What have the government done right?

NIMAN

Listening to the radio the other day, I heard the lack of housing being discussed. I recalled all the chat about fixing the issue over the last decade yet its worse than ever.

Then I got to thinking of all the things that could be described as being at a 'crisis' level in our society, and there is quite a list even off the top of the head.

- the lack of housing

- no room for refugees

- record waiting times in hospitals

- the Mica debacle

- rents as high as New York and Paris

- slow move away from ICE cars

- poor uptake in house retrofitting

- awful deals for fishermen

- huge class sizes

- severe lack of teachers

You get the idea.

Then I wondered, "what could the government point to in the last 5 or 10 years and say they have done a great job on? ". I would guess record tax take would be one of them.

What else?

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058273715/what-have-the-government-done-right

Is "awful deals for fishermen" now a crisis, and on what basis?

Danno

I think getting the M8 Dunkettle Project to where it is deserves some credit. The second runway at Dublin Airport too, though I would have rather they used that money to upgrade Casement to be a second airport for the city and built a spur on to the rail line at the back of Peamount Hospital. The opening of the New Ross bypass was another good project.

Other good items included better paternity leave conditions, the amalgamations of some colleges to create TUs, the reduction of excise duty on road fuels and the refusal to increase the TV licence fees were a selection of a short list of good things done.

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119932120#Comment_119932120

It was just something I heard being discussed on the radio today as well, so it popped into my head when writing the op.

We had such a resource in out natural waters but have made a balls of it. All other nations fleets are expanding yet the Irish fleet is getting smaller as its not viable for a lot of boats to go out. Perhaps not a national crisis as such then, you can ignore that one sure.

Got anything that's a great example of government policy that's working well?

NIMAN

I forgot how far we are behind in our attempts to reduce our fossil fuel emissions too.

buried

What have they done right? Their members and lackeys haven't called to my door begging for votes.

But, inevitably like everything else, they'll end up getting that decision wrong too.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119932190#Comment_119932190

A second airport is a terrible idea, just leads to having two crap airports with flights to fewer destinations (e.g. Belfast); also you wouldn't have got Casement to anywhere near commercial ready for the cost of the North runway anyway.

On the actual topic - they handled the economic fallouts of the pandemic much better than I expected them to; public transport fares have been brought to levels that would be considered cheap by European standards (and seem like they're free compared to GB); they haven't actually fallen apart in insane infighting yet

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119932199#Comment_119932199

Yes, aren't the Japanese responsible for eliminating a few species of whales? Surely that is more of a crisis.

https://www.science.org/content/article/overfishing-could-push-european-fish-species-extinction

It's a problem in Europe too.

"More than 90 species of marine fishes in Europe's waters are threatened with extinction, according to a report published today by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Sharks, rays, and other cartilaginous fish are at greatest risk, with about 40% facing extinction. The main threat is overfishing, the report warns."

Of course, we could have stayed out of the EU, kept our fisheries and never had the prosperity we now have.

Is Mica the government's fault?

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119932382#Comment_119932382

Well some would say it is, due to failure to regulate..

I was thinking more of the fact that despite the issue being known about since 2014, there has only been a handful of homes sorted, and there is no progress at all in the other 5000 to 7000.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119932398#Comment_119932398

Government should be telling those homeowners they can chase the builders and developers through the courts. Or homebond (or whatever that is). How the taxpayer is on the hook for this is a joke. Maybe that's the crisis, that we all have to fund the repairs.

893bet

Government bashing is almost as popular as dole bashing on here.

mattser

Well all of them saw an increase in the most recent poll, while the main opposition were down 4. Someone thinks they're doing something right.

Itssoeasy

I mean saying that the government has made a mess of housing is a bit simplistic. They haven’t made it better and they deserve blame for what happened on their watch and housing and health was perfect before this, which it wasn’t. Though thankfully that’s not that big a phenomenon on boards.

The Dail and Seanad record has so many references to housing and how bad the hospitals are it’s amazing and it goes back nearly to the first Dail. It’s fascinating how time moves on but some problems in this county have stayed the same throughout.

