"Ireland is a Kip" - Eamon Dunphy

padd b1975 · 22-09-2017 02:00PM

"You can't get good coke in this town!"

So we have a guy with a casual attitude to illegal drugs as well as being a repeat drink driving offender holding court about the state of the nation???

Unbelievable!

Guy has zero credibility in my opinion, he has gone from indulging the likes of Shane Ross to flirting with the loony left.

Hector Savage · 22-09-2017 02:01PM

What poor people ?
Everytime I go home everyone has a 172D 4x4 Jeep + at least one other car, a €600,000 house, is getting a massive extension ....

Pinch Flat · 22-09-2017 02:03PM

He should leave then.

Del.Monte · 22-09-2017 02:06PM

Hector Savage wrote: »

What poor people ?
Everytime I go home everyone has a 172D 4x4 Jeep + at least one other car, a €600,000 house, is getting a massive extension ....

Sure, sure..:rolleyes:

22-09-2017 02:08PM

Ah yeah, Eamon Dunphy. Never mind the alcoholism; find me a sober journalist and I'll find you an honest one.

If, however, somebody could link to his attacks on John Hume in the early 1990s they would be a fine epitaph for Dunphy's life work. It doesn't matter that Dunphy, when he saw the political climate changing and only then, apologised for being one of many bootboys for the now bankrupt Tony O'Reilly and his Sunday Independent rag. The sustained Sunday Independent attacks on Hume were of lynch mob proportions. Dunphy is a really vile little thug who got paid extraordinarily well for his thuggery. The fact that Shane Ross was best man at his wedding is a very good measure of Dunphy's abject knacker status.

Mutant z · 22-09-2017 02:13PM

He called it that when speaking to Ryan Tubridy on the LLS a good few years back.

Hector Savage · 22-09-2017 02:17PM

Del.Monte wrote: »

Sure, sure..:rolleyes:

Seriously ... go to Raheny/MAywood/Bettyglen estates ... not exactly posh territory either ...

AllGunsBlazing · 22-09-2017 02:20PM

In the 1980's Eamonn was an incisive writer and pundit. Sadly, the years and the bottle have not been kind. An attention seeking parody of his former self.

Crea · 22-09-2017 02:25PM

Arghus wrote: »

He's exaggerating, but he has a point.

Agreed. The systematic mismanagement of most areas of our public services is ridiculous. Between this and the inflexibility of public service workers millions of euro are being wasted. The politicians won't do anything because they ate more interested in keeping their seats than improving the country.

thecornflake · 22-09-2017 02:34PM

A lot of people saying other countries are worse of la la la and that we're not really that bad.

Pretty bad attitude tbh, surely we should be worrying about ourselves and if we think we are getting what we deserve in Ireland, not compared to any other country.

_Kaiser_ · 22-09-2017 02:38PM

Pinch Flat wrote: »

He should leave then.

Why? Because you don't like the message?

A far better idea would be that we as a country stop accepting the corruption, the waste and general incompetence that pervades pretty much EVERYTHING in this State and start asking TDs and other elected officials what they plan to do about it, and vote accordingly - holding them to account if they don't live up to it.

It's attitudes like this and the "ah it's only Dunphy" sentiments that allow this culture to continue.

Tombo2001 · 22-09-2017 02:40PM

The thing about Eamon Dunphy is that there is no conceivable situation where he say Ireland isnt a kip......

No matter how good things got here, he would still be saying Ireland is a kip.

Based on all the stuff he reads in the newspaper about how ordinary Irish people live, he ought to know....

Tombo2001 · 22-09-2017 02:42PM

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Why? Because you don't like the message?

A far better idea would be that we as a country stop accepting the corruption, the waste and general incompetence that pervades pretty much EVERYTHING in this State and start asking TDs and other elected officials what they plan to do about it, and vote accordingly - holding them to account if they don't live up to it.

It's attitudes like this and the "ah it's only Dunphy" sentiments that allow this culture to continue.

The problem is.....

What does that look like, in the real world.

Where is the real life situation of where people have tried to do this, and it didnt end up in 60 years of dictatorship.

Tombo2001 · 22-09-2017 02:43PM

Hector Savage wrote: »

What poor people ?
Everytime I go home everyone has a 172D 4x4 Jeep + at least one other car, a €600,000 house, is getting a massive extension ....

If by everybody you mean 1% of people, then yes.

tastyt · 22-09-2017 02:46PM

If only wes was taoiseach.....

Wheeliebin30 · 22-09-2017 02:51PM

Champagne socialist.

jimmycrackcorm · 22-09-2017 02:53PM

_Kaiser_ wrote:

It's attitudes like this and the "ah it's only Dunphy" sentiments that allow this culture to continue.

