Have Fine Gael lost the plot ?

gandalf

With the performance, scandals and otherwise ineptitude of the present Government normally you would expect Fine Gael to storm in at the next General Election. But when you examine the various polls being carried out at the moment it appears that Michael Noonan and company have really lost the plot.

They seem to be grasping at straws and panicking with hair brained ideas trying to win support from the electorate. Two of their ideas have spectacularly backfired, Firstly the Eircom Shares tax rebate & secondly the Taxi drivers compensation. Did Fine Gael make a dramatic mistake in electing Michael Noonan last year, it appears so. John Bruton when he was booted had 39% approval from the electorate, poor old Michael is now down to 31%.

Thanks to the rebate & compensation promises I for one am not voting Fine Gael in the next election unless they come out with something really dramatic. It is a shame that they cannot get their act together as I feel that they do have alot of good politicians.

What are your thoughts on this ?

Gandalf.

Victor

A few things should be noted about Fine Gael and polls to put the recent poll in context.

Polls generally tend to under-estimate what Fine Gael will get in an election (presumably FG voters are more likely to vote). While the Irish Times say they have adjusted this, they have not said by how much.

Fine Gael tend to do quite well in vote transfers (presumably on a ABFF 'anyone but Fianna Fail' basis). Few candidates are elected on first preferences. http://election.polarbears.com/ Second and subsequent preferences tend to follow the following pattern.

Fianna Fail -> PDs & FG (traditionalist centre-right)
Fine Gael -> Labour (mostly ABFF)
Labour Party-> Fine Gael (mostly ABFF)
Green Party -> Labour Party (Green Socialists) and Fine Gael (Green Europeans)
Sinn Fein -> Fianna Fail (Sinn Fein Republicans) and Labour Party (Sinn Fein Socialists) 
Independants and minor parties -> Green Party & Labour Party

Fine Gael leaders almost always have the lowest popularity in polls (presumably they are the target of FF dissatisfaction).

mike65

Victor is spot on with his analisys ( you should be a psephologist!), Michael Noonan has been rather poor, and those
money back offers have'nt helped the party's credibity. Though
the flyer on VRT may work.

I think Noonan is being far too nice once upon and time he could growl for Ireland and was quite witty with it, but in an effort to put the Hep C scandal behind him he's gone all moderate, showing he has teeth would be a start.

A being bold on few things is required esp. Europe/Netrality/PFP and on social issues such as drugs. FF will run a mile from these.

Mike.

billy the squid

As someone from noonans constituency i would have to say that he hasn't impressed me.

That money back offer to eircom shareholders is a joke.

The people who invested in eircom were grown adults who decided to take a risk and lost.

they dont deserve to get their money back.

From what I have been hearing the independents and maybe sinn fein will do well out of this election

Fine gael and the progressive democrats are finnished here

Victor

Originally posted by fcddunne
That money back offer to eircom shareholders is a joke. The people who invested in eircom were grown adults who decided to take a risk and lost. they dont deserve to get their money back.

Couple A: Well off couple, he runs a medium sized business earning €80,000 a year, she works part-time in the bank, the mortgage on the decent sized house is paid off, he has a 3-year old BMW and she has a new 'people-mover', the children go to a 'reputable' fee-paying school, they have a well financed pension, between them they own a number of investments which did well under the Celtic Tiger and they have also just bought an apartment in the city-centre as an investment. They bought approximately £15,000 worth of Eircom shares between them, hoping to diversify their investments further.

Couple B: Working-class couple, he is a shift-supervisor in a factory earning €35,000 a year, she works in the local supermarket, the mortgage on their new house is managable but only with the second income, he needs the family car, a Vectra to get to work although they hope to be able to buy a second car, perhaps a Micra, the children go to the local community school, he has a under-financed company pension. They bought approximately £3,000 worth of Eircom shares between them, their first attempt to provide a nest-egg if any of the children want to go to college.

As the law stands, only Couple A get to write off their Eircom against tax. All the Fine Gael proposal does is level the playing field.

Red Moose

NO matter who lost money on Eircom (and no I didn't, I didn't invest because I figured arse if I'll give any money to Eircom to help them further a stranglehold on our comms market) (and plus that if they did (heven forbid) have to compete, they would lose badly), there were a billion warnings that "shares may go up *or* down, please get proper advice, etc., ".

So when it comes to people investing for basically getting a wodge of cash back, it's greed, plain and simple. Nothing wrong with it, IMHO, but if you get burned, you got burned because you got greedy and weren't clever enough to get out of it. Simple as that, and anyone who believes there should be some sort of tax amnesty for the thousands of people who wanted too much money without doing any real research, well, that's life; they should have to live with it.

