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Could Fine Gael be pushed to the right?

1246

Comments

  • #92
    Rocket_GD
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,599 ✭✭✭Rocket_GD


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123803274#Comment_123803274

    You can see that it's the same cohort who are plastering Dublin 2 with Ireland flags, coincidentally are the same cohort who complain about pride flags going up in June each year.

    We can go by the results of the last GE, there is currently no appetite for a party that the OP is seeking to be formed.



  • #93
    Geuze
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,655 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    Here is a good example, about welfare payment rates in Budget 2026.

    https://www.thejournal.ie/pension-increase-budget-2026-6812169-Sep2025/

    An actual right-wing party should be calling for the abolition of JSA "the dole". We know there are thousands of people on JSA over ten years.

    (also, when people say immigration is required to do jobs here in Ireland, always remember 40,000 immigrants are on JSA, way out of proportion to their population)

    Instead, the people on JSA should be offered paid work.

    FG suggest that JSA rates should increase, but not by as much as all other welfare rates.

    FF respond by saying no, all welfare rates should go up together.

    Here, we can see that FF are to the left of FG, and at least FG are trying to implement some centre-right policies of discouraging idleness and welfare.

    In my opinion, a centre position should be that JSA is in all respects less generous than other welfare payments.

    Shorter duration / stricter / lower payment rate

    In my opinion, a centre-right position should be that JSA lasts for maybe six months max, or even that it doesn't exist, like in the USA.



  • #94
    L1011
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 74,121 ✭✭✭✭L1011


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123806311#Comment_123806311

    You need to find and organise that paid work in the first place, which is extremely expensive and impractical

    Your final clause of your final statement is far-right not centre-right; albeit ironically most of the Irish far right activists are on long term welfare payments of one kind or another.



  • #95
    Geuze
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,655 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    This use of the term "far-right" to describe the activists you refer to is wrong.

    An economically libertarian person wants a much smaller welfare state.

    Those activists do not want a much smaller welfare state.

    As you say, they are often on long-term welfare themselves.

    They are nationalists, in that they don't want excessive immigration, and they don't want the immigrants to get welfare.

    But they are not far-right, as they do not wish to scale back or remove the welfare state.



  • #96
    Geuze
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,655 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    JSA does not exist in the USA.

    (JSB does, and is actually more generous than here, at 50% of former wages.)

    I don't think the Democrats want to introduce JSA?

    Does that mean that the Republicans are far-right?

    Does that mean that the Democrats are far-right?



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  • #97
    L1011
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 74,121 ✭✭✭✭L1011


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123806496#Comment_123806496

    This is only accurate if you view left/right on a single issue; which generally nobody does - except it appears, you.

    Otherwise it's a desperate attempt to disassociate the fringes of right wing politics from being right wing, which isn't an option.



  • #98
    Geuze
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,655 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    Yes, I mainly look along the economic axis.

    To me, being "far-right" means wanting lower taxes, and lower State spending, and a smaller welfare state.

    The people protesting against bogus asylum-seekers do not necessarily all want that.

    There is another axis one could use, you sometimes see a diagram of four quadrants used in politics.



  • #99
    L1011
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 74,121 ✭✭✭✭L1011


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123806509#Comment_123806509

    The Republican party in the US has been far right for well over a decade.

    The Democrats are, by European standards, centre-right; and they have rather a lot more important things to deal with should they ever manage to get power again. Anyone calling the Democrats the usually used term "leftists" is, themselves, far right as you cannot make that view from any other position.

    A dead-end cutoff on unemployment provisions, with or without insanely costly (and only ever done for ideological reasons) workfare systems is a far-right position. It's also a shortcut to massively increasing criminality, but thinking things through is not a common talent of the far right.



  • #100
    rossie1977
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,492 ✭✭✭✭rossie1977


    As has already been mentioned FG are a right wing party, Republicans are far right and Democrats are centre right.

    Being heavy handed on immigration isn't exclusively a right wing ideology otherwise you are arguing that the country with arguably the strongest anti immigration laws on the planet (not counting places like North Korea) ie China is right wing..

    Wanting all immigration banned, wanting police to be above the law and thus creating a police state, these are nor right or left ideologies, they are extremist views.

    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123806546#Comment_123806546

    Well your definition is miles off. What you described is libertarian which imo barely fits into the right wing category. A true libertarian (if they actually exist and i have my doubts) would be considered more left wing than right

    Far right as to what it is

    1. Overt nationalism
    2. Distain for human rights
    3. Using a segment of society upon which to blame all the country's ills
    4. Military becomes supreme force
    5. Sexism is rampart
    6. Mass media is controlled
    7. Obsessed with national security
    8. Religion interwoven with government
    9. Corporate Power protected at all costs while labour is supressed
    10. DIstain for intellectuals and arts
    11. Obsessed with crime and punishment
    12. Cronyism and corruption at all levels.
    13. Fraudulent elections


  • #101
    Seth Brundle
    Moderators, Politics Moderators, Paid Member Posts: 44,087 Mod ✭✭✭✭Seth Brundle


    As has already been mentioned FG are a right wing party,

    I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic but FG are not a right wing party in the normal sense of the phrase.
    They are centre-right.



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  • #102
    Podge_irl
    Moderators, Sports Moderators, Paid Member Posts: 30,857 Mod ✭✭✭✭Podge_irl


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123806555#Comment_123806555

    The Democrats are, by European standards, centre-right

    This comes up a lot but I don't really think it is true. The left-right axis is too painfully simply to be overly useful, but while the Democrats are probably economically more to the right, they are socially well to the left of many European "left-leaning" parties.

