it’s never gonna happen but we could do with a clear separation between local issues and national issues. TDs go to the Daily to legislate on national issues and lobbying for local or personal issues becomes illegal. Give more power back to the councillors and let them work on the local and personal issues.
Imagine the different country we’d have if TDs were actually working on national issues only
What alternatives to Sitka are there if Ireland is going to grow timber for construction use, no commercial evergreen forest will have much life on the forest floor due to the lack of light
I know New Zealand opted instead to go with Douglas Fir. Don't know if it's kinder to the environment, but it nicer to look at.
There's a lot of trials going on to see if other species of spruce and fir can be grown commercially, particularly to try to reduce the disease threat with a monoculture
The type of evergreen is largely irrelevant to the point because the vast majority of Irish plantations are monocultures of non-native plants and do absolutely nothing to aid Irish ecosystems.
Yes I agree, but they do grow timber large volumes of timber which is needed.
Yes but the problem is we pretend it is saving the planet. It isn't. We need to grow more oaks and native species. We need to cater for native wildlife.
Grand - but don't have TDs putting their name to bullsh1t school books saying how great conifers are for wildlife with the intention of misleading kids into believing that bullsh1t
More lightly he be ridiculed by both sides, piggy in the middle so to speak.
In fairness to MHR he was promoting all types of forestry, I was at one of the open meetings and he took all questions from the floor and stayed on after the meeting to talk to anyone who wanted to meet him, and there was a lot of anger towards the forest sector that night, in 2023 - 2024 planting was at an all time low of around 1500 hectares and he was trying to get confidence back into the industry, I'll be in the local school Monday night and I'll get a look at this book
Stop defending him over this. I don't care what kind of defence over forestry he did (which I do know is divisive rurally because of the loss of decent farmland).
The simple fact is that he put his name to a book that claimed conifer plantations are good for wildlife, which it is definitely not. It was 100% greenwashing but I wouldn't expect much by way of honesty from a Healy Rae!
Young Jackie Healy Rae devastated at losing his “job” as “special advisor”.
https://archive.ph/u4hXU
Independent Kerry County Councillor Jackie Healy-Rae has addressed the loss of his role as special adviser to his father, Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, after last week's vote of no confidence saw the Kilgarvan Deputy withdraw his support for the government and resign his junior ministerial post.
Cir Healy-Rae came in for heavy criticism a year ago when it was confirmed he would be taking on the position that comes with a salary ranging between €75,000 and €104,000.
Ah Michael will give him one of the 28 properties he owns.
The downsides of nepotism!
I presume that’s the fella who beat up someone at a chipper van was it and declared that he was king of kilgarvan?
What a classy POS MHR sired. That family are in it for one thing, the money.
Compared to the governments of the 1980s the government has a very healthy majority.
Good idea but that would require actually funding councils properly and allowing them to raise their own revenue, in other words a proper property tax on households not the farcical little joke we have now.
It's the way pretty much every other developed country in the world is run, but here in Ireland we know better 🙄
It gave me a laugh when I started reading the article. Then I realised how much Jackie Jr was getting, I wasn’t laughing.
Wasn’t there a Jackie Jr in the Sporanos? This is less “Ahfugedahboutit” more “Aragh sure lookit”
Jayus “the family” are some operators!
In fairness, while there there might be a shed tonne of countries claiming to be ran like you outline are the outcomes really any different more positive for it's citizens in all but a few of them - thinking of the UK and the US primarily.
Floats like a butterfly but stings like a bee, when pissed, mad for the chips and the beer.
MHR will have him on a tight leash, last chance saloon for the politics.
Miriam Lord’s take on Danny’s indignation at been taken off the agriculture com-mitt- ee
https://archive.ph/cv9im
Something that has been annoying me about this thread. I think, technically, the plural of Healy Rae should be Healys Rae.
They had far healthier majorities when Michaels father was sending his shopping lists to Bertie.
The Rae is just an add-on - I don't think Jackie Healy ever changed his name by deed poll to Healy Rae. So the plural is either Healys or Gombeens
It's not a double barrel name at all.
The Rae part comes from the home town land of Jackie senior.
This type of adding the town land to the surname is common enough in other rural parts of the country too where there are many families with the same surname.
Healy-Rae, Jackie | Dictionary of Irish Biography https://share.google/KwlHeawo5Itda9SQ8
The problems of those two are due to the utterly fúcked up national electoral systems they have.
We don't have to only compare ourselves to the English speaking world, yet we always do
I picked those two as they are the two I am most familiar with who have a system to that which you have suggested could work well…..
You did state: "It's the way pretty much every other developed country in the world is run, but here in Ireland we know better"
You are comparing 2 different things though. The level of power devolved to local government (which we do really really badly) versus the voting schemes (which we do really really well).
So where has the ideal setup?
I've always wondered what life is like in Kilgarvan for people whose family name isn't HR. They seem to own most of the local businesses.
