Petrified Irish Times ‘Pol Corr’ Harry McGee
And say it anyway.
“It looks like the next Dáil will be settled by Independents. I don’t think the number will be quite the 52 that has been projected but I think they will almost have a seat in every constituency. And then people would have to think through the consequences of that. Like just what Shane Ross and others have been saying in the past week, they’ve been saying that they would dispense with the whip system which is a political popular thing to say.
But it means that, I mean, the reason for the whip system isn’t, they’re not just doing it for the health or the discipline of the party. They’re doing it because they have to ensure that when they’re making very tough decisions, when they’re doling out the tough medicine for everybody, that there has to be some discipline and they have to make sure that everybody is on board and if they were to throw the whip system open, as some Independents are doing, it would mean that you’d have a system where taxes would inevitably be cut and spending would be increased and you get the kind of most populist policies being projected and then, in relation to legislation, you’d have TDs subject to intense lobbying both from vested interests and also from their constituencies and you have situations that would conceivably lead to stagnation and paralysis.
There’s not really been any instance in Europe of a country in which and independent administration has been successful. The only place indeed it has worked is in very small instances. You’d have to go to Tahiti islands and other places to see that. So people would have to think through the consequences of what their vote will mean and if the figures that were projected this morning come to pass, I think it will lead to inherent instability and a general election being called in short order. We’ll have a 1981/1982 situation… when there were three elections held in the course of just a year and a half.”
Ah here.
Following the Ispos poll results in the Irish Times this morning, on Today with Seán O’Rourke, the newspaper’s political correspondent Harry McGee warns voters to “think through the consequences”.
Listen back in full here.
Earlier: Ispos Factos
Pic via YouTube
Panic mode engaged
It’s gas, these guys will throw out the worst possible case scenario and act as though it’s inevitable. Let it play out and see what happens, who knows it might work.
Have to say I think he’s right. Staring down the barrel of a independents shotgun so we are. Problem is, far too many people will vote independent without looking into where that person sits on the political spectrum, resulting in a load of nut jobs getting elected. Interesting times ahead for sure.
Of course he’s right. One only has to look to that bastion of democracy, Italy, to see how this will turn out.
A dail full of Healy Raes only interested in serving the people of their own constituency.
Or, you know, Germany. Which also has whipless politics (because they wrote it into their constitution in ’49 for fairly obvious reasons).
Party whip in a system where main political parties have been institutionally corrupt for decades is a dangerous thing
And is sort of successful in a European context, I suppose.
“who knows it might work”
Yes, that’s the kind of well thought-out logic I want to entrust the future of the nation with.
Your right, much better to do the same sh*te they’ve been doing for the past 100 years which has resulted in mostly busted economies and generations of young Irish people moving to other countries and not returning. If your happy with that then by all means vote for the same BS again.
Pfft! consequences are for people who still have money
Oh, are they going to cut public sector pay bill?
You’d have to go to Tahiti? Why, are the flights to there cheaper than the ones to Switzerland, where individual voters can – and have – voted on policies like what limit to put on their income tax?
And they’ve been doing it for hundreds of years…
Also, that whip system…
https://www.broadsheet.ie/2013/09/03/not-good-enough-to-save-not-bad-enough-to-abolish/#comment-711176
in a word: ráiméis.
Twit.
You may not like him but Harry McGee’s no twit.
so part whips are essential for any country’s stability? I would say that there might be a period of shock while they learn to be directly accountable for their actions, but whips are just useful to hide individual incompetence.
Don’t tell the Germans so, they don’t have a whip system.
And we all know how that worked out for them.
JOKE!
Lucky for you, we Germans are famed for our wonderful sense of humour.
Er, that’s kindof the reason *why* they got rid of the whip system in ’49…
“it would mean that you’d have a system where taxes would inevitably be cut and spending would be increased”
christ, no!
Yes! Spending increases and tax cuts for all! But no borrowing. That would be bad
+ Sinn Fein Magic Money Tree
Oh nose – Does this mean the the anarchistic and ungrateful electorate are actually considering giving their No1, to the candidate of their choice? Truly shocking.
