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Is the present FF/FG/GP government the worst in the history of the state?

135

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,705 ✭✭✭SuperBowserWorld


    Yes, they (FFG) are an awful shower ...

    Contrast this ...

    "HSE HAS said that it “greatly regrets” that it is not in a position to reopen an 11-bed ward at the Linn Dara Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) inpatient unit, a year and five months on from its closure due to a lack of staff."

    "It is the only CAMHS inpatient unit where staff are trained to provide nasogastric tube feeding to patients who need it."


    With this ....

     "emergency consultant earned almost €1m last year, up €215,754 on their earnings in 2021"

    It's like a ******* bad dream.


    And that's just some stories from today.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,849 ✭✭✭Fann Linn


    Policies that 3% or 4% of the people voted for.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,824 ✭✭✭✭hotmail.com


    And this government about to fuel inflation with tax cuts and massive spending commitments. No infrastructure being built.

    Sounds familiar with the boom 15 years ago.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,020 ✭✭✭✭astrofool


    And being egged on by the opposition. Very familiar to the budgets of the 00's, if it goes bang, no party can claim the higher ground.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,343 ✭✭✭Consonata


    My transport costs have halved as a direct result of this government. The energy credit was pushed into the past budget by a Green Minister. Local Link expansion across the country thanks to a Green Minister. Childcare costs cut in half thanks to a Green Minister. I could go on....

    If you want to try and find members of government who haven't had much input into policy compared to their amount of TDs, I would look at Fine Gael...



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,460 ✭✭✭✭ELM327


    Yes I agree, this has the hallmarks of 2007. CT income is dropping but we are fanning the flames of inflation and cost of living increase.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,203 ✭✭✭BlueSkyDreams


    Need to get tougher with the agri sector but govt doesnt want to stir that nest and lose votes.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 632 ✭✭✭Jack98




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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,203 ✭✭✭BlueSkyDreams


    Reducing the Herd and emissions would be a start.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 632 ✭✭✭Jack98




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,733 ✭✭✭Tombo2001


    Says a lot about the echo chamber that is social media that this could even be up for discussion.

    In my lifetime, I would definitely say its one of the better governments. I'd have no question in saying that.

    I mean FFS - this is a country where you had unemployment of 25% in the 1980s, 100'000 people emigrating every f**ping year when the population was only 3 million. When you have people not being able to get a job- any job - for years and years.

    Or in the late 2000s where house prices fell by 70%.

    And some punters here think that THIS is the worst government.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,203 ✭✭✭BlueSkyDreams


    We pay farmers period anyway.

    May as well pay them to hit their targets, so we dont have to pay climate target fines in the future.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 632 ✭✭✭Jack98


    I’m afraid that won’t materialize anyway there was a lot of older farmers past pension age willing to buy into such a scheme if it was offered in this budget and there was no mention of it.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,013 ✭✭✭Clo-Clo


    Why would we reduce the herd? it is one of our biggest exports. We reduce our herd and the import meat from overseas which would generate more Co2 bringing it in? we should use all the meat we have and only export the excess. That alone would save CO2.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 20,007 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    We export 90% of the meat produced. If we cut meat production by 10%, it would not be noticed.

    Same goes for dairy - but it is dairy that needs cut nitrogen use now, and the simplest way in the short term is to cut herd numbers. Longer term, mixed sward with more clover would cut fertilizer use, but farmers would need to get the memo. Mono culture of rye grass is bad from an agricultural point of view, as it reduces biodiversity and needs plenty of fertilizer use to get maximum growth.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,013 ✭✭✭Clo-Clo


    We also imported 30,000 tonne last year. I am all the the green agenda but honestly its nonsense to talk about cows farting.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 20,007 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    And we exported 470,000 tonnes. Hmm... where did the imported beef come from? and what type was it?

    We are in the single market so we will imports some, and does that 30,000 tonnes come from NI?



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,013 ✭✭✭Clo-Clo


    A lot from UK and Northern Ireland. Some from outside that. What type was it? no idea.

    But guess what you can reduce CO2 but importing none and using what we produce.

