You have to love the art of political debate - as MfFTO said - this is exactly the kind of defence I'd expect any staunch FF'er to present and tbh there's no harm as we need to see all sides to get a good balance.
convert wrote:Education has brought us to the level of economic performance we have now and educaition is one place where FF has always had a consostent committment ot improving services.
I think the individual wealth a sector of society have made from our overheated property market gives a false impression of the wealth of the country. Sure we're better off than in the 80's but I suspect this is as much to do with the fact credit is easy to come by these days - I'd love to see the statistics on how many people have re-mortgaged properties bought in the 80's to fund they're spending
On another point the statement is flawed becase I think you'll find that in reality an educated workforce we won't see much economic return unless this educated workforce has the opportunity to use it's skills to generate a revenue stream - such opportunities are generally created through a number of factors such as internal tax incentives to bring in business, strong eurozone economy and low eurozone interest rates (which ultimately stem from Germany).
The main thing I find on the doorsteps is that people won't complain to a cancvasser only the candidate.
I find this funny purely because we didn't have one canvesser call to the house during the last election. Plenty of leaflets promising things that I know will never happen (I know this because they are the same things that were promised at the last election and they still haven't happened)
If you(a citizen) really cared about the way things were going, then you would make an appointment to meet your TD/Councillor or go to a clinic.
Been there and done that - I rang and wrote letters to a few politicians in the last government both local to me as well as from other constituencies and only person to reply EVER was Eamon Gilmore.
I'm a student, I'm thinking of buying an FTO and truth be told
Not sure what this has to do with anything tbh
FF HQ are attributing the strength of the party's performance stronly to the 25 and under age group who DID vote, and voted in large numbers as far as I'm concerned.
All this does for me is confirm what I already believe - FF are the masters of the election and know what it takes to win - this has nothing to do with their ability to govern.
We are the people who have never known anything but FF governance, we are the people who have more money in our pockets than anyone between 30-50 (exceptions apply) and we are the people who will benefit from a levelling housing market.
Personally I think this is a very naiive statement - students really have more money in their pocket?? Maybe when compared to a young couple who have recently bought a new house and have a young child in a creche
Sure "students" will benefit from a cooling property market but in reality how much can we "afford" to let the market cool? If prices were to drop to "really affordable levels" then this would likely mean many people in this country will be in trouble already as we would see a serious slow down in building, large lay offs in construction, more repossessions, reduced tax take for the government, negative equity for many, reduction in available credit (on which over 60% of the population rely heavily) and all this in an environment of increasing costs....
People know the extent of the cost of motoring and can't blame the government for levying it if they choose a car that's "expensive" to tax and run.
Another sweeping statement - how does this justify the new VRT and Tax system - everyone except our wonderful politicians know that the way to "make the polluter pay" is to increase tax on petrol - that way it's a properly fair system. But of couse this would probably reduce the governments tax take and I'm sure we'd be hit somewhere else - so as MfFTO mentioned - this is just a government cash cow!
I don't necessarily agree with everything my government does, but I trust FF and Mary Harney a lot more to do what's right for the country
I find the use of the word trust here somewhat humourous given the financial scandals that surround the FF party -
Apparently 2007 was the "election to lose" and we put our all into winning it and came back with 10 more seats than even the most optimistic TD imagined at the start of the campaign. Personally I always knew there was a win to be had and when the ballot boxes were opened, phone calls were flying all over the country with talk of "a '77" and overall majority.
Just another example of the FF electioneering skills and nothing to do with their ability to govern - but that said, I have to admit there's no flies on FF when if comes to convince the undecided..... they are very good at manipulation - far better than Labour or FG.
Ireland is heading into a recession, but Ireland is never going back to the 80s. less than 5% of the workforce are employed in large multi-nationals and Enterprise Ireland is available to give support to people who've been made redundant and no matter how bad it gets; the worst it'll get is that Mary and Pat won't be able to change their '10 Focus of an '11 plate and they'll have to wait til 2012 or 2013.
While I agree we won't have an 80's Ireland I do think you are completely under-estimating the impact we could be facing - Mary and Pat's Ford Focus is not the issue here unfortunately. How many people are currently in negative equity? How many first-time buyers are already struggling to pay their mortgage? What happens to these when they start a family? And this is without taking into account the external factors which we cannot control and which WILL influence our economic prosperity? Rising eurozone interest rates (believe me, they will start to rise again), the further expected impact of the subprime issues, rising oil prices leading to reduced exports higher cost imports due to increased manufacturing costs, rising cost of living (home heat, petrol, groceries, dept repayment, etc), potentially multinationals relocating to lower cost base and construction industry shedding jobs, immigrant workers returning home to their developping countries taking their skills and their money which would further reduce our economy.
Multinationals may only account for a direct 5% of our workforce (not sure if this is accurate) but they were responsible for approx 90% of our exports on which they paid a lot of taxes. In addition there are a lot of irish industries that rely on these multinationals for work - cleaning companies, maintenance companies, etc.
Also constructions is responsible for over 19% direct employment not even mentioning all the industries indirectly tied into construction.
So right there you have 24% of our workforce in 2 industries that are likely to see rough times over the coming years..... who can really predict what will happen!
As a society the Celtic Tiger has changed us for the better and for the worse.
Never a truer statement spokend
But no government sets out to shaft anyone.
Maybe not but they definitely set out to benefit some more than others.....
Personally I believe FF were in the right place at the right time but even with all the available resources of the past 10 years they still haven't managed to deliver - sure we've seen improvements but the reality is that the past 10 years have been poorly managed and if this country was a private company the chief execeutive would have been sacked a long time ago. My one overriding question is how we can be in a position where we will have to borrow to fund public spending when we have just had 10 years of unprecendented wealth?
Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 8:56 am
