Irish politics discussion thread

xp

Gayness, indianess all admirably not an issue (ennis had an indian td in the dail before last iirc). Getting some clout west and north of the shannon is.

i'm pretty sure that quinn is our outstanding minister for finance of the modern era, as well as being a thoughtful and considered voice on educational issues when i've heard them lately.

Any number of people in the country would share his views on children/women, though it sounds like he was more likely defending his fairly sly gazumping of a decent seat himself? I dunno. Certainly it sounds a clumsy line to come out with, though i'm happier with bruton and even noonan in finance/enterprise than burton

I do think they should/could have found someone from the x no of govt td's in the whole of connacht to fit one of the positions

you are insatiable - Connaught has the Taoiseach and Junior Minister, which probably means it is more than represented at the top table, once its feeble population is taken into account.

And while we're congratulating ourselves, perhaps we ought to mention two openly gay TDS, elected without a murmur.

weren't these elected outside Dublin?

i think enda will be very wary of using any pull with the beady eyes of the dub meeja on him.

Population point is a fair one, tho direct comparison w/out taking into account geographical area would be extremely harsh. We dont all want to have the metro outside the door, tho the odd bus would be nice

wtf exceptional lending from central bank to six main banks exloded last month?

Anyone with info on this?

moriarty!

Will there be any fallout from this or is everyone all "lol 1990s"? Can't see this (or anything really) shifting Tipp North's love for the bould Michael Lowry.

fg back in power just in time

obviously, it'd be great to see hefty penalties- the 'lol 90's' reaction would really play into the hands of those who make damn well sure that political wrongdoing gets breathing space of 20 years to lessen the impact when outed.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0405/1224293869992.html

On tape: transcripts of recording

Excerpt from recording by confiscated video camera in a Garda vehicle on March 31st, 2011, after the arrest of two women at Aughoose for public order-related offences relating to the Corrib gas project.

“Crusty camp” is a reference to the Rossport Solidarity Camp where the two women had been staying.

Garda A: “Who is them two lassies, do you know the two of them?

Garda B: “I don’t know the second one, the first one is (name) with blonde hair.”

Unidentified garda: “She was up on the tractor earlier on.”

Garda A: “It’d do no harm to get the second one’s name again?

Garda B: “She’s some Yank. I don’t know who the f**k she is.”

Unidentified garda : “ Is she a Yank?

Garda B: “It sounds like it, it sounds like it, the accent anyway

Unidentified garda: “Sounds like a Yank or Canadian.”

Garda B: “Well whoever, we’ll get Immigration f**king on her.”

Garda A: “She refused to give her name and address and told she would be arrested.”

Garda B : “.......and deported”

Garda A: “And raped.”

Garda B: “I wouldn’t go that far yet….. She was living down at that crusty camp, f**k sake, you never know what you might get.”

(Laughter)

Garda A: “Give me your name and address or I’ll rape you.”

(Laughter)

Unidentified garda: “Hold it there, give me your name and address there, I’ll rape you.”

(Laughter)

Garda A : “Or I’ll definitely rape you.”

Unidentified garda: “Will you be me friend on Facebook?”

(Conversation continues about Facebook in Garda station)

Excerpt from video camera recording in which gardaí discuss safety and techniques for arrest at protests.

Garda A on phone to a colleague: “I know we don’t want to be arresting them but by the same token, we were left with no option. We have an issue there as well with the lads in the protest removal team there, of actual climbing the tractors. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to get safety ropes and ladders and we’re going to leave them in the van in case we have to go up on the cab of the tractor again. So we’re looking after that now at the moment.”

Garda A: ends call.

Garda B: “You see (muffled) at least you’re a sergeant, like.”

Garda A: “ (unclear) like some of auld timers who were here in the area in the first and second campaign. I’ll tell you one thing, the decisions that were made (muffled) policing at that time.”

Garda B: I’ll still go back to what says there . . . If someone gets hurt we’re going to be on our own in the blocks.”

Garda A: “. . . I don’t think we’re going to be on our own. If we have exercised due diligence and we have used common sense and used whatever was available to us to remove them. At the end of the day, we have a certain duty of care to them. We ask them to get down, if they don’t get down, we tell them we are taking them down forcefully. We take them down forcefully.

“We use whatever means at our disposal, which includes ladders and ropes or whatever to get them down safely. If one of them slips, so f**kin. What can we do?”

Garda B: “Ladders and ropes. All I’m saying is, the point is (Garda B then simulates court exchange)

‘Garda, are you a member of the protest removal team?’

