Pat Rabbitte, short memory?

prinz · 19-11-2010 12:24PM

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Sure it does. If the poster wishes to see Rabbitte 'walk the walk' then all they need do is vote his party into government.

I don't fancy electing anyone based on a few minutes of election time posturing. He could have been 'walking the walk' long before getting into government.

It's not about being pro- anti- Labour either. It's a simple warning not to engage in knee-jerk voting.

PanchoVilla · 19-11-2010 12:26PM

donal_mcg wrote: »

One thing that is missing from any commentary on this whole mess is the role that the irish people had to play in things going tits up. This cannot be blamed solely on FF/other parties/builders/bankers alone. Nearly everyone was complicit in making this mess. I have no house, never been able to afford one (or didn't see the point in paying 400K+ to live in Cavan/Laois etc) but the amount of times I had to sit in pubs and listen to people boasting about profits they made from sales of their houses / trading up made me sick. 50% of the population were acting like they were financial geniuses (genii?) by being able to buy and then sell a house while boasting about their ability to do this.

For sure, all of the crooks (FF/banks/developers) put in place the machine to enable people to do this but not many listened to the economists who were saying stop or to think of the people trying just to buy somewhere to live rather than a 3rd gaff to milk money off others less fortunate. But just like the government, not one person I know is taking responsibility for their actions, its all someone elses fault. In my opinion Pat Rabitte should have been staring at the camera, directing his tirade not just at FF but at the general public also

I'm getting so sick of this line being trotted out. It's no different to blaming the victims of fraud for the crime. We have laws in place (or should have) to ensure people who can't repay loans are not granted those loans in the first place. Those laws were ignored by the banks and the government failed in it's duty to regulate the economy.

The welfare of this country was ignored by arrogant, greedy politicians and businessmen who wanted to make a name for themselves. Well, it's backfired on them and now they will be remembered as the incompetent morons they really are. The general public are not responsible for believing what they're told by their own government. The boom created wealth for people who had never seen so much money, it's hardly surprising that they didn't know how to manage it all. The people who manage money on a daily basis, the government and banks, are the ones to blame.

I think the main reason FF won so many seats in the last election was because people wanted to see them fix the mess they made in the first place. Unfortunately, those imbeciles somehow managed to make things even worse.

Cavehill Red · 19-11-2010 12:28PM

prinz wrote: »

I don't fancy electing anyone based on a few minutes of election time posturing. He could have been 'walking the walk' long before getting into government.

It's not about being pro- anti- Labour either. It's a simple warning not to engage in knee-jerk voting.

Pat Rabbitte walked the walk in government and as Labour leader and has done so as an Opposition front bench spokesman for some time.
If you think he was in any position to declare that Fianna Fail and the Dept of Finance were lying in 07, then you need to think again. Even if he suspected it (and people like Wibbs and I apparently did) he was in no position to accuse them of it because the books presented by the government were cooked.

cleremy jarkson · 19-11-2010 12:32PM

No party in the 2007 election promised that they would grind our property bubble to a halt, and in fact all promised people even more stuff.

I also remember Enda Kenny saying after budget 2006 that the problem was the budget didn't spend enough.

So I was extremely irritated last night by Pat Rabbitte's opportunistic outburst which is of course going to appeal directly to gullible emotional voters who are frustrated at their financial position (chances are it is because they decided to burden themselves with massive debt when everyone else around them was) and are angry at "the banks and the politicians". This country would have crumbled a lot quicker if labour had any say in the last 3 budgets as they wouldn't have gotten passed (if they followed their own policies anyway).
What adds to this irritation is that I would bet my life that Pat Rabbitte and the Labour party don't have a viable alternative for how we get out of the situation. Imagine Joan Burton being in Brian Lenihan's shoes? She would destroy the economy.

All the parties keep saying to Fianna Fail, "yous caused this....yous should feel ashamed of yourselves". The reality is ithat f the Fianna Fail government of 2002 - 2007 decided in say 2004 that it was going to cool down the property market by removing all tax-based incentives, people would have went crazy. Year on year economic growth of 5%, full employment...seriously, do people forget how absolutely astounding our economy was? There was absolutely NO will amongst the people (including those who knew at an academic level that it was unsustainable) nor ANY of the political parties to cool down the economy. In those days, it would have been madness. People are hypocrites...they're happy to accept flawed economic polices when it suits them.