I’ll say it again, a small group of united left alliance couldn’t keep it together in opposition.
Seriously doubt they could form a government that would last more than a year.
McGee is an eejit. The establishment is running scared.
Sky news have a lot to answer for. Flipping hyperbole panic induced predections of doo…oh it didn’t happen. quick change the headlines, swap the word good for bad, take the stance you broke the story and supported it all along.
All of the scaremongering Harry is harping on about – lobbying, vested interests – has been going on already but in a more sinsister fashion as there is not a few TDs but an entire political party pushing those interests under control of this ‘whip’ (our TDs love faceless mind control entities apparently forcing them to act against their will. Eu, Ecb, troika, whip). Independents make Harry’s life more difficult and he would actually have to do some work instead of rehashing the pr report from Leinster house.
ffs rte still trying to sell us the fg dream. I’d love to see the licence fee abolished. shower of pompous pricks.
Licence fee doesn’t go to RTE though, it just goes into the exchequer. Abolish it and you won’t be abolishing RTE.
correct Mark, but it would be a start.
Not much of one – they’d just hike some other tax to make up for it.
They wouldn’t dare!!!…. Would they?!?
Poor Harry, the lights are on but…
the party whip system stifles debate and undermines democracy. any chance rte would invite me on to discuss?
…so Harry is applying for the Editor job at the Indo…
I think it’s a valid opinion myself.
+1
People here are too angry to listen to any other point of view, though.
more fear fear fear, fupp their fear I want to see someone else fupp up, or at least try!
fear fear fear fear fear, do the establishment know anything different?
It’s what has kept them in power since the beginning of the state.
Shut up.. Be afraid… Spend!!.. Have this cock up your arse… Work!! etc
He’s right, you know.
Fear-mongering as usual
Tell ya wha’
Call the election now
n’ we won’t be long finding out who’s wrong and who’s right
Tick Tock
I prefer Harry’s brother Ulick.
It was either gonna be you or me, Andy. Of that I was confident.
The OP was posted at 2.46. I mean COME ON! Sometimes I despair of this place, I really do.
And there’s his other brother Pat
Not forgetting his mum ‘Putthatbigsausagein’
Dr Phil
+ his cousin Proinnseas
The Gregory deal x 50 = Hello Troika, again.
Perfect timing for a rudderless government ;-)
http://blog.kimblechartingsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/spyvixaveragelowlevelsdec2.jpg
In Ireland a ‘stable’ government means a government, consistently and over two administrations, failing to stand up for our interests abroad and cowing to those of others.
Stability is overrated, stability-at-all-costs got us into this mess, stability demanded we shoulder the entire cost of the Eurozone banking crisis. Sometimes the cost of stability is higher than the cost of (POTENTIAL) instability. Let’s try something new.
Brilliant! A Dail full of Jackie Healy Ray types.
How many bypasses will be built before the country gets completed bankrupt (again)
In fairness, for every Jackie Healy-Rae there’s a Stephen Donnelly and a Catherine Murphy.
You assume that there’s a constant ratio of one solid to one idiot. For every Stephen Donnelly there are more like 5 bumpkins.
+1
It is more like ‘for every Healy-Rae there is a Willie O’Dea, Sean Barrett, Beverley Flynn or Fidelma Healy Eames’
It is not a party that makes someone a good politician.
No, for every Stephen Donnelly there are 2 Healy-raes. More to point, there is one Charlie Keddy one Billy Timmons, a whatever amount of other no marks and party men.
Sur we’re still insolvent
Might as well suit ourselves
Better than watching tribes of intolerant pensioners and double jobbers and Labour phonies fattening their payoffs and pensions
Samo samo might suit you John, ‘ie-Come-Lately
But its not suiting me
Tick Tock
But surely all the people on the average wage of €70,000 will vote FG?