’I am.’

’Have you received training with working at heights?’

’Yes, I have.’

. . .’How did you train to bring someone down?’

’In a harness with ropes.’”

“We didn’t have any of them options today there . . . That’s all I’m saying. And (named garda) is dead right; if we’re in the box:

’Have you received training on how to take a protester down from heights?’

’Yes’.”

“And if we did it with ropes and harnesses . . . then why did you let my client fall? Did you not go get your ropes and harness to take her down. That’s all.”

Garda A: “. . .To get them down safely we’d have to erect a scaffold tower beside them and abseil them down. And and, the, the, taking the common-sense approach, and a common-sense view, it would be impractical to erect a scaffolding tower to get them down off it. And we use whatever safe means at our disposal, as we considered safe (unclear) protest removal team to take them down, ie, ropes and ladders.”

Unidentified garda: “What was the obstruction?”

Garda B: “There was no obstruction . . .”

Garda A: “They were obstructing the road.”

Garda B: “There was no obstruction . . . The tractors (unclear) all other vehicles were able to get past.”

Garda A: “They were obstructing the road. Excuse me. If a car stops there, in the middle of that f***ing road, and it’s stopped there, it’s obstructing the road. It doesn’t have to be blocking it. If it’s parked there it’s obstructing it.”

Unidentified garda: “Well if nothing else they were obstructing the vehicle.”

Garda B: “That’s the only vehicle obstructed.”

Unidentified garda: “. . . free passage.”

Garda A: “The vehicle was obstructing the road. Just because other vehicles could pass didn’t mean the road wasn’t being obstructed.”

Garda A seems to get out of the car . . .

Garda B: “We all said this, it was a safety issue.”

Unidentified Garda: “It was the best option . It was the best option at that time, there’s no doubt about it.”

Garda B: “We all said it because of a safety issue. There was three up, there was a wind blowing. And like did you f***ing feel safe, 100 per cent safe going up there taking down two people.”

Unidentified garda: “No”.

Garda B: “...I don’t know what you thought?”

Unidentified garda : “All I know is that if something happens, who’s going to stand f***ing behind me.”

Garda B: “And do you honestly think that is going to turn around and say “oh look it”. We got trained a certain way.

’Garda did you f***ing, take a protester down the way you were trained’.

’No I didn’t.’

’Well then Guard.’

“And the job will say were you f***ing trained a certain way. The job will f***ing ditch you.”

(have to lol at Irish Times horrendous headline and total lack of SEO knowledge on this story too..."Transcript of recordings", what a sexy clickable headline.)

wtf lads. Can't believe the lols at rape.

Everything else is probably fair enough, but ffs, there's no getting past it.

that's like the sort of shit people unfollow me for when i write it on twitter.com/garda_siochana

tho in truth prob further than i've ever gone.

it's some fuckin jump, even for bad-taste laddish shock humour- lol deporting, ok, i see the link, straight to..... rape? Where does that come from.

Garda A: “And raped.”

Garda B: “I wouldn’t go that far yet….. She was living down at that crusty camp, f**k sake, you never know what you might get.”

Garda A : “Or I’ll definitely rape you.”

Unidentified garda: “Will you be me friend on Facebook?”

(Conversation continues about Facebook in Garda station)

srsly lol

GARDAI

can you imagine being a gard

i'm sure there are decent gardai...can you imagine being one of them?

It's a long way from The Third Policeman, that's for sure

there's a few alright. But it's hard to say what working in a force with that ethos could do to you over the years too? I dunno.

Workin up at ballinaboy is no picnic for them either, seriously shitty situation and provocation every day.

Doesn't come near excusing that shit.

Even aside from the comments, to record yourself on a camcorder in the back of the car then to present the tape back to shell-to-sea- whats the irish for keystone

idk, the weird nonsequiturs are a bit flann o'brienish xp

Actually, you're right there

that was back when my pa was superintendent at clonnacha. he had a big stick and he'd say to us 'go on now, with the facebook'. some days it was cold and we'd have not a bite to eat but he'd say 'there's no finer than a feast'. they didn't have facebook in those days.

http://www.cardiac-services.com/files/admin/uploads/W232_F_Image_6_27263.JPG

I know a guard who has worked at the Corrib protests before. I hope he wasn't one of the guys on tape but i honestly wouldn't put it past him.

i'm sure there are decent gardai...can you imagine being one of them?