    Equally there is simply no sensible way you can look at Ireland's redistributive tax policies, and recent relatively liberal social policies, and on a European scale call the govt of the last 15 years anything other than probably centre-left leaning (though I think a decent chunk of that stems from the more centrist-populist nature of FF)



  • #103
    Geuze
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,655 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123806555#Comment_123806555

    The USA is not the only country without Unemployment Assistance.

    There are European countries without Unemployment Assistance.

    I had a quick look, and there is no JSA "dole" in Italy.

    image.png


  • #104
    Geuze
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,655 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123806997#Comment_123806997

    If:

    0 = centre

    1 = centre-right

    2 = right-wing

    3 = far-right

    Where would you put FG?



  • #105
    L1011
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 74,121 ✭✭✭✭L1011


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123807718#Comment_123807718

    Italy is run by a fascist party.



  • #106
    Geuze
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,655 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123807678#Comment_123807678

    Yes, there is a lot of redistribution effort here, which is one reason why I wonder why people call the Govt right-wing!!

    They apply a 48.1% marginal tax rate at a very low starting point, below mean earnings, and close to median earnings.

    And there is no sign of that changing.

    That is not a right-wing policy!!!



  • #107
    Idbatterim
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,522 ✭✭✭✭Idbatterim


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123807725#Comment_123807725

    Non of the above, you didn't include, centre left...

    Then again, most of the posters here, have no clue the way other countries tax or distribute welfare. But rte tell them ffg are on the right... jesus and I've heard rte talk about disinformation...



  • #108
    Larbre34
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,560 ✭✭✭✭Larbre34


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123807753#Comment_123807753

    At €88,000 for a couple?

    How would you figure that being "very low"?

    Bear in mind the independent living wage technical committee set that level at €61,000 for a couple working FTE.



  • #109
    dulpit
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,601 ✭✭✭✭dulpit


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123808046#Comment_123808046

    All politics is local. And in the Irish context fine gael are to the right. Don't see why that is hard to understand.



  • #110
    Geuze
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,655 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123808059#Comment_123808059

    Credit to Gerard Brady of IBEC for producing the chart below, showing how the SRCOP has not kept up with wage growth.

    Gerard_Brady_IBEC_SRCOP.png


  • #111
    Geuze
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,655 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123808059#Comment_123808059

    This data is a few years old, but shows how early the top MTR starts in Ireland.

    Lower at the lower chart.

    The typical starting point is 5.2 times average wages.

    image.png


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  • #112
    Geuze
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,655 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123808059#Comment_123808059

    44k in Ireland vs 278k in Germany.

    Or to be fairer, 68.5k is where the 42% rate starts in DE.

    image.png


  • #113
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 39,088 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123807718#Comment_123807718

    "Economic hardship is particularly pronounced among households with children"

    Is that what you want?

    I'm partial to your abracadabra,

    I'm raptured by the joy of it all.



  • #114
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 39,088 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123807733#Comment_123807733

    Not in 2014 they weren't, and this policy appears to well predate even then.

    I'm partial to your abracadabra,

    I'm raptured by the joy of it all.



  • #115
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 39,088 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    I do find it funny when people compare the marginal tax rate entry point here with some other country, or the taxation on a new car

    They never, ever mention anything about social insurance in, say, Belgium, (mandatory) health insurance in Germany, or property tax pretty much everywhere

    I'm partial to your abracadabra,

    I'm raptured by the joy of it all.



  • #116
    Idbatterim
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,522 ✭✭✭✭Idbatterim


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123808249#Comment_123808249

    You're totally right! I totally agree, the taxation burden is far more even in other countries... our token gesture lpt also creates bad outcomes ...



  • #117
    Geuze
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,655 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123808249#Comment_123808249

    Yes, to be fair, although our marginal income tax rates on low incomes are bonkers high, it is also true that:

    (1) effective rates are not high compared to most other EU countries

    (2) up to 1 million earners pay zero income tax

    But people think at the margin, so those crazy marginal tax rates have effects on labour supply and effort.



  • #118
    Geuze
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,655 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123808243#Comment_123808243

    No.

    But I don't want able-bodied adults on JSA for more than a year, in a strong labour market.



  • #119
    Everlong1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,172 ✭✭✭Everlong1


    It's unfortunate that this thread has degenerated into yet another endless and pointless academic debate about what constitutes "right wing" politics. I had hoped that it would attract comment from those who were already satisfied that this country had serious problems in relation to the issues I set out in my opening post and wanted to discuss what could be done to influence policy in FG. But instead it's just become another forum for the usual SJW brigade who want to deny the existence of any problems and are bent on smearing anyone who says otherwise as a Tommy Robinson wannabe. I expected a certain amount of that but had hoped they'd be outweighed by those not cowed by the woke consensus. Given the amount of posts on the immigration thread I had really thought that this thread might attract those wanting to discuss action rather than words, but seemingly not.



  • #120
    Rocket_GD
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,599 ✭✭✭Rocket_GD


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123808653#Comment_123808653

    I had hoped that it would attract comment from those who were already satisfied that this country had serious problems in relation to the issues I set out in my opening post 

    It seems that you are in the minority then, doesn't it?

    Everyone else must be "cowed by the woke consensus" and you're the stand alone bastion in your beliefs.

    I'd imagine a lot of the immigration thread have very little interest in politics apart from "Ireland is for the Irish" and "Ireland is full" etc. If you asked them to name more than the 3 main party leaders they probably couldn't come up with a 4th politician let alone want to get into a political discussion.



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  • #121
    Everlong1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,172 ✭✭✭Everlong1


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123808718#Comment_123808718

    A very small amount of posters on the immigration thread would be of the kind you're talking about but I think you'll find that the majority of posts are well considered and cogently argued. Disconcerting, I know, for those who want to smear anyone with genuine concerns about immigration as a drooling racist knuckledragger.



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