21/6/2011 Irish Independent Millward Brown Lansdowne poll: FG 42 +6 Labour 19 -- FF 16 -1 SF 11 +1 Ind/Other 13 -4

[ang]

Regional vote and 100 days verdict.

Are people really that happy with austerity ?

[Sidewinder]

I think they're really just happy that those gangsters in FF are gone. And that Enda really isn't the total eejit the FF meeja were making him out to be before the election.

It's the polls next Spring that will tell the tale.

And the Budget will be the most important bit. If it actually concentrates on tackling waste and corruption and closing tax loopholes for the wealthy, instead of sociopathically kicking the poor, which is what people got used to under St Lendahand, then people might actually approve of further austerity budgets.

[morticia]

Some red tape cutting would be good. We really don't need most of it (financial regulation excepted).

[Sidewinder]

It's all those armies of middle management in the likes of the HSE that could do with a good cull. You could probably save a couple of billion just by going through that place like a dose of salts.

Then the dodgy practices of sweetheart inflated supply deals. Probably another billion or so to be saved there. Vouched expenses. Cut advertising and PR and hospitality budgets. Endless quangos.

Plenty of low-hanging fruit that wouldn't involve affecting front-line services at all.

We'll see later in the year whose side this Govt is actually on.

[Fraxinus]

In the long and short term something needs to be done about land as well. This "land industry" that so many indulge in has brought the country to its knees and is one of the main reasons why everything in this country is so expensive, including wages. No more speculating should be done on it and profits from its sale should be taxed to the max. The notion that someone can just inherit land to sell off at a huge profit for doing absolutely nothing is a national scandal and unrepublican.

[Sidewinder]

Unpicking NAMA will probably take them years, but yeah the obsession with land and property speculation needs to be destroyed if the country is to have any future.

They need to go all the way back to the TACA-inspired planning acts of 1963 onwards, encourage property prices to reach a real floor ASAP, dismantle all the supports for high property and rental prices and ways of siphoning taxpayers money to landowners....there's another couple of billion in savings right there.

Unlikely we'll see FG do anything about it but you never know.,

[Apjp]

Regional vote and 100 days verdict.

Are people really that happy with austerity ?

i agree with sidewinder on the whodunnit mantra. gonna be at least 1 year til govt faces backlash. the smugness can only be tempered if norris gets elected and causes problems signing bills into law.

[C. Flower]

It's all those armies of middle management in the likes of the HSE that could do with a good cull. You could probably save a couple of billion just by going through that place like a dose of salts.

Then the dodgy practices of sweetheart inflated supply deals. Probably another billion or so to be saved there. Vouched expenses. Cut advertising and PR and hospitality budgets. Endless quangos.

Plenty of low-hanging fruit that wouldn't involve affecting front-line services at all.

We'll see later in the year whose side this Govt is actually on.

I strongly agree with you that there's a vast amount of wastage. There are also some appalling gaps in services. But I see very little sign of change under the new government, and they are very good at making cuts in front line stuff.

[Apjp]

Unpicking NAMA will probably take them years, but yeah the obsession with land and property speculation needs to be destroyed if the country is to have any future.

They need to go all the way back to the TACA-inspired planning acts of 1963 onwards, encourage property prices to reach a real floor ASAP, dismantle all the supports for high property and rental prices and ways of siphoning taxpayers money to landowners....there's another couple of billion in savings right there.

Unlikely we'll see FG do anything about it but you never know.,

side if im honest id make NAMA a short term national assets redistribution agency. With the NARA id simply implement mass nationalization and redistribution of land ownership. the state would run all viable hotels and shopping centres, the quinn insurance co. group etc. and all the extra houses could be knocked down for land to be used again under new collectivized farming. then id abolish it. I mean how long could that really take if it werent for our common law system which protects the wealthy? the houses cant be inhabited unfortunately but land can always be farmed.

[Sidewinder]

The mass demolitions of pointless ghost estates in the likes of Roscommon and the return of the land to agricultural usage is only a matter of time Apjp!

It's been inevitable ever since the 2006 census uncovered 200,000+ vacant units, but as usual in Ireland it takes years and years of wandering round in circles talking nonsense before the obvious and inevitable course of action is ever even allowed to be discussed...