Why didn't labour or fine gael do their job in 2004 and try to force the government to cool down the property bubble? Why didn't they try to stop our artifical economic growth? They arn;t taking their share of the responsibility and nobody seems to recognise that. They were in the Dail, they had a chance to point out flaws in our economic model but they didn't.
Shame on all the parties.

kev9100 · 19-11-2010 12:37PM

DeVore wrote: »

"Economic growth and prosperity have changed the face of our country. The prosperity dreamt of by the founders of the Irish state has been achieved.... Ireland is no longer the failed entity of the past."—Pat Rabbitte, 2007 (source http://www.labour.ie/manifesto/1.html)

A pox on ALL their houses.

DeV.

Pure BS. Neither Rabbitte or any other opposition politician had access to the books and had no say on policy. How anyone can somehow place blame on Labour for this mess is beyond me.

StupidLikeAFox · 19-11-2010 12:43PM

"Economic growth and prosperity have changed the face of our country. The prosperity dreamt of by the founders of the Irish state has been achieved.... Ireland is no longer the failed entity of the past."

The thing is though, that quote is three years out of date. If Labour had won that election we may not have been in the state we are in now. Anglo for one probably wouldnt have been saved.Then again maybe we would, who knows?

The point Im making is, just because you can dig up that one quote, it doesnt put Pat Rabbitte in the same league as Fianna Fail.

The FFers are completely out of touch with the public, two cases in point that stick out in my mind -
1) The whole fiasco with the govt minister announcing on radio that the way out of recession is free cheese
2) The day after a recent tiger kidnapping, Dermot Ahern uses the opportunity to use it as an excuse to announce that a "tax on ATM withdrawals will reduce the risk of tiger kidnappings".

They're just two off the top of my head, but the governmnet are always at it. They are living on a different planet.

Which brings me to the point that no matter what you think of Pats performance on Prime Time, it was a moment where someone finally said it directly to the government "You should be ashamed of yourself". Its something that a lot of people would love the opportunity to do but the government just dont seem to listen.

tl dr, its a bit of a cheap shot Dev (please dont ban me)

thebigbiffo · 19-11-2010 12:44PM

if pet rabbite had been in power in 06-07 he would have thrown money at the electorate, the civil service and the unions same as the rest of them inc. FG - anybody who thinks otherwise is dellusional.

ye can all argue over who's the 'best' at the moment but there's no evidence on the public record that any of these f'ucksticks would have done anything that would have stopped this crisis from happening.

and please: can someone explain to me how the government 'cooked the books' at the time? presumably, they'd need half the department of finance in on this and it'd be easy to prove. it's much more likely that there was a housing crash, a recession and mis-information from the banks that f'ucked up our finances (indeed, most of this caused by the government but that's policy, not f'uckin book fiddling)...certainly not some all nighter down the DOF fiddling numbers.:rolleyes:

the rabble keep rabbling

prinz · 19-11-2010 12:45PM

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Pat Rabbitte walked the walk in government and as Labour leader and has done so as an Opposition front bench spokesman for some time. If you think he was in any position to declare that Fianna Fail and the Dept of Finance were lying in 07, then you need to think again. Even if he suspected it (and people like Wibbs and I apparently did) he was in no position to accuse them of it because the books presented by the government were cooked.

The books presented by the government were not 'cooked', the reflected exactly the massive revenue being generated by the building boom. Rabbitte and co were on the other side at times criticising the government for not spending enough of this wealth. Anyone could see that if the building boom collapsed (inevitable) that money would evaporate.

kev9100 wrote: »

Pure BS. Neither Rabbitte or any other opposition politician had access to the books and had no say on policy. How anyone can somehow place blame on Labour for this mess is beyond me.

No one is blaming them for the mess. People are saying it's easy to come out now and mouth off. He could have been giving last night's performance in the Dáil day in day out for years, but he wasn't.

