For your consideration.
A ‘Party Political Broadcast on behalf of Micheál Martin Quality Used Cars, Bandon Road, Cork‘
By Morgan C Jones, who writes:
An Ireland For All those thicks and self serving bastards who actually think old Captain McBusCrash would be a good idea ‘for a change’…
Gulp.
This afternoon.
Bridge Street, Kilcock, County Kildare.
Minno tweetz:
The tallest barber’s pole in Ireland and the Shinners got it.
This afternoon.
Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin 2.
Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald launching her party’s General Election 2020 Manifesto.
Including:
Doubling of the length of maternity leave and abolishing third level fees…
Pledges to build 100,000 council homes over five years, at a cost of €6.5 billion.
AND a refundable tax credit will reduce rent by 1,500 a year along with a freeze on rents for three years.
The party’s election manifesto also says that Sinn Féin can deliver all its promises ‘while also returning a surplus‘.
FIGHT!
USC, health & housing at centre of Sinn Féin manifesto (RTÉ)
From top: Leaders’ debate panel; Leo Varadkar, Micheál Martin, Mary Lou McDonald, Eamon Ryan, Brendan Howlin, Roisin Shorthall and Richard Boyd Barrett
Last night.
Leaders’ debate on Claire Byrne Live on RTÉ One.
Anyone?
Meanwhile…
Claire Byrne: “Who is left enough for you then?
Richard Boyd Barrett: “Well I think people have to prove that they’re genuinely committed to left-wing principles and indeed the promises…”
Byrne: “Sinn Féin?”
Barrett: “…the promises that they make before an election. And my appeal would be to people who would see themselves on the left, is not to use the votes that they get in this election where, for the first time, in the history of the State, more than 50% of people are expressing a desire for a Government without Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, not to take that vote to prop up one or other of those two parties who’ve dominated this state, for its entire history, a two-party state for its entire history.
“I believe there’s an appetite for change, not least because those two parties in recent years have left us with a bitter legacy of the worst ever housing crisis in the history of the State, a disastrous state in our health service, crucifing cost of living for huge numbers of people…”
Byrne: “You’re setting yourself up for a life on the opposition benches so it makes no odds what you say in your manifesto, of what you say to voters, cause you’re going to never going to be in a position to…”
Barrett: “I genuinely believe we could have a left Government and I actually think there is a growing, an unprecedented appetite for a left Government but I think you would throw away that opportunity, as was done by the Labour party the last time, which was a disaster for them electorally, apart from anything else, and indeed the Greens before them, almost destroyed themselves by going into coalition with Fianna Fáil.”
Later
Claire Byrne: “Are you happy with the Help to Buy scheme? Because I did read about it and I brought this in with me because it’s quite extraordinary.
“The Parliamentary Budget Office said 41 per cent of the people who use that scheme already had enough money for a 10 per cent deposit. These people didn’t need the scheme and could be seen as a deadweight loss?”
Leo Varadkar: “You could see it that way but, you know, I think it’s a good economic policy and a good social policy to help everyone to help buy their own home. And the biggest problem that people have now, or one of the biggest problems people have now is getting a deposit together.
“Now the Help to Buy scheme has already helped 15,000-16,000 people to buy their first home. We want to make it more generous so that you can get your tax back. It’s the income tax you paid for the past four years, you get it back up to 10 per cent of the value of the house or €30,000.
“That means people can get the deposit but that’s only any good to you if there’s a supply of new housing and actually that’s something that’s changing. It’s a change that I’ve led…”
Later
Richard Boyd Barrett: “First of all, if you want to solve the housing crisis, don’t do as both Fianna Fáil and the Greens, and then Fine Gael/Labour did, under Nama, is sell off €40billion or more worth of land and property assets to property speculators and vulture funds.”
Long applause.
Barrett: “Ok, that’s the first thing. Then…”
Claire: “Hang on a second, just, just, your manifesto says that council houses, everybody should be entitled to them?”
Barrett: “Absolutely. All across Europe, and Austria was mentioned, all across Europe the State builds public housing and whether you’re a doctor or a professor or whether you’re someone on very low income, you can apply for social housing and your rent will be set according to your ability to pay. And that removes the stigma around social housing that doesn’t exist in the rest of Europe.
“We have created a stigma around social housing because you have to be under what is now a very low income income threshold in order to be eligible for it. Another thing you could do is have the publicly owned banks not charging double the interest rates for people who want to buy their own home and take out a mortgage which is what’s happening in this county at the moment.
“Somebody who takes out a mortgage from banks that are owned by the State, and were bailed out by the State, are paying over the course of a 30-year mortgage about €56,000 more than they would by a European counterparts because basically the publicly owned banks are racketeering on the back of people who are trying to buy homes.”
Applause.