Using some of those empty hotels and shopping centres for useful productive community purposes will also happen. If you had two beside one another you could have a very interesting experiment in encouraging microenterprise and new SMEs with low costs and free living space right next door...3 years later you could have hundreds of small companies making a living, providing jobs and paying tax and then those people can move out of the hotel and commercial spaces to stand on their own two feet, let the next wave of people in...

[Apjp]

I strongly agree with you that there's a vast amount of wastage. There are also some appalling gaps in services. But I see very little sign of change under the new government, and they are very good at making cuts in front line stuff.

i think its interesting how much the likes of right wingers like capt.con and sidewinder would go to to avoid austerity/minimalize it yet we see centrist neo liberal puppets doing whatever the bogeymen tell them to. a democracy might be worth saving if we could have parties led by the likes of cass on the left and con and side on the right. at least it would cement social justice desires across the board like denmark has done by and large. as peadar toibin said, the right in that country is still left of labour. he told me sf were after the nordic model, which would still be light years better than where we are at atm, even if socialism remained the long term goal for many on the far left like meself.

[Dr. FIVE]

Delighted for Micheál anyway, no Lenihan bounce.


Enda still appears competent sitting across from Fianna Fáil, the blueshirts must be delighted.

[C. Flower]

The Independents aren't hacking it at all. They haven't cottoned on yet to the fact that FIVE and myself are the only ones who watch their Daíl performances.

[Apjp]

The mass demolitions of pointless ghost estates in the likes of Roscommon and the return of the land to agricultural usage is only a matter of time Apjp!

It's been inevitable ever since the 2006 census uncovered 200,000+ vacant units, but as usual in Ireland it takes years and years of wandering round in circles talking nonsense before the obvious and inevitable course of action is ever even allowed to be discussed...

exactly. but what I am saying to you is that I cannot comprehend a continuation of wasteful capitalist farming. I want to see the state at the very least, lead that sector with majority land control and thus redistribution. This isnt just socialism. Even France and Germany, neo liberal estates, re-use land by developing public property for students. Ie you could turn the houses into outposts for chinese students in athlone if that hub goes ahead and the state could benefit as a result. Public property should not be limited to farming. Ireland has no universite residences like France does, and such things are a must to keep one time foreign exchange students coming back for masters and increasing tourism, which again should be a state run sector through all our nationalized hotels which the govt pretends we dont own, and CIE+aer lingus which cant be sold for pittance anyways should all be conjoined into a state travel agency if needs be. It all sounds whacky but a bit of creativity never hurt anyone on the left, centre or right, and these are things that make economic sense when we look at the failures of rigged capitalism throughout the eu and america. but yes, i do want private property abolished-though what id have done with public property would be more modern and open to things other than just farming, although that'd be the core element of any future state run property sector. i also agree with taxing away private property as a second best option. for the purpose of expression, i believe owning more than 1 house is private property as the home is personal property.

[Sidewinder]

i think its interesting how much the likes of right wingers like capt.con and sidewinder would go to to avoid austerity/minimalize it

I'm a right-winger? I'd be more of a sort of anarcho-republican libertarian I always thought :D

Kicking the poor while providing billions for corrupt (and incompetent) connected insiders is just wrong, and only someone with seriously skewed mental issues could support that kind of nonsense. I don't think it's a matter of left or right, just a matter of common sense, fairness, justice and accountability.

I can't stand corruption and the connected leeching off the rest of society, while hypocritically spouting off about the "need for austerity"....for the poor.

I also know that market externalities exist despite the cartoonish wailing of the neo-liberal nutters, and that there is as such a need for a strong well-funded and effective State sector to do the things deemed socially desirable that the market would never provide. I've been railing against the corrupt privitisation of critical networks (water, power, transport, telecoms) since the 1980s so I don't know how "right wing" that is either....

....but in order for the State to have the moral authority and ability to do these things properly, it can't be getting involved in croney capitalism, rigging markets, protecting insiders, artificially skewing prices...or keeping armies of useless clipboard merchants in a cushty job for life for no real benefit to the nation.

[Dr. FIVE]

The Independents aren't hacking it at all. They haven't cottoned on yet to the fact that FIVE and myself are the only ones who watch their Daíl performances.