    Irish meat is one of the best quality meats and we export to supply the World. Why would we stop?



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 20,007 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    We can cut the use of fertilizer which is required by EU regulation, so no option.

    However, we can mitigate the effect by using appropriate measures at farm level. I am not a farmer so I can only assume it can be done without harming any animals or farmers.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,013 ✭✭✭Clo-Clo


    We could also use methane as a renewable source

    We should not be cutting our food source. Not because the EU or others tell us. They are already screwing farmers all over Europe



  • Registered Users Posts: 474 ✭✭Coolcormack1979


    While Brazil increases by 24 million animals.this whole green bs will fall away like a cheap suit.I’m a farmer and am sick to my boll.. of being blamed for all of our so called climate stuff.cull the herd here but sure we’ll import all the food.greenwashing at its best like not cutting a bit of turf here but bring it in from Eastern Europe thanks to the lunatic greens in government



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 20,007 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    As a farmer, do you grow your own spuds, cabbage, carrots, and supply your own milk? Do you have apple trees, or even one apple tree. Do you keep chickens? How about a few pigs?

    Now there was a time when all farmers did this, or at least some of it - to keep the food costs down. Any surplus would be sold at a local market.

    A poly tunnel would be a good way of diversifying production into tomatoes and strawberries - a good earner.

    The 'climate stuff' is real and already changing our weather - wettest July, and hottest summer in southern Europe, with floods and fires all over the world. Have you not seen the news coverage?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,632 ✭✭✭Shoog


    Can't say it's totally bad since the economy is doing well, but a one size fits all approach to solving systemic issue (incentivise business to solve all our problems) has been a disaster and very wasteful. As a philosophical approach to managing a country the FFG government has outlived it's usefulness



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,632 ✭✭✭Shoog


    We grow for export, cutting our herd numbers would have zero impact on our ability to feed ourself and minimal impact on the national balance sheet.

    Unless you propose a policy of self sufficiency (which would be a disaster) then farming is not the issue unless you are a farmer. It is a long generation ago since farming was the backbone of the economy and we all had to bow to the will of the farming lobby.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 632 ✭✭✭Jack98


    We are farming at home, have planted 100s of metres of hedges over the last few years, have planted 500 trees over the past two years, we have a small traditional orchard beside the yard that many farmers would have where we keep our own few chickens for our own use and implement countless other environmental measures and practices.

    What you suggest is fine in theory but small scale horticulture won’t pay the bills, help educate family members and so on it’s only pocket money at best.

    Farms are businesses and until there is a real return and ample income from what you suggest there will be no major shift from farmers. Constant rhetoric of farmers all do bad is harmful for general public and farmer relations, when farmers are implementing every environmental measure forced upon them trying to do right and are constantly put down its easy to see why the likes of @roosterman71 would be annoyed.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,632 ✭✭✭Shoog


    Let's be clear, I support farmers.

    However they must do what is needed to achieve national goals and they must be adequately supported in doing so.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 632 ✭✭✭Jack98


    Farmers are willing to engage when they are rewarded for their loss of income, all the talk since the early 2010s was of harvest 2030 and trying to meet those goals. A lot of farmers invested significantly on the back of what governments were calling for them to do. You seem a reasonable person I’m sure you can see why farmers are annoyed if you had invested a few hundred thousand to improve your income in what ever line of work you’re in and were then told you had to maintain your same work hours for significantly reduced income you’d be quite aggrieved too wouldn’t you?

    Farmers are willing to change they just want to be rewarded accordingly and so far there is no sign of this and they are feeling undervalued.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,632 ✭✭✭Shoog


    I totally agree, its one of the worst things that this current FFG government did introducing the Harvest 2030 targets. They knew at the time they did so that they were failing to meet both biodiversity and water quality targets. They knew that Harvest 2030 would accelerate the decline in both. they effectively shafted the farming community to gain a bit of short term export earnings to dig them out of the 2008 crash which they similarly created.

    It is one of the main examples of why this current government are not fit to govern.



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  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 20,007 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    Well done for doing all that, and hope that goes well for you.