Later
Micheál Martin: “We need, urgently, to provide housing for people. We all know people who come into our clinics who are living with their parents in box rooms, with their kids. It’s overcrowded, people have ill health. It’s shocking. And they’re a no statistic but they’re essentially homeless.
“So what Fianna Fáil are saying is yes, it’s urgent, it has to start next year. And it has to be social housing and it has to be affordable and we have to commission local authorities to go out and do it.
“Do you know at this very moment, local authorities can’t build anything above €2million without getting permission from the Department of the Environment? A year ago, we said to Fine Gael, change that, give them the autonomy to go out there and start building significant housing projects without seeking…this is an emergency. This is urgent and it’s quite shocking…”
Claire Byrne: “But, but Micheál…”
Martin: “…sorry now…”
Byrne: “But there’s nobody here, there’s nobody here not saying that it’s not a…you know everyone seems to agree…”
Martin: “Four years ago, we were told the homeless problem would be solved, it’s gone up 60% now.”
Mary Lou McDonald: “But Micheál? Micheál Martin backed the Fine Gael government.”
Martin: “Hold on a second.”
McDonald: “Micheál Martin told us time and again that he had secured housing budgets.”
Martin: “No we didn’t…what we said was…”
McDonald: “But actually he had secured the resources.
Martin: “No we didn’t actually…”
McDonald: “So Micheál Martin now wishes to distance himself from the fiasco and the disaster of this Government’s housing policy and, yet, he was the co-author of it. And I think it’s important to say that out loud.”
Applause.
Later
Richard Boyd Barrett: “I fully understand why rural Ireland – which has been rundown and has seen post offices taken off it, bus services taken off it, is suffering from depopulation, and big and growing and regional imbalances – would want to hang on to their Garda stations.
“I personally do not believe that we can police our way out of the rising level of crime, violence, organised crime, and so on. I think if we could, the United State would have done it which is one of the most policed societies in the world where we actually have more people in prison, we have more organised crime, we have a bigger drug problem.
“So I don’t think that’s the answer. What I do…”
Claire Byrne: “Your colleague, Ruth Coppinger, said it’s ridiculous to blame people who take cocaine at the weekends for fuelling gangland violence.”
Barrett: “Yeah, I don’t think it’s about what individuals consume. Any more than whether anybody got drunk once or took anti-depressants explains the problems…”
Byrne: “But if there’s no market, there’s no gangland, surely?”
Barrett: “No. The problem is there is a demand, it’s a reality in our society. But we have driven it into the criminal underworld. And we’re criminalising a lot of our youth making the situation even worse. I think that’s counter-productive. I do think we need to look at models like the Portuguese model where decriminalisation has led to less drug-related deaths…”
Byrne: “But more gardai is not for you?”
Barrett: “And one other point Claire that’s terribly important and it was a big point emphasised I saw in Drogheda and it’s certainly the case in many parts of Dublin where these are real problems, is that the cuts to the Drugs Taskforce, the cuts to community development projects, to community and youth outreach workers have been a disaster in terms of failing…”
Micheál Martin: “Absolutely, absolutely…”
Applause.
FIGHT!
Watch back in full here
Previously: Applause For Thought (February 2016)
From top: Red C poll results in yesterday’s Sunday Business Post; Ireland Thinks poll results in yesterday’s Irish Mail on Sunday; newspaper panel on RTÉ’s Weekend on One;
Yesterday.
On RTÉ Radio One’s Weekend on One.
Brendan O’Connor was after speaking to the show’s newspaper panel about yesterday’s most recent general election poll results when he referred to a “narrative” of the election that “this country is not doing well”.
During the newspaper panel section, Mr O’Connor spoke to the former leader of Fine Gael and former chairman of IBRC, formerly Anglo Irish Bank, Alan Dukes; political scientist at UCC Theresa Reidy; political reporter at The Irish Times Jennifer Bray; director of the ESRI Alan Barrett and Anna Marie McHugh, of the National Ploughing Association.
During their conversation, Mr O’Connor referred to an article by Richard Colwell, the CEO of Red C Research, in yesterday’s Sunday Business Post entitled ‘Youthquake a possibility as younger voters flock to Sinn Féin’.
He then had the following exchange with Mr Barrett.
Alan Barrett: “Very often, it’s digging down into the poll is as interesting as the poll itself and just to distil a number of themes. I suppose, as an economist, it won’t surprise you that I sort of, you know, focus on the economics bit on this and let me explain what I’m thinking the following way.
“Do you remember the phrase ‘it’s the economy, stupid’? And this was a mantra I think a lot of political people thought was a pretty sound way of running elections. This is really, really interesting.
“Because what we have in Ireland at the moment is, we have and economy that’s doing extremely well and we also have a poll which is telling us that the people actually trust the governing party, in this case, Fine Gael, most on the economy.