Tis a very good point, Oireachtas report is over before it starts and barring a few exceptions its usually myself and party hacks in the #dail stream.
Mings getting plenty of coverage on the turf lately and thats what he was elected on. I expect the left will be prominent when the water charges are coming.

Comes down to the clinics at the end of the day, perhaps the govt tds are getting the majority of visitors due to their numbers alone?

[Apjp]

The Independents aren't hacking it at all. They haven't cottoned on yet to the fact that FIVE and myself are the only ones who watch their Daíl performances.

I know. depressing almost. Sf holding steady. I hold onto the notion that it could be the guts of a decade before we see a left govt of sf and/or ula + remnants of labour backbenchers or any of those 3(i mean should lab split or turn more left when the likes of hannigan, nulty and braughan take over which i think they will) in power who would at least bring some positive change. Its possible in the event of a mass popular uprising which seems very likely to me in the medium term ie the next 18 months-2 years, that a people's govt. will be demanded and the size of dail representation won't matter. All im saying is Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin's lot only had 6 russian mps before the october revolution. watch the polls after the next few budgets. watch the streets too. There is no historical precedent to the current depression, which is the world's worst ever in my view, even worse than 1929. We all know 1929 saw a kickstart in both socialism and fascism all over europe and even asia and eventually the aftermath of ww2 recessions led to mammoth sea change in latin america and east europe too, most notably Guatemala, Cuba, albania and yugoslavia. I think it would be foolish to think Communism won't be demanded in at least some form as the world gets ever poorer and international solidarity increases with fb, student exchanges, immigration/emigration, and international style protests of emigrants and natives together. There are different sides to this and its not the simple coin story of communism and capitalism. In Africa many people would be happy with some form of reasonable democracy and social justice and just to end hunger and improve their lives. In europe many people want, and this is all my view, equality and an end to greed driven systems. The question is how is this done? Like the Stalinists are seeking a return in Russia, or like the Finnish and american extremists are seeking? or something different-new. something called communism.

[ang]

This goes way beyond Left and Right wing politics this is about the democratic foundations of this State and the difference between Right and Wrong.

Democracy is continually being eroded and the Irish people (amongst others) have been wronged.

[Dr. FIVE]

This goes way beyond Left and Right wing politics this is about the democratic foundations of this State and the difference between Right and Wrong.

Democracy is continually being eroded and the Irish people (amongst others) have been wronged.

Can we have this at the top of the site please?

[Apjp]

I'm a right-winger? I'd be more of a sort of anarcho-republican libertarian I always thought :D

Kicking the poor while providing billions for corrupt (and incompetent) connected insiders is just wrong, and only someone with seriously skewed mental issues could support that kind of nonsense. I don't think it's a matter of left or right, just a matter of common sense, fairness, justice and accountability.

I can't stand corruption and the connected leeching off the rest of society, while hypocritically spouting off about the "need for austerity"....for the poor.

I also know that market externalities exist despite the cartoonish wailing of the neo-liberal nutters, and that there is as such a need for a strong well-funded and effective State sector to do the things deemed socially desirable that the market would never provide. I've been railing against the corrupt privitisation of critical networks (water, power, transport, telecoms) since the 1980s so I don't know how "right wing" that is either....

....but in order for the State to have the moral authority and ability to do these things properly, it can't be getting involved in croney capitalism, rigging markets, protecting insiders, artificially skewing prices...or keeping armies of useless clipboard merchants in a cushty job for life for no real benefit to the nation.

I apologize. In my politics you are a right winger as im hopping around on the fringes of middle-hard left. Perhaps you are economically, a keynesian social democrat, perhaps you just have a political conscience. Like i said it all depends on what is right wing side? In denmark, as i said, right wing is SF actually carrying out promises. Not a bad compromise in the medium term even for communists.

[Apjp]

This goes way beyond Left and Right wing politics this is about the democratic foundations of this State and the difference between Right and Wrong.

Democracy is continually being eroded and the Irish people (amongst others) have been wronged.

I agree. but until you show me how a near 3rd world country mistakenly classed as developed can overnight end equality without communism i will continue to press my arguments. i do realize that people who compared to me want at least limited capitalism do have a desire for social justice. perhaps we on the left should sate ourselves in the medium term with abolishing neo liberalism and letting a real democracy see at least social justice, and perhaps communism depending on how the people vote. shy of a communist revolution, i'd accept that.

