General Irish politics discussion thread

The government will want to wait as long as they can. It'll be a "favourable" budget but going straight after that gives the opposition ammunition and people haven't yet felt the benefits. Housing completion and starts numbers are improving, getting those numbers up is good for them. Money is being invested around the country, the more projects completed the better. There are no advantages for them in going earlier than they have to.

The bicycle shed Kerfuffle is a classic spinning top ,look over here,just as the abuse scandal data is ,we all know that stuff but parcel it up in a new report and give them hungry media boys something to feed on.One dependent family will cost the state the same as the bike shelter over 10 years,youse perhaps are being played ,I suspect not by a Machiavellian strategic entity,more like a naive huddle,totally out of their depth ,counting down the days to election time when they will inexplicably seek to stay in charge when they have not a clue what to do.Theres probably a term to describe those that seek to stay in power purely because they fear their successors will reveal their incompetence.

Sunday Times article saying Harris is resolute about it being next year.

Maybe Harris was hoping the SF Housing plan would fall flat, what the Times says here may change his mind.

The main opposition party is delighted with the launch of its much-vaunted housing plan and will be sending an abridged version of the 110-page document to every home in the county via party activists and private mailing companies. Sinn Fein would not say how much it will spend on this. Government attempts to discredit the document have largely fallen flat, with most experts in the housing sector giving it a broad albeit caveated welcome. Most agreed that whatever about its merits, the plan offers a very clear alternative to current government housing policy. 

I see Phil Hogan has been forgiven for lying to us and his EU boss and is back as GE strategist too.

He is cutting off any bleed to the right from his party and at the same time putting pressure on his own senior minister or even perhaps saying out loud what his senior minister wants to say. If the present stamp duty isn't doing the job, I've no doubt they'll raise it. But they wouldn't want to be giving credit to SF for that, would they?

I think we have quite a lot of empty buildings that can be utilised. Certainly I see old convents and monasteries not too far from me that are not being used.

The best thing that ever happened to this country was the influx of eastern Europeans which gave the economy , and the whole country, a much needed boost. Hopefully we will get a benefit from this large influx of immigrants too.

It has been pointed out to you before that government party members are also among those objecting to developments in some areas and criticising the government handling.

Immigration although the second most important issue on the door steps won't be a voting issue due to the lack of voting options for those that want to demonstrate their frustration at the current management of the crisis,So why annoy the liberal left when the Anti open door policy cohort have no real electorate outlet to hurt the Government.We aint got a reform party here to scare them,just a motley crew of Independents.I am not advocating for a reform type party,just for the main stream parties to maybe start listening to their voters who have changed their minds in the last 2 years and now want proper goverance of our borders and citizenship.Obviously only my opinion but polling seems to back me up unless its an NGO sponsored poll.

Seriously ,top issue on Irish Times snap shot poll in June.Dont think there has been any major positive changes since then.

Smugness? Previous Irish governments (did the current government actually have anything to do with this appeal, hasn't it been running since before it formed?) were denying that governments previous to them did anything wrong. What has it got to do with the current government and where did they show any smugness?

Obviously the courts have decided that Ireland historically did something wrong and must collect the tax. I don't see how that reflects in any way on the current government. Recent governments were trying to protect the country's image in denying any wrongdoing. Ultimately, I don't think it will matter to the country's image.

What actually happens to the €13bn is the next question.

None of it has been paid out to anyone. It has all been sitting in an escrow account pending judgement in the case; it will now be paid to the Irish government.

I don't see any basis on which other countries in Europe can "look for their share". The judgment of the court is that this is tax revenue due to Ireland.

The Business Post published this article a while ago. Curiously, if you now try to find it, it seems to have been taken down.

Yeh, it can be if it isn't based on reality.

Smug = confidence you are right based on pretty much nothing.

Last word on this. Not going to get hung up on the use of a word on yet another thread.

All you're describing there is the normal stance of anyone defending an appeal.

People who succeed in the lower court and then have to go through an appeal will always say, for public consumption, that they are confident that the appeal will not succeed. Always. I mean, why wouldn't they say that?

You'd have to be fairly gullible to think that this means that they are, in fact, confiden that the appeal will not succeed. To make a judgement about that — at least in a case of considerable public interest, like this one — you'd have to look at what independent and informed commentators are saying (which might take a bit of research; they're not necessarily posting their views on Boards, or putting them in opinion pieces in the Irish Times). If the general consensus of the informed commentators is that the appeal is going nowhere, then it's possible that the party claiming to be confident that it will go nowhere is in fact somewhat confident of that. But you can be sure that if there is any substantial risk that the appeal will succeed their advisers are pointing it out to them, and their claim to be confident is bravado rather than smugness.