Holly Cairns - 'Sinn Fein policies aren't left wing'

The number of countries with wealth taxes has fallen from 12 to four.

https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/the-role-and-design-of-net-wealth-taxes-in-the-oecd_9789264290303-en.html

Net wealth taxes are far less widespread than they used to be in the OECD but there has recently been a renewed interest in wealth taxation. While 12 countries had net wealth taxes in 1990, there were only four OECD countries that still levied recurrent taxes on individuals’ net wealth in 2017. Decisions to repeal net wealth taxes have often been justified by efficiency and administrative concerns and by the observation that net wealth taxes have frequently failed to meet their redistributive goals. The revenues collected from net wealth taxes have also, with a few exceptions, been very low. More recently, however, some countries have shown a renewed interest in net wealth taxes as a way to raise revenues and address wealth inequality.

https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2018/04/the-role-and-design-of-net-wealth-taxes-in-the-oecd_g1g89919/9789264290303-en.pdf

I'm not against trying a wealth tax, but I would not expect it to be a success.

She got a free plot of land from a her farmer parents to build a one-off McMansion on and her services like phone/broadband, postal services, delivery services and electricity will be subsidised by us urban dwellers, and here she is telling us how terrible we are no not wanting compete with immigrants for much smaller and more expensive urban homes.

Nothing worse than one-off housing wánkers lecturing us urban dwellers about immigration when they're not competing in the property market and living nowhere near IPAS centers.

Just on the water charges, she's right. The problem is that the way they were implemented last time benefited richer people.

We said that you pay X amount and if you go over it, the rest is free. That meant that it was a disproportionate amount for poorer people and it did nothing to restrict water usage since once you went over, everything else was free.

It should have been the other way round. Give everyone a certain amount of credit and if you go over, then you pay for the excess. That would encourage water conservation.

The question is - what are the policies of the left that are palatable to the wider public.

We already have a massively generous welfare system, which has created a massively entitled element in society.

We already spend gazillions on health, and while the health service is not functional - nonetheless I really dont think voters want to see more spent on it.

Ask anyone coming up to the budget - what are you hoping for - and they will answer 'more cash in my pocket'.

So they have a view on the environment - well done Social Democrats, but I dont think there is anything socialist about wanting cleaner air.

I would agree however that its a weak point in the extreme for Sinn Fein. This was one of the issues I voted on at the last election, and Sinn Fein stood out as the absolute weakest on environmental issues, even Fianna Fail was way ahead of them. Had absolutely nothing to say.

The other thing about Holly Cairns - I have stopped following politics closely, but….she became party leader maybe two years ago? This is the first time I've seen her in the news for anything (apart maybe from her piggybacking on the Catherine Connolly campaign a few weeks back, which was opportunistic in the extreme). She is the lowest profile party leader I can remember in my lifetime. Compared to Mary Lou who is in the news every single day of the week.

"but I dont think there is anything socialist about wanting cleaner air"

There is a fairly clear left/right divide generally in politics with the right far more likely to be anti green policy on pro business grounds or just being outright climate deniers with the further right.

"She is the lowest profile party leader I can remember in my lifetime"

An absolutely mad comment. Probably one of the higher profile ones relative to the parties importance.

SF's raison d'etre is to get into power to push the republican agenda (and that's fair enough on its own); but alignment with left or right is secondary to that.

I don't think this is the case.

Sinn Fein's vision of Ireland is a socialist and united Ireland. It's not an OR, it's a clear AND with both being as important as the other.

As Cairns herself identified, Sinn Fein might be slightly to the right of the Social Democrats, but the difference is really so small as to barely be significant. They are both socialist parties and they will be in agreement on about 95% of issues.

Yep. they're a populist republican party. They'll jump on any band wagon so long as it gets them into power. And they'll deliberately avoid taking any position that will lose them votes. Their environmental policies are nearly non existent because most environmental policies involve stopping certain practices and that wouldn't be popular with the voters they're trying to woo.

Now to be fair to them, there are some TD's I actually respect and i think that they do actually care. But the SF org is designed in such a way to not tolerate dissent. And the policies are dictated in top down manner. So if the individuals care about a topic, they can't do anything if the party doesn't want them to.

“ Bacik in my opinion is way more prominent.”

Your post just prompted a thought in my mind- true enough up to recently, Bacik was more “prominent” - and I also appreciate Cairns was on maternity leave - BUT - I think Cairns is more “impactful”- that’s what’s going to get that party more seats in the next election in my view

Some people seem to think they will stop at socialising other peoples money. They don’t think that they will be saddled with tax hikes to pay for these pie in the sky policies that drive businesses away.

When are we going to learn that going one way is not always right be it socialism or capitalism. Like everything we need a little bit of all the isms mainly the good bits of each so that we build a proper society instead of the extremes we have with those in the middle getting hammered.