYI.

nice_guy80

HooleyBooley wrote: »

Re: rural Ireland.

This rural-to-urban shift is happening across the entire world and is neither new nor unique to Ireland. Rural areas will always be good for employment in agriculture, teaching and small-scale employers like shops, mechanics, fuel distributors and, to an extent, construction. But if you don't want to work in those areas, you will likely need to move to an urban centre. This has always been the way of things.

Young, ambitious, educated people do not want to stay in rural areas. They vote with their feet and move to urban areas where there are more opportunities, more entertainment and more room for socialising and meeting a partner. Rural areas cannot compete with this. The government cannot force high-end industries to locate in a small town in the west of Ireland, where young people simply do not want to live and where there are few opportunities in life.

And what's more - rural areas expect that they can buy a nice, big house for half or a third the price they would pay for a similar house in Cork or Dublin, and that they will nonetheless have the same level of urban conveniences that can only be provided with the economies of scale that exist in urban areas. If you live in rural areas, you have a lower cost of living and housing, but that is accompanied by a lower level of public and private services and economic opportunities. This is self-evident and should not be a surprise to anyone.

Also, I grew up in the open countryside of rural Ireland, FYI.

a lot of people also want the opportunity to move back to rural areas for employment and rearing families.
economic policies are so heavily weighted in favour of the large urban centres (especially IDA investment) that government policy is adding to drain of rural Ireland.

look at the credit card company that was in Carrick on Shannon, due partly to IDA investment.
a lot of people made decisions to locate to Leitrim, Roscommon etc and buy houses.
once they upped sticks out of the town, the whole region has been affected

First Up

nice_guy80 wrote: »

a lot of people also want the opportunity to move back to rural areas for employment and rearing families.
economic policies are so heavily weighted in favour of the large urban centres (especially IDA investment) that government policy is adding to drain of rural Ireland.

look at the credit card company that was in Carrick on Shannon, due partly to IDA investment.
a lot of people made decisions to locate to Leitrim, Roscommon etc and buy houses.
once they upped sticks out of the town, the whole region has been affected

You are wrong about IDA "weighting" in favour of large urban areas. It is the exact opposite - investors are offerered extra inducements to locate in more remote and rural areas. But it is the investor who decides what is best for them.

HooleyBooley

First Up wrote: »

You are wrong about IDA "weighting" in favour of large urban areas. It is the exact opposite - investors are offerered extra inducements to locate in more remote and rural areas. But it is the investor who decides what is best for them.

Exactly.

And despite the inducements, companies still choose to locate in urban areas, where they have a wider pool of potential employees to choose from and better public and private services available to the company and it's employees.

Even something as simple as needing a photocopier repaired or a taxi or catering for an after-hours event - in a city, you can have that arranged in no time. That simply isn't possible in smaller towns or in the open countryside.

It's not a conspiracy against rural Ireland- it's economic reality, here and internationally.

What policies would you want implemented to help revive rural Ireland?

View

nice_guy80 wrote: »

Not every country has a whip system.

Could you provide us with a list of these countries?

Offhand, the only institution I can think which comes close is the European Parliament which has a very weak system where the parties recommend positions - positions which MEPs tend to follow in 95% of the cases for the larger parties (which are the primary decision makers for the legislation the EP votes on).

imme

The relatively low key launch of the new 'party' of Independents the other day was a strange affair.
They aren't a party as such, so what are they, a network?

How are they stronger together, what are they together on? They stretch quite a way across the political landscape from Ross to John Halligan to Michael Fitzmaurice.

After Fitzmaurice was elected in the byelection following there was a lot of media coverage of his being something new, something different from party politics, something different from so-called 'civil war politics'.

I couldn't wait to hear what this messiah had to say, what he stood for. There was talk that he was being courted by all from Lucinda to Shane.

A couple of weeks ago he was a guest on Claire Byrne's or Marian's radio show. He sounded like a big man with a big voice. That was about it.

He was discussing potential sale of Aer Lingus.

He was talking waffly talk, politician like, no particularly intelligent,

I didn't hear anything new or different or exciting, just a big man with a big voice, no leadership qualities per se.

In recent years there have been media reports of the creation of a new pol party, Fintan O'Toole, Eamonn Dunphy, Shane Ross, David McWilliams were all mentioned in this area before the last General Election.

An end to 'Civil War politics', a bright new dawn.... was how this was being cast.

Is this not-a-party party of Independents the fulfillment of this dream.

Will they be stronger apart or better together. Will people vote for Independent candidates who are aligned.

joe912

imme wrote: »

The relatively low key launch of the new 'party' of Independents the other day was a strange affair.
They aren't a party as such, so what are they, a network?

How are they stronger together, what are they together on? They stretch quite a way across the political landscape from Ross to John Halligan to Michael Fitzmaurice.

After Fitzmaurice was elected in the byelection following there was a lot of media coverage of his being something new, something different from party politics, something different from so-called 'civil war politics'.

I couldn't wait to hear what this messiah had to say, what he stood for. There was talk that he was being courted by all from Lucinda to Shane.

A couple of weeks ago he was a guest on Claire Byrne's or Marian's radio show. He sounded like a big man with a big voice. That was about it.

He was discussing potential sale of Aer Lingus.

He was talking waffly talk, politician like, no particularly intelligent,

I didn't hear anything new or different or exciting, just a big man with a big voice, no leadership qualities per se.

In recent years there have been media reports of the creation of a new pol party, Fintan O'Toole, Eamonn Dunphy, Shane Ross, David McWilliams were all mentioned in this area before the last General Election.

An end to 'Civil War politics', a bright new dawn.... was how this was being cast.

Is this not-a-party party of Independents the fulfillment of this dream.

Will they be stronger apart or better together. Will people vote for Independent candidates who are aligned.

Oh the irony.

nice_guy80

New TD in talking waffle shocker.

As a business man, who actually runs his own business and employs people he's probably more qualified to talk about that than most TDs

First Up

If you see someone walking through Donnybrook with his head under his arm, that will be Shane Ross. He has just been thoroughly filleted by Sean O'Rourke.

nice_guy80

good to see RTE going to town on new parties

they did the same to Renua the other week

First Up

nice_guy80 wrote: »

good to see RTE going to town on new parties

they did the same to Renua the other week

O'Rourke just asked him the obvious questions and Ross floundered hopelessly. He ended up talking pure nonsense and contradicting himself.

micosoft

Saipanne wrote: »

What of his first point, there? Are countries without a whip system falling apart?

Sheesh. That's the point. Belgium is literally at risk of falling apart between the Flanders and Wallonia is well known.

micosoft

HooleyBooley wrote: »

Re: rural Ireland.

This rural-to-urban shift is happening across the entire world and is neither new nor unique to Ireland.................................................................................This is self-evident and should not be a surprise to anyone.

Also, I grew up in the open countryside of rural Ireland, FYI.

This * 1000. I live in the countryside and am from the countryside and fed-up with the whinging set who think the Governments job is to turn back time. If anything Ireland is a decade or two behind other countries in rural depopulation.

That being said it might be helpful if rural communities did not insist on ribbon developments or once of housing that guarantee that the towns and villages are unsustainable along with public transport. Most of the issues in rural locations have been created by rural inhabitants consistently making bad planning choices and forcing their political representation to aide and abet them.