Why would you vote SF?

Seth Brundle

Matt Barrett wrote: »

SF wanting to give social housing a good spin is enough for me

SF’s housing policy is makey-uppey twaddle though.
Abolish property tax - why would you remove a stable form of taxation?
Build 100,000 new social homes - where? With what money (especially as you’ve just reduced funding from the local authorities by abolishing property tax)?
Build loads of social houses - this won’t solve the entitlement problem though.
Force developers to give over 20% of their stock as social housing - this will only increase prices and continues to remove the onus from the state.
Provide rent certainty - to who? The tenant who already has plenty of rights or the landlords who have no rights and are leaving the business in droves meaning that in time we’ll be left principally with REITs?

The property issue is much greater than the sound bites from SF and the other parties who waffle but will only cause more problems within the system

Seth Brundle

John2136 wrote: »

There is actually one very good reason to vote Sinn Fein, Sinn Fein MPs only take the average wage of an adult which is about 30,000 a year, this is so they can be on more of a level with the problems and life most people in the country live.

Then you have the rest of the MPs of other parties voting to give themselves a raise when they are already on around a hundred grand a year.

SF MPs don’t do their job though so shouldn’t get a penny!
Their TDs cost the state the full salary amount. Some only receive the AIW as they give the rest to the party but it still costs the taxpayer the same. Some SF TDs receive the full amount so there’s inequality within the party.

James Brown

Seth Brundle wrote: »

SF’s housing policy is makey-uppey twaddle though.
Abolish property tax - why would you remove a stable form of taxation?
Build 100,000 new social homes - where? With what money (especially as you’ve just reduced funding from the local authorities by abolishing property tax)?
Build loads of social houses - this won’t solve the entitlement problem though.
Force developers to give over 20% of their stock as social housing - this will only increase prices and continues to remove the onus from the state.
Provide rent certainty - to who? The tenant who already has plenty of rights or the landlords who have no rights and are leaving the business in droves meaning that in time we’ll be left principally with REITs?

The property issue is much greater than the sound bites from SF and the other parties who waffle but will only cause more problems within the system

Weren't Enda's FG promising same at one stage?
Enforcing already in place polices makes entitlement impossible. Unless of course people are actually entitled to what they feel entitled to, in which case people availing of it is on the policy makers. A person or couple who work and pay tax are entitled to some form of affordable accommodation IMO.
We do know what FF/FG are doing isn't working.
It's hard not to comment when people raise or infer upon the bogeyman of SF should they get to make policy when you look at what we have currently.

blanch152

John2136 wrote: »

SF were more than just a political party in the north of Ireland during the troubles they were even the police service from 1975/76 (can't remember which) since the police weren't accepted in nationalist areas and they literally could not police in them areas it was agreed between the British government and the IRA that SF incident centers would be set up so the Catholic areas could keep some sort of law and order which made SF/IRA the police in Catholic areas, for matters within the community, like burglary, threats etc.

And we all know how badly that worked out. Child abusers moved around like it was the Catholic Church, while decent ordinary people who fell out with an IRA man ended up crippled from kneecapping.

blanch152

John2136 wrote: »

There is actually one very good reason to vote Sinn Fein, Sinn Fein MPs only take the average wage of an adult which is about 30,000 a year, this is so they can be on more of a level with the problems and life most people in the country live.

Then you have the rest of the MPs of other parties voting to give themselves a raise when they are already on around a hundred grand a year.

That was exposed as a lie already, with some of the more entitled TDs like Ferris and Ellis keeping their full salary. Anyway, the average wage is 30k before tax, they were taking 30k after tax and after housing expenditure.

jm08

blanch152 wrote: »

And we all know how badly that worked out. Child abusers moved around like it was the Catholic Church, while decent ordinary people who fell out with an IRA man ended up crippled from kneecapping.

Child abusers moved around like it was the Catholic Church everywhere children were involved. ARe you forgetting swimming for instance, what about that accountant in Waterford who coached children in football and abused them, what about Tom Humphreys in the GAA?

Seth Brundle

jm08 wrote: »

Child abusers moved around like it was the Catholic Church everywhere children were involved. ARe you forgetting swimming for instance, what about that accountant in Waterford who coached children in football and abused them, what about Tom Humphreys in the GAA?

How is that relevant to the conversation?
Were these aided by any political party?

FrancieBrady

Seth Brundle wrote: »

How is that relevant to the conversation?
Were these aided by any political party?

Ignoring it was 'aiding' it. Allowing the circumstances for it to happen was 'aiding' it.

The point is would any political party allow it to happen now and to be fair I dont think there is.

jm08

Seth Brundle wrote: »

How is that relevant to the conversation?
Were these aided by any political party?