I think we are in a better situation in the public finances which will hopefully blunt the slowdown that seems to be on the way. I think the government got the initial response to Covid correct. That can’t be said for the reopening back up which was a mess.

Dyr

Lets not their Triumphant, longest, hardest lockdown in Europe that most people were only to happy with

You can blame the government but ultimately it all comes down the sheer complacency of Sean Citizen. We like to go on about our Rebel history but ultimately there was a reason that the Brits were able to stick around for 800 years

Overheal

Well, the aqueducts

farmingquestion

...

Dohnjoe

I grew up in the Ireland in the eighties. High unemployment was the norm, infrastructure was woeful, cars were rust-buckets, masses were emigrating, low quality goods and services on the shelves, we wore second-hand clothes as kids, the list goes on and on.

Now we can't move for luxury SUVs on the roads. All we did in the interim was complain and blame the government, but successive administrations did do something right. We went from one of Western Europe's poorest countries, to one of the more well-off countries.

Indeed, we have a lot of problems now, but they are generally "wealthy country" problems, as opposed to "poor country" problems that we had in the eighties and prior.

eggy81

Got us back to record employment after the last recession. Pretty good achievement. I remember thinking things would be **** forever back then.

buried

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119932516#Comment_119932516

"We can't move for luxury SUVs on the roads" Most of the country before 2008 was in the same fantasy induced situation where you couldn't move for some person who was basically qualified for nothing but a babysitter job who was being given loans in the bank for upwards of one million Euros to get a house.

That was a "wealthy country problem" back in 2008. Looks like some of you haven't learnt any lessons.

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119932516#Comment_119932516

We are still poor. Everything is borrowed. Only the idiots are saving and will have to pay the piper at some stage. It's all funny money based on funny economics.

Put Roderic O'Gorman in the ministry he is in.

He comes across as a compassionate person, and it seems that his own experience as a member of a minority group make him able to empathise with people others. He seems to take complaints and criticisms on board and address those charges.

That said, I cannot wait to see the Greens eradicated from the face of this earth.

buried

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119932660#Comment_119932660

Unfortunately his own experience as a member of a minority group has utterly clouded his judgement as he now believes that minority groups deserve more rights and advantages than the actual majority. What's worse, he's already promised and published rights and advantages that he now cannot provide, just like the ones he and his office showcased last year. His experience as an individual means nothing when you are in a position to supposedly be in charge of a collective. Which is his de-facto remit as a T.D.

ArthurDayne

It's an interesting one as there had been some signs of good work up to 2020.

The government was dealing with the challenge presented by Brexit — and for the most part I think they did well on that front. Their maneuvering in conjunction with the EU partners was generally well thought, and the measures taken to safeguard the Irish economy from Brexit fallout (to the extent possible) have not been without merit. There were signs of some ambition re infrastructural development (Ireland 2040) — and while a lot of that now looks blown out of the water, there was some success like the continued push on the Celtic Interconnector project. Socially, things like the modernising of female reproductive rights have been good. This government does also seem to have a better handle on the country's financial situation.

I do however remain of the view that the Irish COVID lockdown strategy — in terms of its length and intensity — was unjustified and disproportionate. The suspension of things that people might otherwise have spent on, combined with suspended construction, have contributed to the situation where we have a wall of savings in this country vying for very few houses. New fault lines of inequality have emerged — for example the emergence of a Working From Home class who retain high city salaries while having the flexibility to live almost anywhere and price others out.

This government's successes have largely centred around the traditional Irish approach of keeping things steady, predictable, doing nothing overly different. But when the sh*t hit the fan, a recurring failure to be brave and radical in addressing really key issues has come back to bite us all.

Not go ahead with water charges.

Larbre34

Keeping full employment and a growing economy in the biggest financial headwinds since 1929.

Keeping investment at a high rate and mitigating the effects of Brexit, which in the not so recent past could have destroyed this Country along with Britain.