    I saw a programme on RTE about owl boxes. These are put up by rural dwellers (usually farmers) to promote the spread of owls. Takes a few years before the owls find them and take up residence.

    The biggest problem the one from Coynes Cross quoted was the widespread use of rat poison to control rodents, particularly rats. The result was that many owls are killed by eating the rats. What was said, was eliminating the rat poison and promoting the owls resulted in fewer rats. Result.

    Another farmer said that when ploughing, he no longer sees the flock of birds looking for the worms thrown up by the plough. He presumed it was because there aren't many left in the soil. If that is so, then the permeability of the soil is reduced giving rise to flooding. Not a good situation - and likely the result of compaction of the soil due the the enormous increase in the size and weight of tractors and other farm machinery.

    But do continue to do your good work. But do grow your own spuds - even just a few drills.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 632 ✭✭✭Jack98


    We have bird boxes on trees all around the fringes of the farmyard since the time of reps when farmers were paid for them and owl boxes in barns but it is rare you’d actually see an owl. My neigbor has owl boxes in an old castle on his land and you can see owls there every year and they’re a sight to behold beautiful birds but I think that’s more so because of less traffic around the castle I’m not sure owl boxes in farm yards may startle the owls?

    I haven’t seen rat poison since I was a small child around the place we have 11 cats out around the yard at the moment and I can’t remember the last time I saw a rat or mouse around the place and for so called feral cats they are extremely friendly partly down to the milk they are getting twice a day after milking I presume.

    We don’t have potato drills as the land around yard wouldn’t be suitable for growing, my parents would have grown them years ago when they were small children. They might start again when they retire but at the moment there’s no time for that. I have no problem admitting we don’t grow any of the food we consume ourselves bar an animal or two slaughtered each year for the freezer as we are dairy and beef farmers and ill let the Irish potato growers what few of them is left look after our potato needs.



  • Registered Users Posts: 474 ✭✭Coolcormack1979


    I farm to make a living not to be a hobby farmer to sooth the concerns of Eamon Ryan and the rest of the green fanatics.

    the days of yore of a farmers doing multiple types of farming are long gone.I specialise in dairying and try and do it to the best of my abilities.



  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 27,679 Mod ✭✭✭✭Podge_irl


    I'll never forget Noonan's FG preaching a degree of fiscal restraint and being utterly decimated in the 2002 General Election. Then Irish people had the gall to claim the crash was completely and utterly not their fault 🙄



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 632 ✭✭✭Jack98


    I agree with the first half of what you said, but the alternative government would be a whole lot worse for this country. FG/FF have certainly screwed more than a few things up but I would never ever vote for SF and I’m 24. If you are willing to put in the work Ireland is still a great country with excellent prospects you just have to have a goal, put in the work and not live beyond your means.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,203 ✭✭✭BlueSkyDreams


    Aye, but the targets will have to be hit, so the govt will make it happen one way or another.

    I dont know what their approach will be. Perhaps witholding payments for non compliant farms.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 20,007 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    I would not describe growing your own produce as 'hobby farming' because home grown produce tastes better, and you know where it came from and what went into its production - plus it should be cheaper.

    And certainly, you should grow it for your own satisfaction and pride - not for some perceived pressure from fanatics who are looking to save the planet. But it is clear from this summer's weather that the planet does need saving.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,203 ✭✭✭BlueSkyDreams


    Youve answered your own question there.

    We domestically consume only a small amount of the beef we produce.

    So cutting the herd by say 10 or 20 percent is not going to result in us needing to import beef.

    The CO2 emissions we would generate by having to import beef are the same emissions you are advocating when we export 80% to 90% of our beef production.

    We arent the only country that produces beef in the world and exporting high emission product will need to be cut globally, not just cut in Ireland.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,013 ✭✭✭Clo-Clo


    We are one of the top quality meats in the World and it is a huge revenue generator in Ireland. I don't see why we need to cut the herd for ridiculous comments about CO2. We have plenty of other things to look at first



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 632 ✭✭✭Jack98


    I’m afraid it is hobby farming though, dairy farming is the only method of farming in Ireland at the moment that would allow a person to be full time farming and earn the average industrial wage. What you describe as diversifying is great in theory but is only a viable income when it is a niche. Once multiple more than two or three small horticulture plots open in each parish the market would be saturated for that parish where as now there may be 10/20 times family farms in that parish providing families livable incomes.