POliticians were happy to hand over responsibility to the Catholic Church and used laundries that basically used slave labour, so yes I think politicians have aided child abuse.

McMurphy

Seth Brundle wrote: »

Looking at the current government, how have they been corrupt?

Not trying to pre-, judge the outcome, but isn't the water meter/siteserv deal still under active investigation?

What do you mean by progress?

With the above in mind, how in the hell did O'Brien manage to get involved in yet another lucrative state contract, ala broadband, which, one government minister had to resign over because of questionable circumstances and inappropriate goings on?

Would it not be a spark of wisdom by the government to have O’Brien and his business dealings fully investigated as to his suitability before he is allowed to partake in any further government contracts or would that expose the complicity of Fine Gael and the state in partnering with O’Brien, given his questionable past financial associations with them both?

Now, that would be progress.

crossman47

jm08 wrote: »

You need an opposition as well to question the Government. Mary Lou was pretty good on the Public Accounts Committee.

No she wasn't. She generated plenty headlines but her contributions were generally just attacking public servants irrespective of the facts of a case.

FrancieBrady

crossman47 wrote: »

public servants

They certainly didn't appreciate her disdain for the nod and wink culture within the public service anyhow.

There is a whole cohort of public representatives that have revealed to us, the citizens, plenty of stuff we should know about. If a few toes got tread on in that process, so be it.

blanch152

jm08 wrote: »

Child abusers moved around like it was the Catholic Church everywhere children were involved. ARe you forgetting swimming for instance, what about that accountant in Waterford who coached children in football and abused them, what about Tom Humphreys in the GAA?

The organisation that ran swimming was disbanded, the Catholic Church was the subject of a number of damning independent reports, the GAA have been to the forefront of producing child protection guidelines.

Sinn Fein have done nothing except try to hide and cover-up what happened.

See the difference?

Roger_007

John2136 wrote: »

There is actually one very good reason to vote Sinn Fein, Sinn Fein MPs only take the average wage of an adult which is about 30,000 a year, this is so they can be on more of a level with the problems and life most people in the country live.

Then you have the rest of the MPs of other parties voting to give themselves a raise when they are already on around a hundred grand a year.

I don't know why this myth/lie is still being peddled. SF public representatives are paid exactly the same as other representatives. They also get the same lucrative expenses.
What they do with their money after they get it is entirely up to them. They could donate it to the dog rescue centre if the wanted.

John2136

Seth Brundle wrote: »

How is that relevant to the conversation?
Were these aided by any political party?

Basically he was just saying that it happens everywhere.

FrancieBrady

John2136 wrote: »

Basically he was just saying that it happens everywhere.

FG/FF fought Lousie O'Keefe all the way to the European Courts on Child Protection issues. FG were still refusing to take the actions mandated by the court case they lost when Enda was posing with Maria Cahill for the photographers on the steps of the Dail. Is that hypocrisy?

There is hardly a party or organisation who hasn't had issues with this.

blanch152

FrancieBrady wrote: »

FG/FF fought Lousie O'Keefe all the way to the European Courts on Child Protection issues. FG were still refusing to take the actions mandated by the court case they lost when Enda was posing with Maria Cahill for the photographers on the steps of the Dail. Is that hypocrisy?

There is hardly a party or organisation who hasn't had issues with this.

Unbelievable whataboutery.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/criminal-court/alleged-ira-member-found-guilty-of-raping-boys-at-safe-house-1.3840491


Don't think there are any other political parties with stuff like this in their recent past.

Snow Garden

bilbot79 wrote: »

Presumably they hold the only real hope of reuniting the country, a romantic idea that few want to let go of

I doubt a majority in the republic want a united Ireland.

McMurphy

Snow Garden wrote: »

I doubt a majority in the republic want a united Ireland.

It will take a very stupid party leader to push against the idea when the time comes.

Isn't every major party backing the idea at the minute?

John2136

FrancieBrady wrote: »

FG/FF fought Lousie O'Keefe all the way to the European Courts on Child Protection issues. FG were still refusing to take the actions mandated by the court case they lost when Enda was posing with Maria Cahill for the photographers on the steps of the Dail. Is that hypocrisy?

There is hardly a party or organisation who hasn't had issues with this.

I wonder if that poor girl realised she was just a tool to score political points.

FrancieBrady

blanch152 wrote: »

Unbelievable whataboutery.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/criminal-court/alleged-ira-member-found-guilty-of-raping-boys-at-safe-house-1.3840491


Don't think there are any other political parties with stuff like this in their recent past.

No?