[Sidewinder]

A Keynesian? *splutters into coffee*

Didn't I just say I don't believe in make-work jobs-for-the-boys?

When it comes to money, interest rates and their effect on the real economy I'd be close to the Austrians. But I also as I said actually do believe there is a vital role in the State providing necessary public goods, tackling market externalities, preventing gross inequality and poverty, and encouraging meritocracy and social mobility, areas the Austrians and neo-liberals would strongly disagree with me on. I think that social mobility should be strongly encouraged though the education system and the dismantling of artificial barriers to the "wrong sort" of people getting jobs. Inherited privilege stinks...and besides, it's bad for business in the long run.

I also think the role of FDI is not for tax dodges or economic serfdom but to bring necessary skills into the country, to be leveraged over time by creating our own indigenous firms competing on the world stage in the same or related industries; in the German idea that the backbone of any economy is a strong diversified vibrant productive SME sector; that corruption and insider trading and trough-snouting should be very severely punished; and that po-faced social reactionary nannyism is an abomination...

There's not really a party in Ireland that represents me I suppose, and never has been. Funnily enough a lot of these ideas are seen as "mad" and "radical" in Ireland where they wouldn't raise an eyebrow at all in most developed countries.

[Slim Buddha]

Sidewinder is right when he says that there is a lot of low-hanging fruit which , if eradicated, would have minimal to no detrimental effect on the services they are allegedly involved in providing. The HSE is full of them but the 800+ quangos could be eliminated without any detrimantal effect as their prime purpose is to provide a form of welfare for connected Fianna Fail village idiots. And let's face it, they shouldn't be there in the first place. Whatever function these quangos are deisgned to perform could easily be covered by a government department.

I would not be a supporter of the Austrian school in the way that some here are but I am a great admirer of decentralised powers as they are practised here and believe we need such a system in Ireland. If county councils were to raise their own taxes and be accountable directly to their own electorate for how they spend those taxes with no recourse to getting money from the federal government but only from the central bank as loans to be paid back with interest, it would cure some electorates of electing the gombeen idiots they have been sending to Leinster House for generations.

[C. Flower]

Sidewinder is right when he says that there is a lot of low-hanging fruit which , if eradicated, would have minimal to no detrimental effect on the services they are allegedly involved in providing. The HSE is full of them but the 800+ quangos could be eliminated without any detrimantal effect as their prime purpose is to provide a form of welfare for connected Fianna Fail village idiots. And let's face it, they shouldn't be there in the first place. Whatever function these quangos are deisgned to perform could easily be covered by a government department.

I would not be a supporter of the Austrian school in the way that some here are but I am a great admirer of decentralised powers as they are practised here and believe we need such a system in Ireland. If county councils were to raise their own taxes and be accountable directly to their own electorate for how they spend those taxes with no recourse to getting money from the federal government but only from the central bank as loans to be paid back with interest, it would cure some electorates of electing the gombeen idiots they have been sending to Leinster House for generations.

Unfortunately, the quangos could not imo be eliminated without cost.
A lot of essential government functions have been tied in to them.
They offer poor value for money, but some of the work they are doing improved during the boom. I would like to see all these functions reintegrated into a fully accountable government. To do that would mean passing legislation. Then people who are underemployed would need to be reallocated to areas of work that are short of people. As the system is mainly generalist that should not be too difficult.

Mass sackings would not help, they would add to social welfare costs and would damage services.

[Holly]

The only poll that matters is the one in 2016.

[Slim Buddha]

Unfortunately, the quangos could not imo be eliminated without cost.
A lot of essential government functions have been tied in to them.
They offer poor value for money, but some of the work they are doing improved during the boom. I would like to see all these functions reintegrated into a fully accountable government. To do that would mean passing legislation. Then people who are underemployed would need to be reallocated to areas of work that are short of people. As the system is mainly generalist that should not be too difficult.

Mass sackings would not help, they would add to social welfare costs and would damage services.

The appointees on the boards of these quangos could and should be returned to sender. It is simply a method used by FF to direct taxpayers money to their connected apparachiks. Bin them!

