Leadership and fairness is required

[rogeroleary]

Another option?

and that's fair enough C....... but I think it's very difficult for someone to break into the system on their own and once your sign up with a party you have to go along with the whole self perpetuating cycle.

What I would really like to see is the Dail being paid by performance. Therefore the current crisis when we have a huge deficit that we have to close.......TDs are on something like €92k basic plus secretarial allowances etc and load of expenses with Ministers on probably double that and Biffo has another large dollop on top again.

If the target has to be cutting €4 bn a year for the next 4 years, then why don't we do what real employers do an link people pay to their results? So if the TDs collectively deliver the €4bn a year by consensus then they keep their packages. If they don't meet the goal in year 1 they drop 10% across the board, same in years 2,3 & 4. Surely that would ensure that the Dail had to work through the various party goals to achieve the national interest so we can start growing again.....

That said I still think we have about 100 TDs too many but hell.............


Roger

 

[partnership]

I am always baffled by what people judge as a mandate. Does this mean that opinion polls are on favour of the government? No where in the world is a programme for government a real commitment to deliver, look at the Lib Dems in the UK. If there were 500,000 people protesting on the streets of Dublin, there would be a better case for the current government to leave office.



You are absolutely correct about the need for politicians to take significant pay cuts to set an example. They should stop paying Senators altogether. There is a fundamental problem with TDs spending time on local issues but the fact is that if they do not do that they will not get re-elected. A couple of months ago I was listening to a TD talking about his top priority being some roads in Mayo when he gets in to government in the near future. Anyone who is not pushing for an election now is labeled as FF supporter. The fact of the matter is that many people who think that Cowen is doing a horrendous job don't think that the alternative is any better.




Doing up offices is not a waste of money, maintaining offices and making them fit for purpose is necessary. The problem is the cost, all across the public sector there are so many cases of bad value for money and that needs to be resolved. The cost of overseas trips is not crippling our economy, we need to maintain strong international links using senior politicians to open doors for Irish business.

The NAMA hotel suggestion is flawed as the hotels are not in NAMA, the loans are. The company with the management contract would get the room rates from the guest. This would also result in penalizing non-NAMA related hotels. If you have a well run hotel, politicians will not stay in your hotel, is that fair?

The main issue is that you proclaim the need for 'fairness' but what is fairness. Is paying more children's allowance for the third child fair? Is it fair that a person on minimum wage could take home nearly as much on social welfare? Is it fair that trade unions get large travel funds from the state and the same unions block flexibility in the civil service that could dramatically improve services?

Re Mandate - I do not go on opinion polls but on the general sense in the country. As I stated their programme for government said nothing about bailing out banks or creating NAMA. If we let them away with doing things like this you open the doors to an party putting a programme to the people at election and getting in and doing differently!
Re doing up of offices - there is no need for any politician when he gets an office to spend thousands on curtains alone!

In general let all the parties lay out their stall and let the people decide. One question I would ask is if the figures add up that the only parties that can make gov is FF/Lab or FF/FG who will be in gov - I agree it would be FF/Lab and they will winge we have to cos thats the way the numbers add up which was their excuse in the past.
People should vote for a government not a local TD to do the roads.
Re the public service comments - plenty of people turned up their noses during the boom years at public sector jobs. The public sector found it hard to recruit lower grades because people were getting more in the private sector so dont try to penalise the people who took the jobs and did not have the perks that people in the private sector had over the last number of years.
Another suggestion in this time of crisi is to put everything on the table including the corporation tax - why should that not be looked at?

 

[ontour]

Re Mandate - I do not go on opinion polls but on the general sense in the country.

I would love to know how you have guaged the sense in the country, you must have clocked up a few mile doing that. If you are basing your view on the media, you have to understand that they have an agenda, bad news sells. Also I would contend that the sense in the country was great during the boom times when everything went mad. Running the country is like being a parent, sometimes the kids won't like what you tell them but it is still in their best interest.

The public sector found it hard to recruit lower grades because people were getting more in the private sector so dont try to penalise the people who took the jobs and did not have the perks that people in the private sector had over the last number of years.

Your comment is correct about low paid civil servants but they are the exception rather than the rule. The majority of civil service jobs are not low paid, but I accept the classification of low paid is a matter of opinion.

Another suggestion in this time of crisi is to put everything on the table including the corporation tax - why should that not be looked at?

You should not touch corporation tax because the IT, Pharma and international financial services sectors are based on mainly US MNCs investing here and this is significantly biased by the low corporation tax. This is the knowledge economy. Many indigenous companies are formed by people who have gained valuable international experience and use it to create Irish companies. The other reasons to leave corporation tax alone is that these large companies can easily and quickly move their country for tax purposes so you would lose some of the '12%'s that we are getting now

 

[onq]

Having had some porsonal experience with ONQ's professional abilities I would back him for the job in a heartbeat (at the risk of being accused of helping him tout for business ).

(bows)

You're too kind Purple.

Complainer, I wasn't looking for a mandate, I offered to do a job competently for very little.

Looking at the Banks and Government it is clear that neither capitalism nor the democratic mandate delivers competent people into power.

Most of my time will be ensuring that the government departments actually spend their capital allocations and arguing in cabinet that money is not skimped on third level education needed to ensure Ireland can compete in the next decade full spectrum.

ONQ.