That ruling occurred in the Louise O’Keeffe case in 2014. Louise was a pupil in Dunderrow National School and was one of 21 girls abused by the school principal, Leo Hickey, on almost 400 occasions in the early 1970s. When a parent complained, Hickey resigned his post and took up another in Ballincollig, where he taught for another twenty years. In February 2017, Hickey was convicted of fresh sex abuse charges in Ballincollig between November 1991 and June 1992.

All of this occurred without so much as an eyebrow being raised in the Department of Education. A guidance note issued by the department instructed schools to direct complaints to school managers – i.e. parish priests – with no department involvement (see para 168 of the judgment). The department had a laissez faire approach to National Schools, with a hands-off inspection regime and a "see no evil, hear no evil" attitude to child abuse.

If you want the details of all that ignored and covered up abuse, you can find it on google.

No party has a clean record on dealing with these issues.

The judgement that you have to make is have reforms happened, e.g. have the two parties who have swapped power here stopped fighting survivors 'tooth and nail' etc. Have they robust child protection policies in place.

https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2018/0213/940369-official-ireland-remains-in-denial-about-its-child-abuse-legacy/

blanch152

Johnny Dogs wrote: »

It will take a very stupid party leader to push against the idea when the time comes.

Isn't every major party backing the idea at the minute?

There are very few people who wouldn't want a united Ireland if all the conditions were right.

On the other hand, it is also true that it is possible that a referendum tomorrow for a united Ireland would be defeated because of the tax rises involved and the cuts to social welfare required, as well as people not wanting to take on the two groups of mindless sectarian politicians up North.

John2136

blanch152 wrote: »

There are very few people who wouldn't want a united Ireland if all the conditions were right.

On the other hand, it is also true that it is possible that a referendum tomorrow for a united Ireland would be defeated because of the tax rises involved and the cuts to social welfare required, as well as people not wanting to take on the two groups of mindless sectarian politicians up North.

Well we already have one of the those mindless sectarian groups of political parties as our third largest party so what harm would one more do.

Plus I doubt FG/FF would want unification as that would mean a large boost in votes for Sinn Fein.

FrancieBrady

John2136 wrote: »

Plus I doubt FG/FF would want unification as that would mean a large boost in votes for Sinn Fein.

That is why you will see FF/FG exploit the various victims of the conflict/war, they know those that they abandoned on partition are at the gate now.
They will shout and rant about republican victims but ask the victims of Dublin/Monaghan bombings. for example, how many times they felt the powerswap parties of FF or FG were standing up for them and the answer will be, rarely, if ever.
FG/FF are only interested in victims if there is a PR dividend for them.

blanch152

John2136 wrote: »

Well we already have one of the those mindless sectarian groups of political parties as our third largest party so what harm would one more do.

Plus I doubt FG/FF would want unification as that would mean a large boost in votes for Sinn Fein.

Unification would mean the end of Sinn Fein, as they have no other reason for existence.

FrancieBrady

blanch152 wrote: »

Unification would mean the end of Sinn Fein, as they have no other reason for existence.

What reason do FF, FG, Lab etc have for 'existing'?

James Brown

blanch152 wrote: »

Unification would mean the end of Sinn Fein, as they have no other reason for existence.

I believe every single political party would push for a UI, however I would vote SF over and above FF/FG based on housing alone. TBF if my only options were FF/FG I probably wouldn't vote at all.

Snow Garden

Johnny Dogs wrote: »

It will take a very stupid party leader to push against the idea when the time comes.

Isn't every major party backing the idea at the minute?

But wouldn't a United Ireland require a referendum in the republic? I think it would be defeated very heavily. 70/30.
Let Britain bankroll the craziness up there for another few decades.

Fionn1952

Snow Garden wrote: »

But wouldn't a United Ireland require a referendum in the republic? I think it would be defeated very heavily. 70/30.
Let Britain bankroll the craziness up there for another few decades.

I'm curious as to whether you suspect it would be defeated by those margins in the North, or in Ireland?

I think your numbers are miles off either way, but I cant think of a single place outside Unionist heartlands in the North that would come close to 70% against. There will certainly be areas that wouldn't vote in favour, but I'd be surprised to see anywhere near those numbers. I suspect we're quite a while from finding out though.

Snow Garden

Fionn1952 wrote: »

I'm curious as to whether you suspect it would be defeated by those margins in the North, or in Ireland?

I think your numbers are miles off either way, but I cant think of a single place outside Unionist heartlands in the North that would come close to 70% against. There will certainly be areas that wouldn't vote in favour, but I'd be surprised to see anywhere near those numbers. I suspect we're quite a while from finding out though.

I am pretty positive it would be defeated very heavily in Connacht, Munster and Mid/South Leinster. Donegal would finally get to say Yes
I think people down south would simply not want to take on the historic problems and hatreds in NI.