Or do we now reward idiocy? And those who say "but the government said it was a sure thing....boohoo, etc., ". Christ, what has the country come to that people believe what the government's says?

Victor

But we reward rich idiots already, why not the less well off ones?

m1ke

anyone who was stupid enough to buy shares in the weakest telecom in western europe, who spend millions marketting their name rather then improving their infrastructure knew they were taking a risk and have to bear the consequences. It's allright to reward risk taking in entrepreneurial cirumstances but not in this make a fast buck ****.

The taxi driver thing is different - I agree with most of what they're doing. A lot of honest familys took out a second mortgage etc... just to buy their plate. And one day a decision by the government depleted their assets from 50-80k to 5k and that to me is not fair... and in situations like that then what FG are proposing is good. They want to setup a board to check who deserves compensation and who doesn't, only fair.

Overall I agree with gandalf, Noonan has been very low profile and has been taking wild pot shots at the electorate with these make a quick vote schemes, same has to be said about Quinn and labour tho. With such a shoddy FF government in power the opposition have just lost the plot And the result might be Sinn Fein getting a bite at the cherry, even worse

SheroN

im running as an independant...everyone vote for me! ! !

clivegood

I hope people consider Fine Gael's proposal to compensate taxi drivers, when they are deciding who to vote for in the general election. Why should taxi drivers be exempt from the same risks of buying businesses as the rest of us. After regularly holding the public to ransom with their pathetic protests, they now expect us (The tax payers) to pay for their over-priced investments.
I say NO COMPENSATION for any of them.

Saruman

I can understand the Taxi driver situation.. it does seem a bit off but then again these things happen and they were not forced to pay that money for their plates! Sh!t happens, it was a risk like any other.. sure i might be a little pissed off but at the end of the day they took a risk and it backfired.

Look at college students.. Before it was free students had to pay their tuition fees and that could be expensive considering they are always broke and almost no earnings! Then one year its free tuition fees! What about students who have paid them in the past and still paying off their loans? And Nurses STILL have to pay their fees, they are i think the only students who have to! How do you think they feel? Its not much different than a taxi driver.. other than its a lot more money but the taxi drivers did not have to be taxy drivers and get overpriced plates! The Government i dont think set the price the taxi drivers paid.. it was taxi drivers themselves that over time pushed up the price as a result of the regulation on issueing plates!

AS for Fine Gael as i said in another thread i dont like their tactics at the moment but either way they are more likely to get my vote than Sinn Fein

NeRb666

Originally posted by m1ke
The taxi driver thing is different - I agree with most of what they're doing. A lot of honest familys took out a second mortgage etc... just to buy their plate. And one day a decision by the government depleted their assets from 50-80k to 5k and that to me is not fair.

I disagree with that. The writing was on the wall for many years that something had to be done about the taxi situation. IMO anyone who re-mortgaged their house in the 5 years or so before deregulation is a fool (just like eircom shareholders). Compensating people who made bad business moves sets a dangerous precedent.

Victor

Originally posted by NeRb666
IMO anyone who re-mortgaged their house in the 5 years or so before deregulation is a fool (just like eircom shareholders).

I object, I _made_ money on eircom, how am i a fool?

GreenHell

ah you made money, then your a traitor


Taxi drivers, uuuh tough luck basically thats the trouble living in an open economy, competition. Now I know it might have seemed fine a few years ago to have a strangel hold on the market, but comsumers didn't like it... customer is always right ya?

FG ... well haha. This country hasn't had a proper opppsition in the last 5 years, what the hell would they be like if they got into power. Even if FG do get into power don't have that rotating Toasiech. Great thats going to be really stable.

Besides FG are going to be relying on labour getting a good number of sets aswell and its looking like SF are going to tare into them all over the country.

FG have about 5/6 talented members but at the moment the only thing they seem to be able to do its dig themselves a deeper hole... lately they have been using a jcb.

Victor

Originally posted by GREENHELL
Besides FG are going to be relying on labour getting a good number of sets aswell and its looking like SF are going to tare into them all over the country.

While Labour and SF may have some common support (the socialist part of each party). I suspect there is very little common support between FG and SF (SF would share common support with FF republicans).

NeRb666

Originally posted by Victor


I object, I _made_ money on eircom, how am i a fool?

What!

Victor

Originally posted by NeRb666
What!

I bought 1954 @ €3.90
I sold 1300 @ €4.95, (income) tax free
I had 654 left over
I got 26 (?) bonus shares
I got dividends
I got Vodaphone share (POS)
I will (hopefully) get my Valentia money