Why does anyone put themselves forward for president apart from pure ego....

A local authority can't just decide not to fill a statutory function.

What can happen maybe is the controlling pact on the council can say they will not endorse anyone who presents for nomination other than their own party or parties therefore ensuring they cannot be nominated even if they give the most impressive presentation of all time.

But I doubt the actual council as an entity said that.

Just take an honest view of what you see every day, sh*t public services, sh*t infrastructure, health system crisis, housing crisis that will last at least another decade, massive cost of living crisis, huge damage done to our farming sector, our tourism industry, our social scene, increasingly dangerous city and town centres, joke of a judicial system, lack of prison spaces, a Government dependent media industry, reckless "Green Energy" policies that will increase already expensive energy prices, and the ruin DEI policies have on entities to come yet….we are pushing policies across our society that have been a disaster anywhere else they were tried and we are too thick skulled /sanctimonious to admit we have gone wrong!!

Just look at the state of our leaders, a school teacher and a college drop out!!!

Well I didn't think I'd be vindicated this quickly.

Robinson, nearly 30 years out of office, is out lecturing the new Pope about how he is disappointing her….now that is an out of control ego, and you'd wonder why this role attracts the like of McGregor, mind you, it'd be interesting to see which one of them would complete an actual term in office. In a race that includes Tony Houlihan, a man who's ego was clearly an issue during the 2020-2022 period.

This race is already shambolic and we are still in the summer.

The three major political parties don't have a candidate (mind you, they have to beg D list celebrities to run for them in other elections so that is no great surprise). The county councils won't entertain independent candidates for fear we'd get McGregor or some other non party politician with popular opinions or policies.

Another candidate that dropped out of no where last week is out this week bitching about how he's been done over by Sean Gallagher, another ego maniac.

This is supposed to be the highest office in the land.

We are a joke.

I do beg your pardon, you are correct.

That makes the last three of them lecturing the either Pope or Israel, I just hope some washed up President of another country starts lecturing us about how our tax haven robs money from other Governments, we wouldn't have an answer for them!!

I actually liked McAleese, my only criticism of her is that her husband had way too high a public profile in my view.

And none of them (as in Robinson, McAleese, Higgins) are poorly educated, quiet the opposite. But an education does not grant a person the belief they are in a position to lecture Ancient Institutions or other Nation states, in fact, as mentioned, the public profile these people obtain often get the better of their ego's. We seem to be obsessed with our belief that we are somehow some moral people who must be listened to…it's f''ken weird to be honest, especially given we (effectively) rob money from other governments. We love moral grandstanding and we wonder why we elect spoofers and ego maniacs.

That is a very good question. I'd have to give that some thought. For the record, I absolutely believe all Institutions should be held to account, we don't hold them to account enough, that was what our media were/are supposed to do. But McAleese called the new Pope "bog standard Patriarchial". This is not the same as holding an Institute to account, she might as well have called him "Pale, Male and Stale" or accused "Toxic Masculinity", that is not the same as questioning the ideology, that is the facile language of the depressed feminist. The Catholic Church is a conservative body, I don't see the issue with the Church remaining a Conservative body.

But to be fair, I'll have to give that question thought.

tbf, they do have some good points, our whole approach to housing has actually collapsed, but our policy makers are never going to realise and accept this, and it will follow into the 30's, possible even the 40's, and we do have an out of control drug epidemic

Deleted - tried to post a humourous link to Youtube but site doesn't allow it apparently.

I'm not seeing that the same way on populism, as in my mind the current president is a populism vote. Guess that depends on your politics though. :)

On the democracy being the same as switzerland, that's just not accurate. Ireland has representative democracy, closer to USA or UK. That means we have a house of representatives, (The Dail), senate and a president. A tiered system with a figurehead on top. That's not direct, it's representative. We elect people to represent us and make decisions on our behalf.

Yes, Switzerland does have a direct democracy. But that means no Dail, no senate, no president. They have cantonal leadership (they have 26 cantons, like we have 26 counties). They don't have the concept of a capital city. They have cities that take up various roles but no actual Capital. (Industrial - Zurich, , Ambassadorial - Geneva, Financial - Zug, Federal seat - Bern) There is a federal govt, but its powers are very limited.

With direct democracy, at a canton/county level, everything is direct, meaning localised. The elected people are local and they decide how to spend the local tax and propose changes to local laws, that the people themselves directly vote on. I'm irish, living in switzerland. As an example, each year the people in my canton vote on the budget, where the people directly vote to choose between something like a new swimming pool or a refurbishment of the train station for the next major investment.

Canton taxes, including personal taxation, corporate and wealth tax are all local. Local taxes spent locally. That would be like Cork having Apple's corporate tax to spend on programs in Cork, rather than it going into the country coffers and getting spent in Dublin. The federal govt do take a small proportion of federal tax, to manage military etc.

On the shades of grey in democracy, Ireland is black and Switzerland is white.

David McWilliams has a podcast on it too.

https://shows.acast.com/the-david-mcwilliams-podcast/episodes/202425-should-we-copy-the-swiss-or-is-that-too-cheesy