Cavehill Red · 19-11-2010 12:49PM

prinz wrote: »

The books presented by the government were not 'cooked', the reflected exactly the massive revenue being generated by the building boom. Rabbitte and co were on the other side at times criticising the government for not spending enough of this wealth. Anyone could see that if the building boom collapsed (inevitable) that money would evaporate.

Of course the books were cooked. It was only a matter of weeks after the election when Bertie started rolling back on the election promises, claiming our finances were much worse off than he'd previously been aware of.
Either he's lying, and FF already knew the state of the country's finances, or he's telling the truth and the DoF spoofed him.

prinz wrote: »

No one is blaming them for the mess. People are saying it's easy to come out now and mouth off. He could have been giving last night's performance in the Dáil day in day out for years, but he wasn't.

Sure he has. If you'd watched as much Oireachtas report as I have (I know, I know...) then you'd know that.
Generally, the response from the front bench of the government has been Cullen-esque sneering, Dermo Ahern heckling, or Biffo bluster.
Rabbitte's been calling it for a long time and the government instead of listening have been smugly insisting they were right. Well, they weren't.

cleremy jarkson · 19-11-2010 12:51PM

kev9100 wrote: »

How anyone can somehow place blame on Labour for this mess is beyond me.

Nobody's suggesting it was all their fault, because it wasn't. They did have a responsibility though, by being sat in the Dail between 2002 and 2007, to point out Fianna Fail's flawed economic model. After all, judging by the way they talk now, they must have known back then that the model was flawed. Pointing in out now in no good and deserves no applause or admiration. They should have pointed it out back when it would have been politically unwise to do so. They would have gained my support for life if they had to have done so but in reality it would have ran against everything they stand for eg. ensuring the best standard of living for the bottom end of society, income wise.

I don't believe they did believe it was flawed though. I think they saw how brilliantly the economy was performing and ended up having to make up problems to give out about in the Dail.

Why didn't Eamonn Gilmore promise to slow the boom down in 2007? This would have been the correct policy to persue, instead of promising to keep it going like Aherne did. But he didn't do it. Why?

You see, all the politicans in the dail either got in at a time when or spent 13 years there when it was easy to be a politican because there was a seemingly endless supply of money to solve problems with. Now were left with a bunch of idiots not used to making decisions that hurt people and the ones in power fumble about making unsatisfactory cuts and the ones in opposition spout the same old rhetoric every week and offer no viable alternatives to what the government is doing.

dolphin city · 19-11-2010 12:52PM

donal_mcg wrote: »

One thing that is missing from any commentary on this whole mess is the role that the irish people had to play in things going tits up. This cannot be blamed solely on FF/other parties/builders/bankers alone. Nearly everyone was complicit in making this mess. I have no house, never been able to afford one (or didn't see the point in paying 400K+ to live in Cavan/Laois etc) but the amount of times I had to sit in pubs and listen to people boasting about profits they made from sales of their houses / trading up made me sick. 50% of the population were acting like they were financial geniuses (genii?) by being able to buy and then sell a house while boasting about their ability to do this.

For sure, all of the crooks (FF/banks/developers) put in place the machine to enable people to do this but not many listened to the economists who were saying stop or to think of the people trying just to buy somewhere to live rather than a 3rd gaff to milk money off others less fortunate. But just like the government, not one person I know is taking responsibility for their actions, its all someone elses fault. In my opinion Pat Rabitte should have been staring at the camera, directing his tirade not just at FF but at the general public also

donal, completely have to agree with you there. It beggers belief that lots of people did not stop to think when the 100 percent morgages came out. I mean did anybody just think there was something a little bit not kosher about this. When house prices were raised to the hilt, they were beating down the doors of the bank to get a mortgage. When all the flyers coming in the door offering people credit cards etc. ANYONE with a bit of cop on should have said no, wait a minute, this can't be right. Instead everyone went in with their eyes wide open, even fiddled the books to get their fancy house, fancy car and fancy mortgage (along with a weird accent along the way) and looked down at people who were too afraid to do this, or had more sense to do this. Now they are all crying foul, and looking for someone to blame - blame yourselves. Next time realise if somethign is too good to be true, it usually is.

