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Corrupt Irish politicians need to think bigger

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Comments

  • #32
    seamus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 68,173 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »
    Ah yes. It's actually the voters fault that corruption exists. It's the voters fault that the people they voted for decided to corrupt themselves.

    That is some absolutely superb logic.
    Well, it's valid. We have free and fair elections. So these people don't put themselves into office. They're put there by the voters.

    And they don't suddenly become corrupt in office, they got there doing the kinds of activities that become corruption when you get elected. Lowry, the Healy-Raes, Mick Wallace, SF, FF, FG, it's all about being the guy who can, "get things done", and in return you get a vote at the next general election.

    If voters realised that voting for the guy who's done you the most favours is in fact explicitly endorsing and approving of corruption, they might be less inclined to continue voting for them.
    micosoft wrote: »
    And if we needed more evidence the Release of the Panama Papers show remarkably few Irish residents and an awful lot of supposedly clean countries we should mimic.... like Iceland.
    It made me chuckle alright, thinking about the amount of people here on boards who held Iceland up as the paragon of how you deal with a financial crisis, like it was some kind of socialist paradise where banks and profits weren't in charge.


  • #33
    Sleepy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 25,000 ✭✭✭✭Sleepy


    micosoft wrote: »
    Actually there was a fair amount of documentation and books on his various sources of income. The interesting thing is that most of the money he got through bluster as opposed to direct corrupt practices e.g. Liam Lawlor. The largest indirect source was the write off of his AIB loans. And this was purely to avoid embarrassing a sitting Taoiseach.
    As it turns out AIB had to be bailed out by the Government after disastrous investment in the 80's but they didn't know that at the time they wrote of his loans. Whether AIB would have been bailed out regardless I'm not so sure. Given PMPA were as well we know the state had an interventionist policy the with financial institutions.
    There's an old legend in banking circles about the conversation that took place between Haughey and AIB at the time. Allegedly, Haughey reminded the loans manager handling his case that, as Taoiseach, he callled the tune of the man responsible for setting the corporate tax rate that AIB would have to pay...

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  • #34
    micosoft
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,368 ✭✭✭micosoft


    Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »
    Ah yes. It's actually the voters fault that corruption exists. It's the voters fault that the people they voted for decided to corrupt themselves.

    That is some absolutely superb logic.

    Are you suggesting that the voters don't have the opportunity to vote out corrupt politicians? They have re-elected a politician convicted of corruption repeatedly in Tipp. It's the voters fault if they reward corrupt politicians by reelecting them. I fail to see the gap in my logic there....


  • #35
    gramar
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,045 ✭✭✭✭gramar


    micosoft wrote: »
    Are you suggesting that the voters don't have the opportunity to vote out corrupt politicians? They have re-elected a politician convicted of corruption repeatedly in Tipp. It's the voters fault if they reward corrupt politicians by reelecting them. I fail to see the gap in my logic there....

    It's a revolving door situation. You vote one out and there's another standing in line to be voted in. If they're not corrupt when they get in then they won't be long becoming it.


  • #36
    melissak
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,873 ✭✭✭melissak


    Ireland is much less corrupt than lots of countries. Is this all we should hope for? it's not as bad as north Korea sure it will do. Why do we consistently accept mediocrity when we could strive for greatness


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