I have heard that there is a terrifyingly macho and boorish culture among the uniformed rank and file Gardai, and that anyone who is not like that spends all their time trying to get away from them into more specialised work.

idk, the weird nonsequiturs are a bit flann o'brienish xp

good comparison, though I was thinking more of Nigel Tufnell. However, all verbatim transcripts of conversations read like this.

it wouldn't surprise me, x-post, just like, let's face it who knows anyone in the gardai. a friend of a friend is the only person i know who joined, and he used to take drugs etc etc. dunno how it turned out for him.

hah the guy i used to sniff tippex and drop acid with at uni ended up becoming a cop, must be a thing

Guy i know was far from averse to a bit of casual racism/misogyny

ah sure why not sure

Not him on the tape though so he'll live to fight another day.

I have heard that there is a terrifyingly macho and boorish culture among the uniformed rank and file Gardai, and that anyone who is not like that spends all their time trying to get away from them into more specialised work.

this is otm. my brother is a detective. hes alright i suppose. although the gardai are one big boys club really.

hard to think of any positive dealings i've had with the gardai...and can think of plenty of negative ones. almost everyone has a bad story to tell.

this is the only time i ever had a lol with a garda

Horror!

"how close were you to him?"

"i probably pissed on him gard"

have had plenty of good, one or two bad as a witness

big couple of days on the property/nama/banking front

so

Public sector paycuts
Semistate and other publicly owned infrasructure to be sold on the cheap.

For what?

The first, well fair enough, it's a separate issue.

But the sale of infrastructural assets to cover private bank losses just bewilders me.

Gonna quit it all and do a thesis on the ramifications of the removal of the bank guarantee vs what we're actually doing.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2011/0423/1224295312306.html

you whinging lying whinging motherfucker why are we still being afflicted with your verbs and nouns etc

I'd take his verbs and nouns if we could get rid of everything else he's done.

lenihan was forced by minatory leprechauns to give carte blanche to bondholders in the world's worst banks

minortory surely

Real IRA spokesman in 'too fucking thick to memorise a speech' shocker.

you know those beatles (and millions of other band or 'thing') t-shirts that say "john and paul and ringo and george" etc...

me and my friend have decided to make one that says "charlie and albert and bertie and brian"...mail me for orders.

See if it's on the list first.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2011/0507/1224296372123.html?via=mr&sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4dc5462a30b0bbb0%2C0

every time i read kelly now i think of the dude homer replaced in the episode about refuse collection

National survival requires that Ireland walk away from the bailout. This in turn requires the Government to do two things: disengage from the banks, and bring its budget into balance immediately.

First the banks. While the ECB does not want to rescue the Irish banks, it cannot let them collapse either and start a wave of panic that sweeps across Europe. So, every time one of you expresses your approval of the Irish banks by moving your savings to a foreign-owned bank, the Irish bank goes and replaces your money with emergency borrowing from the ECB or the Irish Central Bank. Their current borrowings are €160 billion.

The original bailout plan was that the loan portfolios of Irish banks would be sold off to repay these borrowings. However, foreign banks know that many of these loans, mortgages especially, will eventually default, and were not interested. As a result, the ECB finds itself with the Irish banks wedged uncomfortably far up its fundament, and no way of dislodging them.

This allows Ireland to walk away from the banking system by returning the Nama assets to the banks, and withdrawing its promissory notes in the banks. The ECB can then learn the basic economic truth that if you lend €160 billion to insolvent banks backed by an insolvent state, you are no longer a creditor: you are the owner. At some stage the ECB can take out an eraser and, where “Emergency Loan” is written in the accounts of Irish banks, write “Capital” instead. When it chooses to do so is its problem, not ours.

At a stroke, the Irish Government can halve its debt to a survivable €110 billion. The ECB can do nothing to the Irish banks in retaliation without triggering a catastrophic panic in Spain and across the rest of Europe. The only way Europe can respond is by cutting off funding to the Irish Government.

for a dude that was told to go commit suicide, he seems to have abit of fight in him yet imo

brilliant article. unfortunately the catty comments make it easy for yr average Irish political hack on politics.ie or twitter to ignore the substance, but there's some great turns of phrase in there imo, especially this:
"Back when the euro was being planned in the mid-1990s, it never occurred to anyone that cautious, stodgy banks like AIB and Bank of Ireland, run by faintly dim former rugby players, could ever borrow tens of billions overseas, and lose it all on dodgy property loans."

last part of it never occurred to anyone tbf

1000 messages to get from ff re-elected to here.

160 million euros per message, that