General Irish Government discussion thread [See Post 1805]

hotmail.com wrote: »

Let's see if Mary Lou throws the SF councillor out of the party after his racist and homophobic comments about Leo.

All these comments do is give sympathy to Leo.

Terrible day for Sinn Fein.

Pearse did well debating

Lowering the retirement age when average life expectancy has surged forward to 83 and we are going to have fewer and fewer workers per pensioner is classic populist nonsense.

https://www.irishtimes.com/special-reports/pensions-focus-2019/defusing-the-pension-time-bomb-1.4053759

“The ESRI report from 2017 looking at the demand for healthcare showed significant gaps emerging by 2030, which isn’t that far away,” Kelly says. “The Sláintecare reforms are certainly heading in the right direction but with these significant gaps in demand already building, it will prove difficult to fill them.”

An ageing population will also suffer from more serious and chronic diseases, further placing pressure on health services. “Mental health and wellbeing will be another significant piece of that, and it’s worth bearing in mind that this is significantly impacted by people’s financial wellbeing,” Kelly adds.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/pensions-timebomb-risk-report-warns-workers-not-saving-enough-or-at-all-for-retirement-38373974.html

A major Government report has warned of a looming pensions time-bomb as the number of people entitled to the State pension is set to more than double over the next 36 years.

The latest national risk assessment, published today, has identified the country’s ageing population as one of the most significant risks facing the State in the coming years.

And it warned that Ireland’s low level of private pension coverage – just 35pc of private-sector workers have their own pension – shows many workers are not saving enough, or at all, for their retirement.

The social insurance fund is set to run up a deficit of up to €335bn over the next 50 years as more people are entitled to the State pension.

Some people are of the opinion that no one can be worse than FG...?

* Sinn Fein: 'Hold my beer..'

Probably, as they now realise he should have been made leader.

Another ex-SF councillor? They'd be doing themselves a favour.

rusty cole wrote: »

what do you expect from someone who spent half his life taking kicks to the head? he;s no Aristotle!!

At least they are dealing with it and not standing for it, unlike FG and Maria bailey to name but one fiasco!!!!

In the thick of an election they don't have any choice and it's not as if he can deny it! Otherwise there'd be questions about it every day.

Larbre34 wrote: »

Damien English on TV3VM3T+1-2MT3 there. I'm not sure how we've kept a state together for 100 years when we entrust junior ministerial roles to people who say "pacific" for 'specific'.

He's my local TD. I know all politicians do it, but his election literature is like an inverse Picture of Dorian Gray. If you hadn't met him in person you'd think he hasn't aged in 20 years!

Your local TD is your rep for introducing new law. The idea is you approach them with ideas, and if enough people around the country have the same ideas, and report them to their TDs, the TDs will bring the discussion through the dáil and into law. Example: Gay marriage and a woman's right to choose.

This is why it's very important to choose a TD with the same beliefs as you, and with a realistic manifesto which is in line with your thinking. If you have ideas which you want to be implemented, such as stricter sentencing for example (common at the moment), you can start campaigns to bring everyone who has the same idea together and have a stronger voice so that our lawmakers hear you. Getting signatures, setting up campaign websites or even facebook pages is a good way to find out if your idea has support from the rest of the country.

Ed* wrote: »

Ha! Yes but I’ve no faith in any local TD. This could allow more visibility for what’s important to people more and accountability to the government to deliver.

If enough people feel the same as you, that TD will lose their seat. If you feel strong enough about your idea, you need to campaign for it. Or do more than be a single person submitting an idea. If it's a good idea, enough people will support you, and politicians will listen. They're just people who want to keep their jobs after all. One person doesn't scare them on that front. But if you're expecting a whole government to entertain/track ideas submitted by every single lad with a keyboard, I'm afraid you're grossly over estimating how much time they have!

Representations about policy get a far better hearing if they are made by people who evidently know what they are talking about.