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  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 20,007 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    As a country, we import vegetables that should be grown here.

    This has been made uneconomic by the behaviour of the supermarkets selling produce at below cost and expecting the Irish producers to bear the losses. The Gov should have moved to stop it but did nothing.

    That is where your complaint should be directed, not at the fanatics trying to save the planet.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,203 ✭✭✭BlueSkyDreams


    It isnt just a Green policy.

    Climate Targets are here to stay, whether we like it or not. If the Green Party dont get into Govt in Ireland the targets will still be there for FFG or SF to own.

    In your example, its up to the Brazilian govt to manage their targets.

    Just because they miss them doesnt mean we can. Thats like saying its ok to break the law because someone else did it.

    We need maybe 10% of the beef that we produce. Culling the herd by 20% isnt going to impact our domestic supply at all & wouldnt require us to import beef and increase emissions that way.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,203 ✭✭✭BlueSkyDreams


    Agri is the biggest contributor to emissions and its reduction targets are actually lower than many other industries.

    The sale of beef brings money in, but its also heavily subsidised through farm payments etc - so the industry is not financially self sustaining & takes a lot of money out of our economy.

    We still need farming, of course & I dont think anyone is disputing that.

    But we dont need as much of it as we have today and reslistically, if we maintain the same scale of farming as we have today, we are never going to hit those climate targets and that is going to cost the govt a lot of money in the future in the form of governmental fines - not to mention the climate impact.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,632 ✭✭✭Shoog


    Because we are legally obliged to.

    We do not earn huge revenues from beef, it's a drop in the ocean compared to pharma and tech earnings.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,013 ✭✭✭Clo-Clo


    How are we legally obliged?

    Pharma and tech should not mean we shut down any other operations, especially farming which historically Ireland has done.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,632 ✭✭✭Shoog


    So your not concerned that many farmers will go bankrupt servicing the massive debts they took on to forfill the FFG policy of expanding beyond sustainable levels. If there is pain on the farmers it will be directly attributable to this government and their foolish agricultural policies



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,632 ✭✭✭Shoog


    We are legally obliged to meet emissions targets. That is both CO2 and Nitrates emissions. We miss them and the EU fines us by the day. We signed up to targets at the last COP meetings.

    We should cut where it is most effective and that unfortunately is agriculture.

    The reality is that agriculture has been dying for the last 30years with most farmers well over 60years of age and no one to take on the holdings. An effective consolidation and buy out scheme would be the best possible outcome and would prevent much land from effective abandonment.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,013 ✭✭✭Clo-Clo


    The government fines are nonsense, we got told from 2019 the fines would be introduced and they never happened. Why would we pay fines? the Paris agreement is a target and yes we should work towards it but if anyone asked for a fine we should tell them in what direction to walk.


    We should be looking at options with farming, like increasing trees etc to help. But shutting down and hurting agri is not an option we should look at. Especially when US companies have no allegiance to Ireland.

    We should be concentrating on finally putting a public transport system in place which will provide for the current and future population. That would be a better investment.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 20,007 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    Farming is in trouble in Ireland. 600 or so potato growers, with 300 being 'large scale' growers. That is a very small number.

    We import potatoes which should be a nonsense, just because 'serious' farmers see growing potatoes as 'hobby' farming. We also import carrots, and other vegetables that would grow here very well.

    Why do farmers always look for subsidies?



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 632 ✭✭✭Jack98


    It was poor advice by the government but if you don’t do your own research before taking on such big loans it’s your own problem imo. You need to stress test all big decisions before a big financial undertaking under different scenarios and not just go run for cover under the guise of the government screwed me like many Irish people like to do.

    Its an unfortunate situation but all the blame can’t be placed at the governments door.



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