Everything else is secondary. Minor details.

keynes

The only thing the government should be commended for is their maintenance of the low corporation tax. It is actually quite remarkable given their usual subservience to international bodies they ordinarily feel so beholden to. Fundamentally, all the other "good things" flow from this. (With our enormous revenues from this source and the absence of a military budget, we should of course have the best public services in the world.)

I'm very cynical when it comes to peripheral countries.

When I say peripheral, I'm talking about small countries like Denmark or Netherlands or New Zealand or Lithuania.

In our case, Ireland really doesn't have a government. It's either Fianna Fail or Fine Gael - both of whom, on the very large questions, agree on pretty much everything.

When we talk about a "change of government", what we're really talking about is a "change of management".

The prime direction remains exactly the same.

It's just a bunch of middle managers arguing among themselves over relatively peripheral issues. Both of whom do a pretty average job. They wrap up their incompetence in the language of political propaganda and populism, depending on who is in charge. But the outcome is the same, bland indifference.

So don't expect any JFK moment. Small countries are managed, not governed. In the case of Ireland by the misleading idea that FG or FF are different, or by the idea that the EU doesn't control Ireland by proxy.

We are an irrelevant country. Don't expect miraculous management; it ain't going to happen.

The EU are our boss, whether we are willing to admit it or not.

Larbre34

Total rubbish from you as usual Eskimohunt

mojesius

I suppose the referendums on Repeal the 8th and Marriage Equality were positives, as well as their handling of the shitstorm that was Brexit.

I also notice a lot of schools have been upgraded from 80s prefabs in recent years.

That's all I have to say about that.

xxxxxxl

Make all parties redundant and left us with no one to vote for.

joseywhales

On the one hand theres an extremely high economic output for a country with zero natural resources, on the other hand there's huge sovereign debt burden that we literally got nothing (no major infrastructure) for and we're not responsible for, still can't get over that one. That's going to be a pain for decades, maybe centuries.

joseywhales

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119933322#Comment_119933322

In my view , management is what I want. Representatives are there to increase the quality of life for the majority of people, that's all. I only care about geopolitical power as it pertains to our citizens security and prosperity. Pride is a weakness.

joseywhales

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119933298#Comment_119933298

It's called picking your battles. MNC are a godsend to the country and not mutually exclusive to domestic industry which we could do with more development in.

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119933744#Comment_119933744

15% now or have they found a fudge ?

Ham_Sandwich

the govement has done ok lately with extra welfare payments and the electricity paid but they need to do more more free services more failities for the kids housing and health Sinn Fein will sort us out if we look after them in the election

spaceHopper

They did a good job with the covid vaccine roll out - not perfect but we did a lot better than other countries.

Cluedo Monopoly

Very very little. The FG cabinet members took all the easy posts and achieved zero. The FF cabinet members are very poor (Foley, Donnelly, O'Brien, McConalogue).

O'Gorman (GP) has tried his best on the Mother and Baby Home issues but he was hampered at every turn. Then inexplicably they put the Minister for Children in charge of housing refugees because the FFG tools were incapable. He is now snowed under.

Reform legislation - zero progress. The Public Sector Standards Bill 2015 is still not passed. Deliberately so. New Politics still alive and well.

ancapailldorcha

Ireland seems to have an issue that a lot of countries have at the moment: a lack of ideas about solving issues that are plaguing the country such as housing, the HSE and climate change. Radical change is needed but nobody seems to know where to begin or even what to do beyond long term aspirations couched in vague rhetoric.

That said, the steady-as-she-goes approach seems to be working rather well. Ireland scores well in international rankings for safety, crime, education and healthcare so this makes sense. I can't comment on specifics are I don't live in Ireland.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119935144#Comment_119935144

To be fair, there has been some good coherent thinking in some areas. Public transport in Dublin now has plans for an integrated network with the MetroLink being a much better project than Metro North and linking in with the two DART lines. BusConnects will also work if the infrastructure is put in place (though the Greens will be decimated for an election or two as the NIMBY squad complain until the benefits are clear).

Similarly, if you actually read Project Ireland 2040, there are an awful lot of good ideas around developing the main cities other than Dublin.

