Simon Harris, the TikTok Taoiseach

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121938397#Comment_121938397

Back in the day I was offered an apartment in Bulgaria, looked at it and said no chance. I would end up too much in debt. Personal decision. Now if I had invest in that property who was to blame?

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121938421#Comment_121938421

Calling an election now is pointless for FF, they get no bump at all. Better off staying in government and watching SF kill itself without having to do anything.

It would be idiotic now to call a GE with the current status that a lot of people haven't worked out yet the SF policies are a bag of cats. That is slowly been worked out for people, let it continue.

SF want an election now for the exact reason above. People are also bored of the permanent outraged act from Pearse etc. So can they come up with something new instead of waving papers and faux outrage? I doubt it

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121938341#Comment_121938341

Go on post "lame duck" again 🤣

Any job deserves holidays.

hotmail.com

If Neale Richmond is promoted to the cabinet, then I think Fine Gael will further decline in the polls.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121939231#Comment_121939231

Have you made any predictions which result in an increase in FG support?

Or just a list of random stuff which you think will mean the demise of FG?

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121939241#Comment_121939241

Neale Richmond is toxic with the public.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121939265#Comment_121939265

😂

So that's a no on posting anything that means an increase in FG

In terms of your predictions. Not really getting many right are you?

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121938421#Comment_121938421

Generally parties who cause unnecessary elections fail at the polls they cause.

There is only one horse in town for FF, FG and the Greens. Stick it out until after the next budget.

The house completion numbers are increasing. Anyone that wants to work has a job. The numbers are starting to come around again for the government. Stick it out and hope for improved figrues

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121939365#Comment_121939365

Normally people on here give opinions rather than asking questions and saying nothing.

Richard Hillman

I wonder will Simon make it long enough for the White House visit. The latest election date is the 25th of March but even if it's before, he might still be in place as a new government is set up.

Also, how long for his Ukraine photo op? I'll give him 2 weeks

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121938532#Comment_121938532

Spot on Clo

SF support the hate speech bill, oh wait no they don't. They supported yes yes in the recent referendum, then had a pop at government when it got rejected. 1 arse cheek on each side of every fence.

https://jrnl.ie/6337808

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121942892#Comment_121942892

....

MilkyToast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121942892#Comment_121942892

You'd respect them more if they admitted they'd changed their position in line with the public mood, honestly. Their ambition is presumably (ostensibly) to run the country for the benefit of the people - being cognisant of the public mood and adapting to it isn't a bad thing.

scottser

Gaelers. Bunch of jockstains is all they are, and Harris is the single most obsequious and irrelelvant of them all. He'll hand the Shinners the next election on a plate.

TokTik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121938306#Comment_121938306

We’re constantly told that the massive amounts of holidays that our “representatives” get, aren’t in fact holidays, but it’s time spent in their constituency offices etc. Now it comes to a crunch point and they are holidays.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121946478#Comment_121946478

Are we constantly been told that?

Maybe they are, maybe they are not.

Still doesn't make a difference to them having to return or not does it now?

kazamo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121937581#Comment_121937581

I always find it interesting that the “no one was at fault” excuse is trotted out so easily.

We as a country seem to love the “systems failure”.

We investigated it for years and even got the rubbish about the retiring DPP was essential to prosecution…….but there were no successful prosecutions for the crash. If we did not copy British company law legislation, even the financial reporting shinanigans would have been ok.

Our crash was going to happen anyway regardless of what happened worldwide but it is always convenient to pretend that the world dragged us down. The world situation brought matters to a head rather than caused the downfall on all the Irish banks and Building Societies.

House prices were over inflated, and banks reliant on short term financing to fund the mortgage market, can’t blame external factors for that messing. Our Financial Regulator was asleep and we all are paying the cost.

Just a side note on BOI, and the repayment.

Yes, they made good on the loans they received but the 90% fall in the share price has never been recovered. In mid 2008 the share price was 9 euro and it is now back to €9 euro now. However they did a 30 for 1 share swop a few years ago so the current price would need to rise to 270 euro to fully redeem the shareholders. I am aware of the risk of shares, but the main banks were seen as blue chip investments and all Irish pension funds would have had sizeable holdings in banks being run in a reckless manner. Shares dropping from €9 down to about seven cent would indicate something went seriously wrong. And strangely we still allow them use their accumulated losses.

But sure it happened without human wrongdoing of any kind……..a weird coincidence

And what is the legacy today, house prices are back to 2008 levels and if history repeated itself, the banks know they would be bailed out once more with remote possibility of prosecution.

It’s as if collective amnesia has taken place…….

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121947046#Comment_121947046

I didn’t say “no one was at fault”

The opposite in fact and that’s hundreds/thousands if not millions of people are at fault

I didn’t bother reading the rest after that 👍

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121942866#Comment_121942866

How sad are our politicians that the trip to Washington in March is the highlight of their lives.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121947051#Comment_121947051

You were rehashing the old worn 'sure we were all in on it' type mantra.