I am not defending any political party in this mail = my philosophy has been if the govt says black, I say white. - It has kept me out of a lot of trouble and I will continue to live my life within MY means and not listen to a pack of gobshi*es telling me to go ahead and do what they say. If they told ye to jump off a bridge, would ye do it.

everyone has a mind of their own - start using it. at the end of the day the govt are only a crowd of men and women feeling their way through also. Why should you ever trust what they have to say.

We would have been better off protesting about our right to a democratic result of a vote, when we were "told to do it until we got the correct answer". Maybe if we had protested then we might not be in the situation we are in now. We need to grow a pair of balls and start telling the govt that THEY work for US - not the other way around. this country has turned into a pack of lickars*s and we wouldn't know a principal anymore if it hit us in the face.

prinz · 19-11-2010 12:52PM

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Of course the books were cooked. It was only a matter of weeks after the election when Bertie started rolling back on the election promises, claiming our finances were much worse off than he'd previously been aware of.
Either he's lying, and FF already knew the state of the country's finances, or he's telling the truth and the DoF spoofed him..

...and the opposition Rabbitte included gave the hell for not spending, spending, spending.

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Sure he has. If you'd watched as much Oireachtas report as I have (I know, I know...) then you'd know that.
Generally, the response from the front bench of the government has been Cullen-esque sneering, Dermo Ahern heckling, or Biffo bluster.
Rabbitte's been calling it for a long time and the government instead of listening have been smugly insisting they were right. Well, they weren't.

Here's what he could have done..... walked out and taken Gilmore and the Labour party with him. I'll probably be voting Labour msyelf, have done before, likely to do again, but last night's performance will have nothing to do with it.

Cavehill Red · 19-11-2010 12:54PM

prinz wrote: »

...and the opposition Rabbitte included gave the hell for not spending, spending, spending.

If the government books say they're running record surpluses, what else are people going to propose only spend some of the money to benefit those outside of the propertied moneyed classes?
But those books were lies. And chances are, Fianna Fail knew they were lies.

prinz wrote: »

Here's what he could have done..... walked out and taken Gilmore and the Labour party with him.

And then you'd be giving out about why weren't Labour taking their seats in parliament holding the government to account. :rolleyes:

Lumen · 19-11-2010 12:55PM

cleremy jarkson wrote: »

No party in the 2007 election promised that they would grind our property bubble to a halt, and in fact all promised people even more stuff.

Don't blame me, I voted Sinn Fein. :pac:

Mark my words, the time is coming for the beating-the-****-out-of-people party.

Cavehill Red · 19-11-2010 12:58PM

Lumen wrote: »

Don't blame me, I voted Sinn Fein. :pac:

Mark my words, the time is coming for the beating-the-****-out-of-people party.

Same thing, no?

Lumen · 19-11-2010 01:00PM

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Same thing, no?

Whoosh!

prinz · 19-11-2010 01:01PM

Cavehill Red wrote: »

If the government books say they're running record surpluses, what else are people going to propose only spend some of the money to benefit those outside of the propertied moneyed classes?
But those books were lies. And chances are, Fianna Fail knew they were lies.

Everyone knew they were based on lies ffs, the record surpluses were based on a bubble. It wouldn't have been so bad if the surpluses had been put by for times like now, but FF, egged on by FG and Labour spent spent spent like there was no tomorrow.

Cavehill Red wrote: »

And then you'd be giving out about why weren't Labour taking their seats in parliament holding the government to account. :rolleyes:

Not really, would have been quite a simple matter to threaten a constitutional crisis, basically forcing an election. Not a pretty sight, and not a recommended course of action in general, but one which IMO was needed lately.

Cavehill Red · 19-11-2010 01:04PM

prinz wrote: »

Everyone knew they were based on lies ffs, the record surpluses were based on a bubble. It wouldn't have been so bad if the surpluses had been put by for times like now, but FF, egged on by FG and Labour spent spent spent like there was no tomorrow.

