Bertie Ahern walks out of German TV interview

sdanseo wrote: »

One of the principal findings of the Mahon Tribunal (at a cost of €120m) was that, paraphrased, Irish Politics is rotten to the core.

If you think voting FG instead of FF is any better in the long term you're deluded. Yes many switched to them short term because that Cowen govt was anabomination. But all FG have done in the last seven years is nod the head to any corporation with influence (just like FF did), promise large amounts of infrastructure without actually delivering anything of note (FF actually delivered a lot of what was promised and did it cheaper and faster), and any time anyone asks FG a difficult question they say "eh" 4 times and then blame the government which left office more than seven years ago for leaving the coffers empty. That excuse ran out of steam in 2014.

tl;dr, they're both crap.
The only worse option is Sinn Féin and unfortunately that pretty much exhausts all political parties / government combinations since Labour are basically finished.

rafatoni wrote: »

I wonder does he still not have a bank account?

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

Frankly id be embarrassed to be even associated with that man. But his family did really well out of it- Cecilia Ahern a successful novelist and the other one has a great life too- all off the back of ordinary people in Ireland who had to suffer because of that gobsh!te and his decisions when in power. As corrupt as you get and an absolute brazen neck to boot.

hullaballoo wrote: »

Not going to argue with the majority of your post but the Seanad plays an important role in our democracy. Sure, it's not the best upper house in the world, but it's there as a safeguard against a rogue Dáil.

As you point out, a looney party in SF has a significant part of the electorate voting for them. If they were to take a majority in the Dáil, four years could do an awful lot of damage without the checks and balances afforded by a Senate.

Have a look at the doctrine of the separation of powers. It's of fundamental importance to a functioning democracy that no one person or party or limb of the state has unanswerable control over the law. It's one thing that's universal in democracy and it's the reason that Trump hasn't complete fcuked the US despite his best efforts.

When FG were elected with Labour in 2011, there was a raft of legislation brought in that were power grabs. Shatter was responsible for most of it, imo. Trying to sneak in various fundamental constitutional changes without any real information being given. It was worse then than it is now in terms of governmental disinformation.

People have short memories but there were a few legislative changes and even referendums that we voted on that are all evidence of the power grab.

- The Oireachtas Courts - this was a referendum that was ostensibly to empower the Oireachtas to act as a court, compel evidence, make findings etc. and was thankfully defeated at the polls.
- The Judges pay - central to the separation of powers is the concept that one limb of the State cannot interfere with another - the judiciary were protected by a provision that stated their pay could not be reduced while in office. This is now gone (as a result of a referendum) and judges' pay can be reduced at the whim of the Dáil. I don't think the Seanad can protect judges as this is a money issue, which can bypass the Seanad.
- The LSRA Bill. While I think the general public perception is that lawyers need better regulation, the regulation initially proposed by the bill as drafted by Shatter was an absolute power grab that would have totally compromised our status as a democracy. It was toned down before enactment and now could be regarded as a reasonable piece of legislation that could be useful and beneficial to society. But initially, almost absolute power was to be vested in the minister for justice, who happened to be Alan Shatter at the time.

These are examples, just a few, of attacks against democracy by the powers that be over recent years. It's important to point this out because people seem to be blind to the effects of the various seachanges happening around them. Sure the lawyers will object to anything that upsets their gravy train etc. but the reality is that some of us are not looking to preserve a gravy train but to protect fundamental rights and democratic freedoms so that we don't have a situation where a few hold all of the power.

The Seanad, despite its obvious flaws, has a role in protecting the People.