So the letter written in green crayon from Outraged! of Lusk goes nowhere. But representations from trade bodies, consumer bodies, voluntary bodies, community bodies, etc get looked at. So if you want to influence public policy, step one is to get together with other people who have relevant knowledge/experience and form a group that looks a bit credible. Form a group that looks like the kind of group out of which good ideas might emerge.

The second step is to network. By all means contact your local TD, but be aware that policy initiatives almost never come from backbench TDs. Policy is mostly developed centrally, and then backbenchers are told what it is. What your TD will probably do is contact the relevant Minister and pass on your concerns/suggestions/ideas. But the Minister is going to pay a lot more attention if these concerns are being passed on to him by a number of TDs from different areas (and even from different parties). So get together with other groups that are doing their own lobbying on policy, share your ideas with them, listen to their ideas, and see if you can co-ordinate your efforts and sing so far as possible from the same hymn-sheet.

Ed* wrote: »

Ha! Yes but I’ve no faith in any local TD. This could allow more visibility for what’s important to people more and accountability to the government to deliver.

Local TD will forward stuff onto relevant minister. Send it to all of them!

Ed* wrote: »

The current processes to me seem very long winded, archaic and time cosuming. My idea is a live website where people can log in (maybe with their GOVID so its 100% transparent) and vote for ideas that could change this country for the better.

The more votes, traction an idea gets the more credible it is for consideration by government. That would eliminate 'letter written in green crayon from Outraged! of Lusk' .

I am just frustrated with all the usual soundbites at election and would like a way to actually track ideas from start to finish and allow the government the platform to actually respond to the people.

A process takes time, it's not just the click of a button. Your ideas have to share time with all the legislative work and other committee activity, never mind the passing the checks into legality and feasibility.

Ed* wrote: »

Well no wonder nothing gets done quickly

Very little gets done quickly apart from finding money for increased current expenditure. I'd suggest you spec out one of your ideas, including stakeholders, requirements, who it's for, whether it can be done with a statutory instrument or needs legislation, how long that legislative process would take, how much you think it would cost and most importantly of all what its timeline might be.

blanch152 wrote: »

Problem is that it would do nothing to stop contradictory ideas.

Imagine a public poll to reduce income tax to 10%. 90% support.

Following day, another public poll to introduce free 4-bed semis for every household (pay if you want bigger). Again 90% support.

Unfortunately, both can't happen because the numbers don't add up, as doing 1 would prevent 2 and vice versa.

For other examples of the same, just read SF's manifesto.

This. Policy needs to be joined-up. You can't effectively advocate for policy A ("tougher sentences for geography teachers") unless you have worked out how it's going to interact with policy B ("Get more people into the teaching profession, and raise professional standards"), policy C ("reduce prison numbers!") and policy D ("Lower taxes!"). Part of the point of all the collaborating and interacting and networking I mentioned earlier is to help nut out all these issues, and to work out how people who support other policies might react to your policy proposal (in terms of how it affects their favoured ideas) and how you might get them onside.

I get that the website idea might identify which soundbites are popular but, to be honest, knowing which soundbites are popular is not currently a problem, and is certainly not the impediment to turning them into deliverable policy.

Its subscriber only:

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/stephen-collins-reluctance-of-fine-gael-and-fianna-f%C3%A1il-to-govern-understandable-1.4179711

But some points:

between them Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Labour Party have over the past decade not simply led the country out of the crash but created the conditions for a level of prosperity never before experienced in Ireland. It brings to mind the remark made by one of the wiliest politicians of our era, Jean-Claude Juncker, who said: “We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.”

The French writer Sylvain Tesson remarked a couple of years ago: “France is a paradise populated by people who believe they are in hell.” The relevance of the comment to Ireland is illustrated by the howls of outrage that greeted Leo Varadkar’s efforts to publicise the last United Nations Human Development Index, which shows Ireland as the third-best place in the world to live.