Simon Harris 6/4 on favourite to be next Tea Shop

Purple said:
I know the UK economy is a basket case, due mainly to Brexit, but since there is free movement between the UK and Ireland any British economic migrants are allowed to come here legally.
Click to expand...
thats not correct only british and irish people are legally allowed to travel across the border with minimal documents, the common travel area is primarily for british and irish people, EU citizens can freely travel to ireland across the border and people that have certain visas to work or holiday in UK can also travel across the border to Ireland. However people that are not legally in UK are not entitled to travel across the border to Ireland , however since there are no checks whatsoever that is now the primary route of illegal migration into Ireland. Thats the point I was making

Just watching prime time tonight and they are discussing difficulty getting schengen visas for non EU citizens living in Ireland. At the very end it shows the prime time reporter along with an Indian woman working here on a work visa standing at the border. The reporter says that he can legally walk across the border into the north but the indian woman cannot, she must first apply for a UK visa, so that shows the common travel area does not apply to everyone
 
Last edited:
joe sod said:
since there are no checks whatsoever that is now the primary route of illegal migration into Ireland. Thats the point I was making
Click to expand...
Have you got any data to back that up?

My understanding is that asylum applicants by their nature enter the country legally, but some do remain here illegally.

If there are illegal immigrants, rather than asylum applicants, entering from the UK via Northern Ireland they will have no access to social services and so are not a drain on our resources.

Is it not reasonable to suppose that if there is a flow of people entering Ireland via the UK there is also a flow of people entering the UK via Ireland?
 
Two Irish Times readers' views:



I am very much in agreement with Art O Laoghaire: Harris never having served his time at any regular trade/profession has shielded him from the huge amount of experience of abuse, corruption, lunacy and stupidity that the rest of us have had to swallow.

But Harris' main flaw is his almost automatic tendency to tell us what we already know in a lovely, nice-boy manner without any new substance - as if the public were a load of old dears seeking comforting words rather than tough action.

Cowan was found out when he got the top job by having no real ideas on how to go forward - just a bousy barker at others' plans.

Harris mercifully won't be T for long
 
trajan said:
Harris never having served his time at any regular trade/profession
Click to expand...

Last seven Taoisigh, jobs before politics, and age at which they became a public representative.

TaoiseachAge at electionCareer
Harris22None
Varadkar25Doctor
Martin25Teacher
Kenny24Teacher
Cowen24Solicitor
Ahern25Accounts technician
Bruton22None

I think the pattern is pretty clear here. If you want to be Taoiseach you have to get into politics very young!
 
So none of them had a real job before getting the top job, other than being a politician.

I don’t insist that by doctor had a different job before they became a doctor. I don’t insist that my plumber had a different job prior to becoming a plumber. Why should a politician have a different job before becoming a politician?

I thought Kenny was a great Taoiseach but that was because he had 30 years experience as a politician, not because he was a teacher for a brief period before that.
 
trajan said:
Cowan was found out when he got the top job by having no real ideas on how to go forward - just a bousy barker at others' plans.
Click to expand...
Is that not Varadker you are talking about, John Lee of the mail wrote an article a year ago where he said that Varadker was tired and out of ideas and was losing sitting TDs left right and centre, young ministers and FG TDs a year ago were declaring that they would not run in election. In 2011 FF lost alot of big names but that was in the light of the economic collapse. This time the country is awash with money but Varadker was listless and out of ideas a year ago, therefore he should have resigned a year ago, he leaves Simon Harris in a very difficult situation.
 
Purple said:
I don’t insist that my doctor had a different job before they became a doctor.
Click to expand...

No.

But wouldn't a lot of doctors benefit from having worked in an ordinary job with more mundane horizons ?

I mean a job with no kow-towing to their professional body, no brown-nosing senior guys, no licence to ask clients private questions in a snooty manner and then ask them to strip for a totally unnecessary bull-inspection, no making up his own fees or else charge it to the state, no queue-jumping when petrol is rationed, no subjecting subordinates to one's own sense of humour, no bagging a grand girl just on the back of an MB BCh BAO, no excusing their neglecting family obligations due to "heavy mumbers at the surgery today, dear", etc, etc.

A couple of years in that kind of job would sure give a doctor more sense than to say - as so many do with job-stressed patients - something stupid like: "Why don't you get another kind of job, Mr Murphy ?"

Purple said:
I don’t insist that my plumber had a different job prior to becoming a plumber.
Click to expand...

No.

Yet a plumber who had been a civil service clerk for a time and been charged a king's ransom to get a new boiler and cylinder installed in his mother's house would surely have a better idea on pricepoint when he branches out on his own.

Purple said:
Why should a politician have a different job before becoming a politician?
Click to expand...

Politics requires 3 things at least:

1. A clear vision for a better society

2. A system of public sector management to deliver #1 - policy & legislation

3. A capacity to communicate #1 and #2 to a diffident public and jealous party-members, to take on board their sensible critiques and produce a better #1 and #2 that can be plausibly put before the public for their decision

Candidates who have no outside experience will be serving their time as fixers/spokespersons/outriders/etc for a more senior pol will get so exhausted on minutiae that they have no headspace for the big picture, philosophizing on the merits of different visions or even the realities of implementing it: they are forever chasing the elusive El Dorado of "after I get elected ...".

They would be like journalists who take a degree in journalism rather than taking a degree in arts, economics, science, etc and then train as journalists - their primary perspective is to avoid making mistakes with a story's treatment rather than to get a good story in a field that they have an analytical capability in.
 
Fair point but I do find younger doctors are less entitled, though I do know a GP who has had numerous speeding fines/penalty points quashed by claiming to on her way to an emergency.
trajan said:
No.

Yet a plumber who had been a civil service clerk for a time and been charged a king's ransom to get a new boiler and cylinder installed in his mother's house would surely have a better idea on pricepoint when he branches out on his own.
Click to expand...
Possibly, but maybe he’d be a better plumber with those few years of extra experience.
If they have those qualities they won’t be elected as the Irish electorate thinks their TD’s are local councillors and doesn’t reelect them if they act in the medium term National interest.
Again, those are the people we elect, from the Healy Raes to Shane Ross (the urban version of the same animal).
If they’ve worked in another field for years then maybe but a degree on its own is worthless.
 
What does that mean?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I mean if our pols did their job properly, e.g. on housing, hospital queues, etc, then people wouldn't be so contemptuous of them.
 
trajan said:
I mean if our pols did their job properly, e.g. on housing, hospital queues, etc, then people wouldn't be so contemptuous of them.
Click to expand...
What it actually means is that you don't understand what politicians can do in a democracy.
 
Politicians in other EU democracies achieve good progress in health and housing - so the problem is not one resulting from the limitations of a democratic structure on political decision-making, is it ?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register