I'd change my attitude of someone could specify a country that we should be like, where they may not have some of our problems but a whole host of other replacements.

In the meantime I'll happily live here.

Stonedpilot · 22-09-2017 02:55PM

A head on him like a chewed up toffee.

Hasn't a clue how good he has it. Gets paid a fortune to mouth off nonsense egotistical coke fuelled shyte.

Coked up to the gills most of the time.

If Ireland's a kip like to see live in Baghdad or somewhere for a while.

BrokenArrows · 22-09-2017 02:57PM

Ridge Strong Bacon wrote: »

You have never had a mortgagee, car loan, or such like, then?

Thats a poor comparison.

Ireland national debit is 195 billion (http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/ireland)

It was its lowest in 2006 just before the crash at 35 billion (http://www.ntma.ie/business-areas/funding-and-debt-management/debt-profile/historical-debt/) and its been rising every year since.

Its been rising every year since 2006 and its still rising even tough the country is apparently recovering.

Your comparison to a mortgage , car loan etc is that usually you take out the loan and repay it without taking on more debt.

Ireland on the other hand has been taking on more debt and cannot reduce its national debt.

Currently it represents about 80% of GDP and its increasing not decreasing.

Its the equivalent of you having a mortgage, a car loan and a bunch of other loans outstanding and you're still unable to pay the electric bill so you need to go and get another loan.

storker · 22-09-2017 03:05PM

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

The guy has a point alright and anyone who can't see it needs to take off the nationalist pride glasses.
No, it's not the worst country in the world, yes there are a lot of things to like about the place... but there are some serious flaws too.

- The constant, never-ending scandals that emerge (be it Gardai, politics, charities, civil service etc) but which are never really addressed

- The waste and mismanagement of public taxes.. from Irish Water, to e-Voting machines, to the stuff emerging from RTE lately. Again, all just "tolerated"

- The fact that despite being in "recovery", we have a massive homelessness and working poor crisis, the never-ending mess that is health, piss-poor public transport in the capital etc

- The "ah shure it'll be grand" approach to pretty much EVERYTHING which both enables the above, AND accounts for why nothing is ever really done about it

Dunphy comes out with a lot of stuff I'd disagree with, but on this one he isn't far off the mark to be fair.

Good summary. Sure he's over-egging the pudding, but that shouldn't distract people from what he's saying. It's also bad logic to judge a statement on the identity of the person making it, rather than on its own merits.

The "it'll be grand" attitude to problems and the "it'll do" attitude to half-baked solutions are indeed at the root of a lot of it, and I believe this is why we are sleepwalking into setting up the next generation to be the first in a long time which will be worse off than the previous one. In fact, I suspect that our leaders are walking into it with their eyes wide open, because their kids will be OK whatever happens.

What they're not seeing is that they're sending a very clear message that ordinary people don't matter. This is not something that's unique to Ireland, though. It fed into Trump's election win in the US, it fed into the Brexit result un the UK, and it fed into FG's precarious reliance on FF good will to keep it in power. The problem is, that the great and the good seem to be illiterate when it comes to reading the writing on the wall, as Leo sets up his new spin machine to "get the message across". The last time I heard that kind of talk it was when the Tories in Britain were nose-diving in the polls. "People just aren't getting the message," they consoled themselves. But people were getting the message; it was just that they'd decided that the message sucked. This was followed by a long period in opposition for the Tories...

wakka12 · 22-09-2017 03:11PM

Yeh, even worse than Syria.
Nearly every country in the world also suffers similar problems, it is impossible for a country to have no problems what so ever its simply part of living in a society. For instance irelands rates of homelessness are no better or worse than many other european countries, its only called a 'crisis 'here. Germany, Canada, Uk, USA all have much more homeless people per capita.
We have it very very good here in ireland, people need to appreciate that. And even more importantly, being from here gives us the privilege to settle almost anywhere else in the world we want to. Irish and american people have got to be some of the most ungrateful people in the world

ToddyDoody · 22-09-2017 03:24PM

Ireland has a great fighting spirit.

I think we're a bit lob sided in how we go about things... Particularly our finances. In politics friendship seems more important than small matters like finance, as the past has proven.

Best compare us to Italy and Portugal maybe rather than more functional countries.