I remember a time when the journal wasn’t so left wing… Just glad that the silent majority of this country comprising most of the middle class will hopefully ensure that we vote in further stability in the firm of FF/FG/Lab. Of course the moderate centre of this country is now called the political establishment by those who believe that having the loudest voice means you represent the will of most people and are right. sorry lads but your revolution will not be coming with the next election. It is a pity that country couldn’t take on board what JFK said about how it’s not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country. A massive section of this country has a sense of entitlement. I won’t pay tax and water charges but I want a world class health service. people would do well to scrub up on some basic accounting and economics and stop their protesting. Rant over.
Well I don’t need t’ brush up on my sums
We already have World Class Healthcare and facilities. But we can’t turn it on properly.
Stop spending billions on shit.
Like obscene payroll, entitlements n increments, pensions and absurd allowances
Laughable work practices and benchmarking
Stop wasting money on shit
Like Irish Water
Big 4 Consultants
Enquiries that can do ück all but cost money
Stop awarding contracts to the usual suspects and stop handing out paying gigs to connected pals
Start decency
Start honesty
Start seeking out the best
Make our schools the best
And stop rewarding and promoting the worst
And while I’m it
Instead’a putting tax bucks into their pockeys Ück out the off shore for tax reasons merchants
Well, against my better judgement, I may as well reply.
if you were to take a look at what the government actually spends money on; most of it’s not sh*t. Even if you take out all monies paid out in salaries and allowances to politicians and board members on quangos; it’s not going to come to billions and is not going to make a big difference when it comes to Government spending. I agree that these guys get paid over the odds and should be reigned in but cutting every TD’s pension entitlements and salary is not going to save us big bucks.
As for the money civil servants are on. They’ve been hit quite hard in recent times. So what if an average Garda rakes in 40k-55k a year all in. He/She deserves it for the job they do. Same goes for nurses and teachers. A lot of them could earn much more in the private sector with their skills. The average civil servant is a clerical officer. They don’t earn very much….
Yup, Irish Water was set up terribly and wastefully. We still need it and someone has to pay for it. Access to water is a human right but why shouldn’t we pay for it? It’s either that or it comes from tax revenue anyway. It’s a utility. It should be billed. The FG government has actually been laughable buying off the electorate with payment towards it etc. Big 4 consultants are good at what they do. Have you ever read a consultant’s report? If we kept these skills within the civil service; they would be far less efficient and actually cost us more money. Sometimes we need expertise to make good decisions.
Seeking out the best and making our schools the best? We’ll need to pay the best well unfortunately (more salaries and allowances sadly) and our schools will require cash. So how do we pay for that? Yup taxes and borrowing. we might want it all but we can’t always have it.
I’m on a measly salary myself but I’m glad I’ve got where I am on my own bat without sucking mercilessly off the tit of the state. I’d rather see the parent who has worked for 15 years and has three kids get 500 in their dole payment and left the layabouts lounging about at home whose only contribution to society has been to whinge into their keyboards blaming everyone else for their mistakes 30 euro. If you are in an unskilled job and you don’t get paid very well; it is not the state or your employers fault. It’s your own and economics is dictating your salary. Social welfare should be there to help the fringes of society who need it most and not the lazy dole merchant who refuses to get out of bed to get a job. Your rent allowance can’t cover your rent? Move home or go to a hostel?
Second rant over.
Or, to put it in the original phrasing, if you’re poor it’s your own fault you lazy freeloader.
There are times when I think idiots like you ought to lose everything for a week, just so you remember how nasty it is at the bottom and just how few safeguards we have in this society between you and it.
I did lose everything two years ago. crawled back up to Dublin without a penny in my pocket sleeping on couches. Managed to work my way back up to where I am now without blaming everyone else along the way. I got a few weeks dole and I was well entitled to it. I’d worked for many years before that. There is a big difference between a freeloader and somebody in an unfortunate situation.
And we’re done here…
Big difference between a working man getting social welfare for a few weeks and a girl who has got up the duff a few times and is entitled to a house, lone parent, lone parent’s tax credits, children’s allowance etc for her “efforts”.