Things are happening but it has been hard for the country to shake off the effects of 2008.

riclad

For the last 10 years there's been long waiting list for hospitals medical treatment in the last few years there's a crisis eg there's a shortage of doctors you move to an area you might not be able to find a doctor to take you on as a patient rents vary from area to area

town to city Dublins population is growing

of course rents are high the government is taking steps to increase accomodations for people coming from Ukrainian

I think the national plan is to build around 20 k housing units every year

They are giving out grants to restore derelict buildings

Hellrazer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119935144#Comment_119935144

While we might seem to score well in international rankings for safety,crime education and healthcare on the ground from my perspective it doesnt feel like that.

I wont even go into Dublin city centre anymore as it doesnt feel safe and Ive seen enough **** on the nights that I did go in to put me off it for the forseeable future.

Crime seems to be rampant with our supposed protectors getting their cars rammed while crowds of scum cheer them on. Garda are regularly assaulted on the job. Theres something gone fundamentally wrong with teens and young adults behaviour over the last few years and its become quite noticeable - they seem to have lost respect for their peers completely and really dont care about other people. We have criminals with multiple hundreds of convictions still walking the the streets with no fear of the repercussions of their actions. The ordinary on the beat Garda needs more supports or even everyone of them to be armed with non-lethal weapons like tazers, stun guns, pepper spray and not have to go through a tribunal when they use it against scum that deserved it.

Healthcare - dont get me started - my daughter was waiting for 5 years for a spinal operation (scoliosis) so much so that a 2 hour op in the beginning ended up being 18 hours when eventually she was seen to. You cant change GPs as they arent taking people on and if you are lucky to have a GP you wont get a same day appointment in most surgeries.. A+E is a disaster with multiple hour long waits if you have a minor accident. Our minister for health is the most useless person to have ever been elected - all he does is talk **** from one interview to another - covid really showed his through self when he signed a law on the 31st June!!!

Education is fucked aswell with a severe lack of teachers and the ones that are employed are untouchable if they dont carry out their jobs right - again covid sorted out the good from the bad - the good ones kept working through it and the bad ones did nothing. The whole teacher training needs to be revamped and allow people that want to become teachers have a quicker access to becoming a teacher - my daughter has her primary degree and a masters and yet still needs to do another 2 years to become a teacher...thats nuts.

My own local Tds bar the independents are completely and utter morons - BTW I was always a Fg voter since I could could first vote. I contacted one of them during covid when the N4 was taking 2 hours to travel from Palmerstown to Maynooth and asked could the checkpoints not be moved to the skip roads and his response - stay in work later like I do and you`ll miss all the traffic. Same TD was contacted about the greyhound bodies that were discovered in Newbridge a few months back and again deflected and washed his hands of it saying it was a Garda issue when my question was regarding stopping funding for the industry - didnt even answer the question I asked of him.

One local FG TD was very helpful in trying to get my daughters surgery sorted - not sorted but the issue raised with the Minister for health whose office sent basically a please **** off response.

The independent was extremely helpful with different issues in the past and never once did not respond to any emails I sent her - the others - some of them never even bothered with a response.

So to answer the OPs question what they have done right - in my opinion - absolutely nothing for the ordinary citizen who they are supposed to be representing.

Maybe Im getting grumpy as I get older or maybe Im just going to start calling out all these TDs for the lack of representing that they do for their constituents. Roll on the next General Election.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119936405#Comment_119936405

With respect, feeling like that doesn't make it so.

I frequent r/Ireland for my sins and some of the stuff posted there is unbelievable. I've seen videos of scrotes nicking bikes in broad daylight on CCTV without even covering their faces. When I was living in Dublin, the one time I walked home, some punk on a bike tried to mug me. I always got the taxi on a night out and frankly, the place is disgusting. UK equivalents at least have the decency to be cheaper. There were parts of this year when I could barely walk with foot pain and had to settle for a text from my GP telling me to buy Sketchers. A colleague has to physically go to Warsaw tomorrow to renew his ID card whereas I got my Passport (and card) done online very quickly.

