Forming the next Irish Government - policies and personalities

HaHas Harris made any comment, any Dail discussion on it?

No, what media are describing as ‘omerta’ has taken hold.

Wikipedia classified FF as "centre to centre-right", and FG as "centre-right" and cites numerous commentators, both Irish and foreign, in support of these attributions.

FF is a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe, which is also classed as centre to centre-right, and FG with the European People's Party, Centrist Democrat International and the International Democracy Union, all of which are considered right or centre-right. Ireland is, I think, unique in Europe in never having had a government led by a party of the left; this is much commented on by political academics internationally.

In short, if "only the looney left would call FFG right wing", then it seems practically everybody who has ever looked at Irish politics is on the looney left. The truth is that both FF and FG are, and always have been, right-of-centre parties, and this is widely acknowledged.

They're centrist as far as I'm concerned. But no spectrum is black or white.

Fiscally they've overseeing huge SW dependency. Taxes on property. Plenty of left policies.

Socially they're waaay left. Gay marriage, abortion, AS, NGOs etc.

We've been governed by FFG since the foundation of the state and we are a socially liberal, social welfare dependant state. How is that right wing?

We've been governed by FFG since the foundation of the state and we are a socially liberal, social welfare dependant state. How is that right wing?

Lots of parties of the right are associated with socially liberal policies — think of libertarians, for example — and social welfare is largely an invention of the political right (Otto von Bismarck).

It's economic policies, mainly, that lead to parties being classified as of the right or of the left. The more committed you are to free markets, minimal state intervention, etc, the more right-wing you will be considered to be; the more you believe in public ownership of the economy or of key parts of it, a command economy, state intervention, etc, the more left wing.

I would say the current FFG govt is, and has been for a long time, fiscally centre right (bar the progressive income tax) but socially centre left.

I think that's probably fair, if we're qualifying "left-wing" with "socially". But I would point out that being socially centre-left is a common stance for what are basically right-wing parties. It was the Tories under Cameron who introduced gay marriage into the UK, for example, and nobody would ever have accused them of being a party of the left.

(And I would quibble with the claim that Ireland's progressive income tax detracts from fiscal centre-rightness. All developed countries have a progressive income tax. Ours is more progressive than average. But fiscal rightness or leftness isn't mainly about how progressive the income tax is; it's about the government's budgetary and spending policy. To what extent does the government use tax and spending to try to influence macroeconomic conditions (stabilise the business cycle, regulate output) as opposed to leaving such things to the workings of the market, and making tax and spending decisions mainly with an eye to keeping the government's own finances in good order? By these measures Ireland is relatively right wing. Of necessity, perhaps; as a small open economy there's a limit to what government spending can do to influence macroeconomic conditions, so we don't really try all that hard.)

We will probably see 40k homes built this year, 

Probably??

We have heard that before.

Which is proof they're very much centre.

You can't keep dismissing the very obviously left ideology both economically and socially.

But maintain they're right wing. Their actions over 100 years of governing show they're centre.

An Post is still state owned; as is the power (and gas) grid. I get my power from a state owned company.

The 99% is still ridiculous hyperbole though.

Let's call it 50/50 then. Or centre for want of another word.

The power and gas grid is state owned, sure, but it is private for-profit companies that supply the grids with power and gas. Some of them charging very high prices as we still have the ridiculous situation where we pay the highest price to all the private suppliers

The power you get from the state owned company, I assume you mean Electric Ireland, is actually partly private and the state has little to no control over the running of the business

An Post might still be public for now but a lot of private companies out there now, DHL, DPD, UPS etc delivering packages and letters as well

Electric Ireland's "partially private" is an employee ownership %. State owns a load of power plants between ESB and Bord na Mona

The silence from the high moral ground outrage brigade, including those in the Dáil is telling. This isn't the only example of a culture of cover up and omerta within FG ignored by their partners in givernment.

He was named though, the victims don't need naming but clear a cover up imho

I had to look up omerta as I thought it was footballer 🙈

Regarding right wing versus left wing or centre. In the Irish context, FF & FG are to the centre-right. On a global scale, they're not. But we are talking about the Irish system.

Similar to how in America the 2 parties are hard right and centre-right if viewed through a European window, but there it's very much left v right.

Why?

The victim has asked for confidentiality as there is a risk that they could be identified if further details come out. Shouldn't the victim's wishes be respected?