PRSI: Pay related social Insurance
If you don’t contribute; why should you get jack?
No, there really isn’t. That money going to the pregnant woman (btw, your mom says thanks so much for the sexist shit) is supporting the kid as well as her. So take that catholic “poorness is immoral” vibe and remember the whole “sins of the father” prohibition, m’kay?
I mean, for all we know here, you’re a
useless waste of skin who never did a useful day’s work in his life and isn’t worth a penny of public money via the doledog…Mom. C**t.
cutting every TD’s pension entitlements and salary is not going to save us big bucks.
No, but it may curb the widespread cynicism that all politicians are out for themselves?
A lot of them [Garda, nurses, teachers] could earn much more in the private sector with their skills.
No again and definitely not Teachers. Every freeloading cowboy/girl who drank their way through college knows that marrying a teacher is stepping up to first class gravy train. Ditto Garda.
” Every freeloading cowboy/girl who drank their way through college knows that marrying a teacher is stepping up to first class gravy train.”
Erm, might get terrible shock to the system if they married me so!
Here Mickie G.
You know nothing about the National Payroll. Absolutely SFA.
And I know that because you used the Gardai in your attempt at a rant.
Familiarise yourself with their renumeration, their benefits, their allowances, their OT and their shift allowances. Measure this knowledge against their absenteeism. And their performance records. Then, if you haven’t started crying. Test their pensions against all other police forces in Europe and in the English speaking world.
Our police force is too expensive for what we get out of it.
Two generations of public servants and their spouses in need to DIE before our public payroll becomes in anyway serviceable. And by serviceable I mean sensible, and comparable with any one of our trading partners
BTW Mickey G.
Your Clerical Officers are still 50% better off than their counterparts in the UK.
Just know that the TV licence cost me €160 smackeroos yesterday in fact and I rarely watch RTE. I do like a bit if Vinnie B before bed though. : )
To be honest I wouldn’t mind seeing Clare Daly and Luke Ming and at a push Mick Wallace having more power. They seem more “of the people” in the recent past. They can do no worse than the school teacher there at the moment. At least one of them has failed big time in business so maybe he can bring that experience to the table and help make changes for the better. I’m going to give them a go next time around. They’ve got to be better than what’s there at the moment.
Primary schools cost me X hundred quid this year and I haven’t used one at all in decades, etc.
More power for Mick “why pay my taxes or my employee’s pension contributions” Wallace? No thanks.
Ming… I dunno. I just wish he wouldn’t make his political career about how he doesn’t care what he wears. That just wastes his efforts. (Seriously, he might ask the same questions as Stephen Donnolly, but the main parties can’t make a joke about Donnelly’s clothing and dodge the question the way they do with Flanagan, and if he can’t see that and get round it…)
I just don’t know why he went to Europe. He’d do much more good staying in the Dail and being seen and heard.
“you’re a useless waste of skin who never did a useful day’s work in his life and isn’t worth a penny of public money via the dole dog…”
Sorry if I’m not fully au fait with your ways as a keyboard warrior but it seems you’ve gone the way of senseless insults where you can’t make a valid argument. You’re not going to persuade me with the above either. Also bringing religion into it is quite strange too….
LOL!!!!
Ah, so we’re using the “don’t quote the whole sentence or what he said might make sense” rule, are we? Why not. What could the phrase “I mean, for all we know here, “ possibly add to that quote of yours, eh?
Why don’t you toddle off to your libertarian dreamland with the other teenagers who’ve not yet learnt that those other moving bipeds they can see are actually real people. You’ll be happier.
Helpful of him to say this. I’m sure the established parties are very grateful.
Relax lads, it’s just his audition for Chicken Little in the Christmas panto.
I’m sure he just wants us to pick a party. Trouble is none of them is commanding enough support. Sounds more like a problem for politics than the people honestly
How come they never warned us not to vote for the
current junta or the previous one….where was Harry or
the Irish Times then….busy raking in income on
lavish property supplements, promoting the boom
which led to its eventual crash….not word about this.
The “paper of record” indeed: