Are the Irish fit to be let at the controls?

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121808546#Comment_121808546

How many tax payers are there in Ireland?

Does Ireland have the most progressive tax system in the EU, or the least? Easy multiple choice to make up for the first question.

Answer me those and I can get stuck in with an expletive riddled rant about CoTW and it's head and why all of these things are relevant to your question and an answer to it.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121809057#Comment_121809057

Can you tell me what you think a socialist country is or not?

You do understand the question, right?

Dick phelan

Not enough people with expertise actually in charge of the areas they are supposed to be ministers in. How many schoolteachers in government?

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121809305#Comment_121809305

Meh, we have a School Principal the head of education and she is awful.

We have had doctors as ministers for health. Awful

Barristers for Justice. Awful.

Etc, Etc.

What we need are people who are immersed in their brief from a planning and reaction stand point, they don't have be experts in the actual field. Because they don't need to be.

What is needed is long term plans and goals signed up to by all parties that don't get shelved once there is a change of government.

Obviously there should be wriggle room, but the core of the plans shouldn't change.

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121809305#Comment_121809305

Usually the problem isn't their profession, it's their surname. When the sh!t hit the fan in 20028 the top three people in power were all elected on the basis of who their father was.

Goldengirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121806195#Comment_121806195

This.

So I get why people might be unhappy with the present government and all those reasons have been discussed before.

But the premise that we the Irish are somehow not capable of governing ourselves is a bit of strerch.

Who does the OP think should be governing us, if this were remotely true??

nachouser

It'll swing to blaming immigrants at some point. Always does. Early days.

Kav_Piero

Irish politicians often remind of my old job.

The owner hired a couple of family members before and put them in senior management roles even though they weren’t qualified for the job. Summary of how things used to go below.

No forward planning, every decision whether it be big or small was always made at the last minute.

No sense of urgency to correct things when problems arose, this stemmed from not being able to delegate and tell people exactly what their roles were. Nobody knew who to report to and when s*it hit the fan nobody was held accountable.

The family members surrounded themselves with yes people, anyone who raised concerns about processes or tried to implement new ideas were quickly shut down. The amount of money that was thrown away by them was beyond idiotic.

They could have burned the office down and they still would have been in the same role the next day.

It starts from the top, as soon as incompetent people are given positions of power poor decision making and the fear of putting a target on your back spreads down the ladder like a toxic disease. The individuals who don’t play any games and have genuine potential to improve things and make a positive impact are never given the opportunity or responsibility because there’s too much of a risk incompetent management will be exposed for what they really are.

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058337551/are-the-irish-fit-to-be-let-at-the-controls

Do you understand the concept of the separation of powers and why we like pretty much every western country incorporates into our for of government? In case you don’t… we do it because we fully expect there will be corruption, mismanagement, favoritism and all the rest when we put people in positions of power. The only time you should be concerned is when you are not hearing about people being caught, because all that means is that we’re failing to catch them because it still goes on.

Ireland, like Switzerland where I live, are the only two countries at least in Europe, are so distrustful of parliament that we reserve constitutional matters to the people and enable citizens to hold parliament to account. You don’t hear people in other countries if an act of parliament or a government action is constitutional because they don’t have such a right.

So long as we keep having scandals, it means our system is working as we expect it to and we are more than capable of managing our affairs. The day you stop hearing about scandals is the day you should be very very worried.

neiphin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121806172#Comment_121806172

Not until we go to the Scandinavian model

Rubberchikken

We need people in politics who are decent and honest and unwilling to become part of the rotten boys club that is the dail.

Or rte for that matter. Or any organisation in this country tbh.

But while I think some people do go into jobs in these places with a good heart and a want to affect change, they get sucked into a system that is poisonous and self-serving.

It's no different in any other country. African countries are riddled with ineptitude and corruption. European countries are being controlled by the EU and imo have no say in the running of their own country

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121806021#Comment_121806021

in fairness Churchill, if he made the claim, would be in no position to talk about others not being able to govern themselves.

he was a racist who starved millions to death in india among other atrocities, he was simply being racist against the irish because he could not stand the fact we mostly gained independence and while we ended up continuing to be an impoverished backward nation we were at least attempting to make a go of things as much as we could given the circumstances we were in.

all of the bad that we ended up with, the strong enablement of the catholic church and dev's policies were all a misguided attempt to take back and instigate our culture as a response against our former occupiers.

we are well capable of governing ourselves, our politicians are simply delivering the type of governence those who vote for them want.

for all our faults, i'm glad our country is mostly independant and hopefully the occupied 6 will be freed in time.

i'm glad we gained independence and i would never change it for the world, we had a long hard struggle but we are a good country with issues that can easily be changed but it requires people to vote for change.