A Little Pony · 22-09-2017 03:26PM

wakka12 wrote: »

Yeh, even worse than Syria.
Nearly every country in the world also suffers similar problems, it is impossible for a country to have no problems what so ever its simply part of living in a society. For instance irelands rates of homelessness are no better or worse than many other european countries, its only called a 'crisis 'here. Germany, Canada, Uk, USA all have much more homeless people per capita.
We have it very very good here in ireland, people need to appreciate that. And even more importantly, being from here gives us the privilege to settle almost anywhere else in the world we want to. Irish and american people have got to be some of the most ungrateful people in the world

Every country has problems of course. But the homeless and health service going by what Dunphy has said sounds like an utter mess. I thought the Irish economy was improving?

BillyBobBS · 22-09-2017 03:32PM

ToddyDoody wrote: »

Ireland has a great fighting spirit.

I think we're a bit lob sided in how we go about things... Particularly our finances. In politics friendship seems more important than small matters like finance, as the past has proven.

Best compare us to Italy and Portugal maybe rather than more functional countries.

"Fighting spirit"??? Will you ever stop. We are a nation of fence sitters.

_Kaiser_ · 22-09-2017 03:43PM

A Little Pony wrote: »

Every country has problems of course. But the homeless and health service going by what Dunphy has said sounds like an utter mess. I thought the Irish economy was improving?

It is in certain areas.. both in terms of sector and geographical location.

Yes there's been a definite upswing in IT, Financial Services and other service-based industry in and around the greater Dublin area (and also to a lesser but noticeable extent in Cork, Limerick and Galway).... but there are large parts of the country which have yet to see any real improvements at all.

This is what cost the FG/LAB coalition the last election.. their "Keep the Recovery going" just didn't ring true in these other places, and even where it IS true (Dublin), the housing/rental crisis, public transport shortcomings, and generally hugely expensive costs of living (and no, Dublin is not London no matter how many times that comparison is used as justification) are limiting the full potential of the recovery.

Brexit will be a massive challenge AND opportunity for this country... but we're busy squandering the latter because of the above issues, and I reckon we're nowhere near ready for the former either, as our Government seems quite content to let the EU negotiators dictate the outcome despite the direct impact it'll have here on both trade and movement.

jacksie66 · 22-09-2017 03:45PM

This post has been deleted.

wakka12 · 22-09-2017 03:54PM

A Little Pony wrote: »

Every country has problems of course. But the homeless and health service going by what Dunphy has said sounds like an utter mess. I thought the Irish economy was improving?

The homeless situation is bad simply because nobody should be sleeping on streets when there are so many resources available in western nations. But it is not unique to ireland what so ever. Only a few hundred irish people sleep rough daily in ireland, compared to well over half a million sleeping rough nightly in usa.Roughly 100-250 sleep rough in Dublin daily, this is during peak crisis right now btw. Even taking population difference into account irish homeless numbers are baby numbers comapred to many other western countries.
But still, nobody should be sleeping rough anywhere, so its not an excuse for not caring. The sensationalism over it is ridiculous though

whisky_galore · 22-09-2017 03:58PM

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

- The "ah shure it'll be grand" approach to pretty much EVERYTHING which both enables the above, AND accounts for why nothing is ever really done about it.

THIS.

It doesn't come as a surprise now that something, somewhere, be it a new development, state policy or major restructuring is a half-a*sed, half baked, Aldi bargain bucket effort. The acceptance of second or third rate work or results.

Add to that 'cute hoorism'/chancer culture (at every level of society, from bankers gambling down to social welfare fraud), and the learned helplessness of those who are in a position to be able to turn things around for the better, but don't.

It's not simply knocking for the sake of knocking. We are a great country but it could be so much better if it were possible certain attitudes and mindsets were purged.

chrissb8 · 22-09-2017 03:58PM

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

Ireland is one of the safest, most stable places on earth. He should travel outside Western Europe and see what real kips are like.

That sort of nonsense is pointless. Why would I compare Ireland to an African country? I'm going to compare it to a country that is relative to what bracket of standard of living we have. Ireland is indeed really poorly run. A population of 4.7 million and we can't get it right at all. People say what would you do if you were in power? I don't know but I'd stop trying to f**k everything up all the time and leave the mess on the doorstep of the Irish citizens.

wakka12 · 22-09-2017 04:14PM

chrissb8 wrote: »

That sort of nonsense is pointless. Why would I compare Ireland to an African country? I'm going to compare it to a country that is relative to what bracket of standard of living we have. Ireland is indeed really poorly run. A population of 4.7 million and we can't get it right at all. People say what would you do if you were in power? I don't know but I'd stop trying to f**k everything up all the time and leave the mess on the doorstep of the Irish citizens.

Maybe it could be compared to an african country so irish people like you can realise that your quality of life is better than 90% of people's on earth and maybe youll all moan a little less about how much of a kip it is and how hard your life is

"Ireland is a Kip" - Eamon Dunphy

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