“And I think, and I’m looking at Theresa [Reidy] now, as the political scientist, in most countries in the world, if you have those sorts of numbers. There’d be a very high probability that the governing party was going to be re-elected. But in Ireland, we’re in this situation now that it looks like this will not be the case…”
Brendan O’Connor: “A narrative has emerged here…”
Barrett: “It has…absolutely…”
O’Connor: “That this country is not doing well. And a lot of people in the country are not doing well and that’s been the narrative of this election.”
Barrett: “It has and obviously it’s getting traction, ok? But if you look at things like, you know, the standard things we look at, in terms of employment and wage growth – they, very, very often, those are really sort of the main drivers in this sort of situation.”
Later
Barrett: “Let me come back to what I was saying, for fear there was a misunderstanding. All I was saying is, across the globe, ok, it tends to be the case, when the economies are going well, governing parties get elected.”
O’Connor: “But that’s what I’m asking. What’s the disconnect here?”
Barrett: “Well, clearly, clearly we do have major challenges in the area of health and housing, there’s absolutely no doubt about that, the childcare issue I think has been…you know, I think we all understand it and we all know that these issues are in play and they’re very, very challenging.
“And clearly then the way, the narrative of the election is sort of unfolding is that people are attracted to the parties whom they feel over more hope in these areas and that’s a perfectly reasonable and understandable thing.”
Later
Alan Dukes: “First of all on the childcare issue, yes there are problems, yes there are problems of cost and availability. The fact remains…”
O’Connor: “It’s a problem of childcare, commuting and housing, it’s those three things coming together.”
Dukes: “Yes and when you look at the current state of provision and compare it with what was in 2011, for example, the improvement is huge. It’s certainly not at the point that suits everybody but the improvement is huge…”
Later
O’Connor: “Why have Fine Gael lost control of the narrative then? Why are they not able to get the narrative you’re just talking about there?”
Dukes: “Because I think…”
O’Connor: “Longer life expectancy, lots of good health outcomes, unemployment way down. Where has that got lost in all of this?”
Dukes: “Because I think there’s a natural tendency in all of us to take the progress that’s been made for granted and to want more.”
Listen back in full here
This afternoon.
Fine Gael Election HQ, Dublin
Scenes from the launch of Fine Gael’s General Election 2020 manifesto in which party leader Leo Varadkar promises to:
Increase current health funding by €5bn over next five years.
Recruit 5,000 nurses and 3,840 primary care workers and to provide free GP care for under 18s.
Increase the point at which a single person pays the higher rate of tax to €50,000 euro and €100,000 for a couple.
Expand the Help-to-Buy scheme to help more people to buy their first home.
Increase the State pension by €25 a week, over five years.
Pledges on health, USC and help-to-buy in Fine Gael manifesto (RTÉ)
This morning/afternoon.
Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin.
Fianna Fáil Party Leader Micheál Martin launching the Fianna Fáil General Election 2020 manifesto
Among the pledges:
FF would lengthen maternity benefit to 30 weeks and bring in new childcare tax credits.
It would also double child benefit payments for the first month after the birth of a child.
Fianna Fáil also promises to reduce classroom sizes to a class size of 20 to 1 if in the next government.
The party will also reduce income taxes and cut capital gains tax to 25%.
On housing, the party will introduce a first-time buyers top SSIA-type scheme, capped at €10,000, and expand the current help to buy grant measures.
It also promises to build 50,000 affordable homes for prices below €250,000.
Social Democrat co-leader Catherine Murphy and Social Democrat candidate for Dublin Fingal, Paul Mulvihill
This morning.
Round Room, Rotunda Hospital, Dublin
Social Democrats launch a policy document called ‘Honest Politics – Restoring trust in politics and public life’. aiming to “tackle corruption in Irish political and public life”.
Policy proposals include:
A commitment to establishing an Independent Anti-Corruption unit with significant wide-ranging detection and prosecution powers
The establishment of an Electoral Commission, the introduction of an Oireachtas Commission vetting procedure for all senior appointments to public bodies,
Reform of the Ministers and Secretaries Act to make senior public servants accountable for their actions,
And a commitment to poverty-proof all legislative, policy, and budgetary decisions.
Social Democrats co-leader Catherine Murphy said:
“Too often there is little if any accountability when wrongdoing is uncovered and that is why we believe that an Independent Anti-Corruption unit – with wide-ranging powers to investigate and prosecute is a necessary step which can not only help restore much-needed trust but also to put an end to the need for expensive and lengthy tribunals and commissions of investigation.”
Last night.
Virgin Media One press room.
Clean-living political journalists react to Leo Varadkar’s stoned stunned answer to whether he has ever taken ‘illegal drugs’.
Earlier: Buzzin’
Last night.
Virgin Media One.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Fianna Fáil leader Michaél Martin are asked about ‘illegal drug’ use during their one-to-one General Election 2020 debate hosted by Pat Kenny.
Wait for it.
Watch in Full Here