And there a great many people who will stoutly resist that attempt to rewrite history. We, my family & neighbours can't be unique in our chats at the time, to the effect that all the lending on offer and loans being taken on was nonsense and it just couldn't last.

I know a couple not far from here who borrowed heavily and built a big mansion of a place (when they had a perfectly good house), heard they had a substantial part of the loans written off, still live there. I've no time for them and never will have.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121947229#Comment_121947229

I never said everyone was at it

So I am not "rehashing" anything.

I couldn't care less what imaginary conversation you had with imaginary people.

Would you rather see those people out on the street? just so you could see "them taken down a peg or two"?

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121947356#Comment_121947356

Eh this is you effectively saying... we were all in it.

"If you want people to get put into jail for causing the crash then you would cover all the people who bought houses and could never afford them, all sorts of carry on was going on in the banks but also with the regular person who wanted to "get a foot on the property ladder"

A person working in a bank selling mortgages? are you going to put them into jail as well?

The list goes on and on and on."

As for the couple I mentioned, they should bloody well have been turfed out of their fancy gaff, obliged to purchase somewhere more modest and the big place sold to recover some money. Debt write off creates moral hazard - they got away with it.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121948713#Comment_121948713

No it's not.

So make up whatever bulls**t you want after that but I never said that. So bang away you have tried that a few times and sure why not give it another go

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121948802#Comment_121948802

It's funny how other posters understood the same of your rhetoric, isn't it?

_Kaiser_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121948802#Comment_121948802

To be fair, what you have essentially said is "we all partied!"

You're not the first one to make that claim/argument, but it's completely untrue. Those who were sensible or who certainly didn't spend to excess, were witness to those who did being allowed to retain the property or get write-offs because there was no political appetite to evict people from the "family home".

This is all a matter of record. There's no point in denying it.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121949153#Comment_121949153

I don't remember posting "we all partied", you sure that was me?

If you think the best plan of action was to mass evict people in negative equity etc insteading of working with them on payment plans to keep them in houses then Im not sure you would get much support with that plan.

Would anyone have supported that plan? not just the government but the population?

Maybe I am wrong but that's what you seem to be posting

_Kaiser_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121949206#Comment_121949206

I said that you are effectively saying "we all partied!" - which you are. It wasn't a direct quote.

As for what should have happened - many of those people didn't bother to engage or made minimal efforts to repay their debt.

Those who genuinely and honestly make the best effort to engage should be supported. The other group however should be/have been evicted.

What about those who did still pay their mortgages in full during that period? Or those who were renting? Where was their support?

As usual, those who try to do things right in this coutnry and pay their way are the first to be screwed over every time!

But I digress... this thread isn't about the Crash or the causes/fallout from it.

What it IS about is a man who his now Government partners were voting no confidence in not that long ago, and who has no track record to speak of, but who is about to be nominated to the most important post we have based on nothing more than FG party politics.

The damage he and the likes of McEntee can do in another year is immense. You will disagree of course (as is your right), but there is no mandate for this mess to continue any longer than it already has. They've failed on housing, on health, on immigration (which they're actively making worse!) and now we have a zombie coalition that will limp on purely because they don't want to face the electorate - or maybe it's that some of the players haven't served enough time to get their full payouts?

In any case, it's not in the best interests of this country.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121949899#Comment_121949899

So you done exactly what the other poster did even after I said multiple times I never said that? seems a bit pointless doesn't it?

But people did get evicted, plenty of news about it at the time.

I honestly am struggling to see the point here, people paid their mortgages as usual. Some didn't and got payment plans. Some did neither and got evicted. Im sure the odd case the people got to stay in the house.

But again I go back to my last post, did you think anyone in Ireland or the government wanted to force mass evictions? even the people paying their mortgage?

I was paying my mortgage at the time, it was a struggle but I certainly wasn't going around demanding that people get kicked out of their houses. I don't see what the benefot of that would have been? I would still of had to pay my mortgage

How long ago is "not that long ago"?

The government got elected that is in place now. Not sure why you can claim they have "no mandate".

corkie

@_Kaiser_ What it IS about is a man who his now Government partners were voting no confidence in not that long ago,

What people forget is that :-

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30905873.html

FF abstained, But an election was called not long afterwards.

Minister of Health: -

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121943937#Comment_121943937

I stupidly talked about there being 18 other coronaviruses which of course there isn't. I can be an awful ol' idiot at times. ~ Simon Harris

Old idiot? Not that old Simon.

https://twitter.com/nialloloughlin/status/1773449767793639804

Hamachi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121936970#Comment_121936970

Of course she is Ash! Can you enumerate her many achievements?