[C. Flower]

The appointees on the boards of these quangos could and should be returned to sender. It is simply a method used by FF to direct taxpayers money to their connected apparachiks. Bin them!

If their functions were brought back into Government, there would be no need for a board.

Consider them binned :)

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

i think its interesting how much the likes of right wingers like capt.con and sidewinder would go to to avoid austerity/minimalize it yet we see centrist neo liberal puppets doing whatever the bogeymen tell them to. a democracy might be worth saving if we could have parties led by the likes of cass on the left and con and side on the right. at least it would cement social justice desires across the board like denmark has done by and large. as peadar toibin said, the right in that country is still left of labour. he told me sf were after the nordic model, which would still be light years better than where we are at atm, even if socialism remained the long term goal for many on the far left like meself.

I wouldn't describe myself as a rightwinger apjp- I get along with socialists because I recognise their starting point of correcting an imbalance in social justice but that doesn't mean I'm any kind of Reaganite/Thatcherite or progressive democrat.

I agree very much with sidewinder that the ghost estates will be knocked down and returned to agricultural land as I predict a boom in agriland values over the next ten to twenty years as longtailed supply lines come under fuel price pressures and farming locally becomes viable again.

I'm convinced that the fact that Ireland is essentially a large farm with low population density is making Ireland a target again for British landowners and politicians as much as it was in the 17th century.

Might sound mad now but I suspect the emerging economics of local food production is behind the sudden charm offensive from the high population density island next door with its 70million population.

We might see a rerun of some very old dynamics from our neighbour with regard to Irish agricultural land I've a feeling... not to mention our relative lack of carbon producing industry making us a high rater for carbon credits in the emerging energy economy of Europe.

I doubt our politicians are intelligent enough to protect the state in this emerging new reality nor are they straight enough to resist corruption so we may not be in a position to benefit nationally from some quite positive indicators borne out of our very underdeveloped land in the near to middle future.

[Dr. FIVE]

The only poll that matters is the one in 2016.

lol, Biffo's lot kept using that one and it turned out even worse, gives me great hope.

I think the new crowd have already set up about for quangos.

Padraic Kenna reckons (http://www.galwaynews.ie/opinions/home-truths-padraic-tackling-ghost-estates) we bulldoze the ghost estates and build parks for kids.

[Slim Buddha]

I doubt our politicians are intelligent enough to protect the state in this emerging new reality nor are they straight enough to resist corruption so we may not be in a position to benefit nationally from some quite positive indicators borne out of our very underdeveloped land in the near to middle future.

Our politicians were not intelligent enough to capitalise on the improving real economy from 1994-2000 and the FF-PD tendency towards corruption and undermining the institutions of the state and looking after cronies at all costs has taken an enormous toll on this country. The current lot are uninspiring and the vision you have outlined for economic development seems reasonable, Capt. Our atrophied political structures have proven to be inadequate in the last 15 years and our politicians and our politics will continue to fail until these structures are radically overhauled.

[Apjp]

I wouldn't describe myself as a rightwinger apjp- I get along with socialists because I recognise their starting point of correcting an imbalance in social justice but that doesn't mean I'm any kind of Reaganite/Thatcherite or progressive democrat.

I agree very much with sidewinder that the ghost estates will be knocked down and returned to agricultural land as I predict a boom in agriland values over the next ten to twenty years as longtailed supply lines come under fuel price pressures and farming locally becomes viable again.

I'm convinced that the fact that Ireland is essentially a large farm with low population density is making Ireland a target again for British landowners and politicians as much as it was in the 17th century.

Might sound mad now but I suspect the emerging economics of local food production is behind the sudden charm offensive from the high population density island next door with its 70million population.

We might see a rerun of some very old dynamics from our neighbour with regard to Irish agricultural land I've a feeling... not to mention our relative lack of carbon producing industry making us a high rater for carbon credits in the emerging energy economy of Europe.

I doubt our politicians are intelligent enough to protect the state in this emerging new reality nor are they straight enough to resist corruption so we may not be in a position to benefit nationally from some quite positive indicators borne out of our very underdeveloped land in the near to middle future.

And your thoughts on the collectivization of this all important sector if you please? Preferable than glanbia and supermarkets exploiting irish farmers surely?

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