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121810740#Comment_121810740

european countries are not being "controled" by the EU.

they are simply expected to abide by the rules they agreed to abide by when they joined, and abide by the rules that they voted for or a majority voted for.

the very same as any other club that an individual or country may join.

if european countries were being controlled by the EU, they would not be able to implement anything of their own accord and yet they do.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121810740#Comment_121810740

If this was the case wouldn’t Ireland have increased the corporate tax rate years ago?

In terms of job for the boys in Europe which gets fired out all the time, what jobs are Ireland politicians getting? We will always have to have a presence in Europe but do we have some additional privileges that would see politicians in Ireland think they will get jobs?

In terms of the thread, it’d just the latest in a constant stream of thread which are never ending to complain about Ireland. If you hate it so much why not head off to another country would be my question? Can’t be good for your own health to live in a country a lot of people seem to loathe.

spuddy

Yes, we absolutely are fit to be in control! There are many brilliant Irish leaders who prove time and again how effective they are.

They don't run the country however, that's done by the civil/public service. They can be great, but only when they absolutely have to be. Two cases in point, the IDA, who are highly competent at attracting foreign direct investment to this country (they had to be as for the first 70 years of our Ireland's existence, our economic performance left a lot to be desired). The other competent body are the Revenue Commissioners (no point in raising all of that tax if we cannot collect it). Most of the rest of the public institutions are mediocre at best, borne out by most international comparisons (health, education, housing etc). Most of us live in (blissful?) ignorance, but every now and then the mask slips. RTE got caught out, as did the FAI, Tusla and a few others, but do you really think they are the only ones? There's a much bigger story here.

Piskin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121806447#Comment_121806447

He did make a clown out of Collins & Griffith

HalloweenJack

I don't think Ireland is really any different than other countries which have corruption and incompetence to varying extents.

I do, however, believe that a big part of the problems with Irish infrastructure is cronyism and parish pump politics.

The country is relatively small and a lot of people know each other. The amount of political dynasties is one sign of this. I remember just before the 2011 election practically every adult in the Andrews family held some sort of political position while their cousin Tubbs seemingly had free reign in RTE. Its not just the Healy-Raes who are up to it. Generations of influential families have spread across different levels of the national infrastructure where its not what you know but who you know is what matters.

And a related problem is going up to Dublin on local issues. The Dail is for national matters. Holding governments to ransom to get more investment in the local area is understandably a vote-winner but it doesn't help the country advance. By all means, give the county councils more funding and more powers but the Dail should be used solely for national matters instead of pandering to the concerns of every single constituency.

There isn’t a country or person in the world that is an expert on how to manage the Social, Economic & Environmental complexities of life on this planet.

Unsound Resource management is universal across every country.

And We are some of the first people in centuries thats been freed of Religion so it’s natural enough that people & leaders are a bit aimless or lost in what to do NOW.

I believe nearly every single problem we face today is of our own making.

If we are making all these problem’s then how are we doing that? Our management, decision making processes & policy’s.

We got to start planning Holistically. Very simple to do.

Voting twice on the Lisbon treaty left an awful stain on democracy.

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121810861#Comment_121810861

Perhaps but C & G had a weak hand to play. Negotiations don't always take place on an even keel.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121810953#Comment_121810953

....jaysus, someone is a little sensitive when it comes to reality!

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121810953#Comment_121810953

Ah yes, apartheid ending. PC gone mad.... Good job at showing your true colours though.

boetstark

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121811496#Comment_121811496

Starting to go off topic. You may not like my colours but it is the truth.

Apartheid, separate development was a sound policy but successive NP governments abused the policy with policies such as pass cards , immortality act etc.

I believed in that so much so that I wore a SAPS uniform.

Most countries unfortunately are in a worse off position thses days.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121811132#Comment_121811132

Why?

The 2nd vote had one of the highest turnouts for any EU vote and was overwhelmingly past by a large margin.

Is that not the literal definition of democracy?

Also Ireland were the only EU member who had a public vote.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121811805#Comment_121811805

No absolutely not.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121811956#Comment_121811956

Do explain?

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121810725#Comment_121810725

Which is?

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121806021#Comment_121806021

Hard to disagree with that, when you see the money that the government are wasting, despite us being one of the most indebted countries in the world per head of population. Six figure pensions to some politicians. The guts of €400,000 per year to Michael D Higgins, between his salary and existing pension. How many hundreds of thousands to bring in pets (dogs) from Ukraine. How much on the new National childrens hospital, by far the most expensive per bed in the world?

corner of hells

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121806401#Comment_121806401

He lived in Ireland for 4 years between the ages of 2 and 6 , I doubt he had any real interest in Ireland at that age.

However his adult quotes include “ Their [Irish] conduct will never be forgiven in the war by the British people…we must save these people from themselves.”

and “a small poor, sparsely populated island, lapped about by British sea power" along with “We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.”

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121813573#Comment_121813573

Churchill racist to his very marrow.