I think you'd have the same problems in many other countries, particularly the UK where there are literally millions waiting for procedures on the NHS. I'm sorry to hear about your troubles. I think I'm getting angry as I get older as well. I'm single and all I want in the whole world is a wee place of my own to call home. Dublin and anywhere near it is as bad as London and rural Ireland has no jobs I could do.

I think it's easy and tempting to focus on cherrypicked anecdotes, particularly when you follow social media or the daily news. Of course, I get that you have real, lived experience which is more than fair enough. I just don't see where's better. Leo's been gaslighting people about the housing crisis but that's everywhere. Canada, Australia, the UK, etc are all horrifically expensive. I think Ireland's better than a lot of places but of course, everywhere can improve.

Hellrazer

I think I just needed a rant!!!

It is hard to listen to the government telling us what theyve done right but when you actually need the assistance of some state bodies you dont see the whole "we`re great" thing that they keep feeding us with.

I even offered to remortgage the house to get my daughter the treatment she needed privately but like that there was no surgeon to do the OP privately here in Ireland as they are contracted to the HSE who cant do the OP in time. Went around in circles for years trying to sort it out - the only thing is she got her OP and is recovering well as it was a complete success.

When you do actually get into the system its fantastic but that little delay trying to get into the system is where it all falls flat.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119935144#Comment_119935144

Ireland seems to have an issue that a lot of countries have at the moment: a lack of ideas about solving issues that are plaguing the country such as housing, the HSE and climate change. Radical change is needed but nobody seems to know where to begin or even what to do beyond long term aspirations couched in vague rhetoric.

Because the reality is that a large swathe of the population don't want it sorted - or at least don't want to acknowledge what it takes to sort it. The 70% of people that live in home-owned houses don't want to see their "assets" being devalued or high density accommodation built for "transient" populations in their area. But they're still perfectly happy to crow about the problem. This leaves the government with an electorate who want a problem fixed but don't want the required solutions, so instead they are forever tinkering around the edges. Climate change has similar issues with people not wanting to adjust their lifestyle.

I do still find the response to these issues underwhelming and would prefer some bravery about pushing solutions that will actually help but it is what it is.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119936885#Comment_119936885

well what you're saying there is that the problems then arent that big but the complaining about them is?

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119936898#Comment_119936898

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. The problems are definitely big and real.

I'm saying there is a lot of justified complaining about the problems, but there would be more complaining among certain sectors of society about the obvious solutions and those sectors tend to vote more...

If you put out a vote to the population that you would build 50,000 homes next year to alleviate the housing crisis but every current homeowner would lost 30% of the value of their house and high density accommodation would be built in every neighbourhood I'm pretty sure I now which way the vote would go.

Now, I would rather the government pushed such things through anyway, not least with a good explainer about how the value of your primary home doesn't really matter anyway. But the solutions are not particularly palatable to people which is what makes politics so difficult and why these problems are so universal.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119932342#Comment_119932342

Public transport is one thing they have done very badly. I'd prefer a bus to turn up or a train to arrive on time in lieu of cheap fares. They shouldn't be slapping their backs over that one.

You can travel to the city centre from the airport via tram/metro in some Euro cities for as little as €1.80. Where the **** is our metro north? It shouldn't be this difficult.

The roads of Dublin are absolutely clogged because of inadequacy and foresight to sort public transport.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119937625#Comment_119937625

Lack of drivers is a problem basically everywhere in Europe currently.

There has been a very significant improvement in public transport since the current Government came in, except they have been hit by the same not enough drivers thing as everywhere has. Retirements and hauliers paying more; as well as a huge increase in the number of actual bus services needing an increase in drivers are all adding up here.

The once-and-future Taoiseach is the one who cancelled the old Metro North though...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119932382#Comment_119932382

Yes, failure to regulate the industry adequately. The same can be said for the apartments in Parkwest.

We all pay for the poor Governance. We'd all have better living standards if regulators did their jobs and we're pushed to do their jobs.

Nigel Fairservice

I know it's small compared to some issues raised in the thread but the plastic bag tax. It cut down on a lot of waste from single use plastic bags.