But everyone didn't know. Most of the population genuinely believed 'this time was different.'
FG and Labour based policies on what figures they received from government. The government is to blame, them alone. Any attempt to dissipate blame is an attempt to get FF off the hook for what they've done.

prinz wrote: »

Not really, would have been quite a simple matter to threaten a constitutional crisis, basically forcing an election. Not a pretty sight, and not a recommended course of action in general, but one which IMO was needed lately.

That easy to force an election? I don't think so, given the fact the current government has no mandate and is clinging to power despite constituencies being left without TDs for years on end.
And what would have happened in 07 if they HAD forced an election somehow? Sure the public had only just voted FF back in ffs.

thebigbiffo · 19-11-2010 01:05PM

Cavehill Red wrote: »

If the government books say they're running record surpluses, what else are people going to propose only spend some of the money to benefit those outside of the propertied moneyed classes?
But those books were lies. And chances are, Fianna Fail knew they were lies.

And then you'd be giving out about why weren't Labour taking their seats in parliament holding the government to account. :rolleyes:

can somebody please define these 'books' for me?

THERE ARE NO BOOKS FFS!!

there are and were freely available numbers from the dept of finance relating to income and expenditure - there were yearly budgets and updates. nobody gave false numbers and there was no dodgy accounting.

there was bad policy, planning, implementation, foresight etc etc and the list is endless - and each and every policy could be torn apart at will at the time by rabbitte et al.. they didn't/couldn't do it then and try ram it down my throat now that they did! what a pile of s'hite!

can we please stop with this s'hite talk that we were all presented with false numbers and dodgy 'books': this is country ffs, not some back street newsagents!

Cavehill Red · 19-11-2010 01:07PM

thebigbiffo wrote: »

can somebody please define these 'books' for me?

THERE ARE NO BOOKS FFS!!

there are and were freely available numbers from the dept of finance relating to income and expenditure - there were yearly budgets and updates. nobody gave false numbers and there was no dodgy accounting.

there was bad policy, planning, implementation, foresight etc etc and the list is endless - and each and every policy could be torn apart at will at the time by rabbitte et al.. they didn't/couldn't do it then and try ram it down my throat now that they did! what a pile of s'hite!

can we please stop with this s'hite talk that we were all presented with false numbers and dodgy 'books': this is country ffs, not some back street newsagents!

Here's the books for 07, Biffo.
http://www.finance.gov.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=-1&CatID=13&StartDate=1+January+2007

prinz · 19-11-2010 01:08PM

Cavehill Red wrote: »

That easy to force an election? I don't think so, given the fact the current government has no mandate and is clinging to power despite constituencies being left without TDs for years on end..

The current government has a mandate, and it's far easier to continue on with a few constituencies empty than half the country/half the Dáil empty.

Cavehill Red wrote: »

And what would have happened in 07 if they HAD forced an election somehow? Sure the public had only just voted FF back in ffs.

It would give Rabbitte & co the high moral ground. Right now they are all slinging mud down in the gutter.

Corsendonk · 19-11-2010 01:08PM

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Of course the books were cooked. It was only a matter of weeks after the election when Bertie started rolling back on the election promises, claiming our finances were much worse off than he'd previously been aware of.
Either he's lying, and FF already knew the state of the country's finances, or he's telling the truth and the DoF spoofed him.
.

What I can't understand if the books were cooked the government would have needed the help of the civil servants in the various departments, I didn't hear any whistle blowers so they must be as guilty as the government.

thebigbiffo · 19-11-2010 01:09PM

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Here's the books for 07, Biffo.
http://www.finance.gov.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=-1&CatID=13&StartDate=1+January+2007

yeah and you are trying to say they're all makey uppy numbers, which is clearly a pile of rubbish.

what's your point?

The Muppet · 19-11-2010 01:10PM

thebigbiffo wrote: »

can we please stop with this s'hite talk that we were all presented with false numbers and dodgy 'books': this is country ffs, not some back street newsagents!

Care to explain last weekends denials that the IMF were coming in?

FF are a bunch of lying tossers.

Cavehill Red · 19-11-2010 01:11PM

thebigbiffo wrote: »

yeah and you are trying to say they're all makey uppy numbers, which is clearly a pile of rubbish.

what's your point?

