General Election and Government Formation Megathread (see post #1)

sozbox wrote: »

so you think someone who can't even improve their own economic situation is somehow the best person to improve the states economic situation?

tear up your polling card ffs

SafeSurfer wrote: »

I think a more likely outcome is

1 Green
1 PBP
1 FG
1FF

Godot. wrote: »

Oh come on, we've become one of the most successful countries in the world, as much as people like to mock FF/FG.

Apparently every government we have is rubbish, yet we've transformed from a poor backwater to a rich country ranked 3rd on the Human Development Index.

is_that_so wrote: »

It's actually not the job of the MOH, They just produce overall policy, plans and the money. It's the job of the HSE to manage the budget. There's not much any minister can do , when the real culprits, hospital managers, come cap in hand every year without fail for a handout. I'm indifferent to whoever the new MOH is as it's really Slaintecare from now on but I really do hope that Paul Reid finally gets the beast of the "new" HSE under control.

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Is it possible, and I ask this because don't really know myself, that if every government seems to be bad and every political party has its problems, then it's possible that we simply have too high expectations of our politicians?

I mean, for a start, anyone who is honest, competent and has integrity probably won't go into politics in Ireland or indeed anywhere. There is simply too much involved in getting elected that has to be paid back for anyone who is completely inscrutable to ever get elected. A classic example is when a local councillor gets a seat in the Dail. You can pretty much guarantee that they will co-opt someone who was on their campaign team to their seat on the council. Then there is the much murkier world of political donations, lobbying etc. Without doing anything illegal such as taking bribes, there are still ways and means of acquiring influence with politicians which, since all parties engage in it, none of them want to complain about it.

Coupled with that, you have the problem that there will often be compromises to be made with the senior civil servants. Ireland isn't like America where a new president can sweep in and fire all the top brass and make a new start. If any politician tried to get rid of incumbent senior civil servants, other than for very clear reasons, there will be mass strikes etc and the government will grind to a halt. The same applies with making cuts - once spending is in place, its very hard for any politician to end it without a backlash.

So really what we have is a system whereby politicians struggle to get elected, requiring the support of many others, and when they get there, they have to pay those supporters back. Coupled with that, there is very little that politicians can actually do. Ministers get to set overall policy, but they don't micromanage their departments and they cannot make sweeping or dramatic changes.

I think this is the reality and so we must, rather cynically, choose the least worst options to be our political leaders. When the children's hospital goes overbudget, it is not like the Minister for Health has been on the site carrying out inspections and individually negotiating contracts with subcontractors etc. So all other things being equal, it may not have mattered who was Minister for Health at the time. True, the Minister decided on the St. James' site rather than Connolly, but again the Minister gets to choose from the options drawn up by his or her department, and at the time there was a more compelling case for it to be in St. James'. In fact, given that the proposals have been floating around since 2006, there have been a series of Ministers for Health who have had to grapple with it.

Thus, if you hold politicians up to a high standard, you will always be disappointed. That is not to say that we have to accept that certain failures and mistakes must be made, but it is useful, when criticising a sitting government, to ask whether any other politician would have done otherwise. FF, SF etc are all criticising FG for the overruns on the hospital site now, but how many of them were criticising them at the time the decisions were made? And if they weren't, one can reasonably infer that had those parties been in power, they would've made the same mistakes.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

When the Minister for Health is not ultimately in charge of the organisation responsible for the provision of health services it just shows how completely dysfunctional our government it.

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

Keith Mills says there will be more polls released over the next 72 hours, also a Kerry constituency poll on Tuesday.

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Ministers should not be making decisions about the provision of health services. You really don't want decisions about, for example, structure of cancer care services being made by somebody who's future career depends on them getting re-elected by the good people of Sligo or Waterford for example. You'll get no hard decisions made if Ministers are in direct control.

sid waddell wrote: »

50 candidates last time, 42 this time.

I think that shows how SF themselves are as surprised as anybody by the sudden turn around in their fortunes.

It's not long since a lot of people, me included, had them down to fall to as low as 12 or 13 seats.

But I think a lot of their surge has been down to disillusionment with FG and FF rather than genuine enthusiasm for SF.

satguy wrote: »

I would like to see FF pay some price for propping up FG this last while, it also showed Micheál Martin to be a bit on the timid / yellow side.

I also feel a back lash by voters is heading FG's way. FG might have put too much effort into looking after the D4 & RTE set, and the rest of us noticed this time.

SF do have some baggage, but so do FF and FG, (bad cap spending, no homes to live in, big money contracts for Dinny.), I do feel the country will again vote for a FF / SF goverment.

But unlike last time, the air feels right, and we may well get that FF/SF partnership we voted for last time, but were cheated of.

hotmail.com wrote: »

The Irish Times usually carries out a poll at the end of the campaign. So we'll hopefully have another poll before Saturday.

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Ministers are accountable in a very hard-edged manner. It's happening next Saturday, and it's likely to result in all Ministers and their advisers losing their jobs.

It's easy to say that Ministers should take the necessary steps, but fo any given Minister, there are aspects outside of their control. The Minister of Health doesn't control public pay policy, yet most of his 16 billion budget goes on pay. So when the HSE runs up extra costs because extra sick people landed up at the door, who exactly do you intend to hold accountable?