Well, Bertie Ahern was telling us eight months later that they were a pile of rubbish. And it certainly looks from this position of hindsight that they were a pile of rubbish.
My point is the books were cooked.

dolphin city · 19-11-2010 01:12PM

PanchoVilla wrote: »

I'm getting so sick of this line being trotted out. It's no different to blaming the victims of fraud for the crime. We have laws in place (or should have) to ensure people who can't repay loans are not granted those loans in the first place. Those laws were ignored by the banks and the government failed in it's duty to regulate the economy.

The welfare of this country was ignored by arrogant, greedy politicians and businessmen who wanted to make a name for themselves. Well, it's backfired on them and now they will be remembered as the incompetent morons they really are. The general public are not responsible for believing what they're told by their own government. The boom created wealth for people who had never seen so much money, it's hardly surprising that they didn't know how to manage it all. The people who manage money on a daily basis, the government and banks, are the ones to blame.

I think the main reason FF won so many seats in the last election was because people wanted to see them fix the mess they made in the first place. Unfortunately, those imbeciles somehow managed to make things even worse.

thats a silly arguement - you are basically saying that the public are a pack of stupid morons that are unable to think for themselves. at the end of the day, you don't purchase something if you cannot afford it no matter how attractive it might seem - basic life lesson that should have been learned in the teenage years.

Cavehill Red · 19-11-2010 01:15PM

Corsendonk wrote: »

What I can't understand if the books were cooked the government would have needed the help of the civil servants in the various departments, I didn't hear any whistle blowers so they must be as guilty as the government.

This is my opinion too. Though there is a school of thought which says that senior civil servants in the DoF DID try to alert a number of Ministers for Finance about concerns they had of an overheating unsustainable economy (including Biffo and Lenny) and were shot down by the Ministers.
It's standard practice in government departments to tailor documents to suit ministerial policy, by the way.

thebigbiffo · 19-11-2010 01:19PM

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Well, Bertie Ahern was telling us eight months later that they were a pile of rubbish. And it certainly looks from this position of hindsight that they were a pile of rubbish.
My point is the books were cooked.

your point is wrong.

everything in what you linked to were based on policies and forecasts that would have been freely available to all parties and weighted against offical figures provided by the department of finance.

if you have evidence that the department of finance willfully gave the wrong numbers to back up these programmes and projections (which would have and could have been openly debated in the dail) then i suggest you bring it to the attention of the gardai - otherwise, stop trying to re-write history to say that the government in power engaged in actual willfull illegality instead of stupid planning and policy.

Cavehill Red · 19-11-2010 01:22PM

thebigbiffo wrote: »

your point is wrong.

everything in what you linked to were based on policies and forecasts that would have been freely available to all parties and weighted against offical figures provided by the department of finance.

But the estimates were wrong. They were based on preposterous projections concocted by the DoF and its then-minister (one Biffo.)

thebigbiffo wrote: »

if you have evidence that the department of finance willfully gave the wrong numbers to back up these programmes and projections (which would have and could have been openly debated in the dail) then i suggest you bring it to the attention of the gardai - otherwise, stop trying to re-write history to say that the government in power engaged in actual willfull illegality instead of stupid planning and policy.

Ah, the Gardai. The same Gardai who've jailed so many of the bankers? The same Gardai who've gone nowhere after 14 months investigating clear fraud in Anglo? That Gardai?

thebigbiffo · 19-11-2010 01:26PM

Cavehill Red wrote: »

But the estimates were wrong. They were based on preposterous projections concocted by the DoF and its then-minister (one Biffo.)

that's not cooking the books...that's bad planning and lack of foresight.

i dont argue with this.

i argue with your use of terminology designed to imply willful illegality was engaged in on a wide scale from the DOF to the government ministers - this is simply not the case end of story.

either way - to get back on topic - there's every reason to believe that if labour or FG were i power they wouldn't have changed a thing. i'd like to see some evidence that they would have cut back projections or spending. you wont find any, because they didn't suggest either.

Pat Rabbitte, short memory?

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