Irish politics discussion thread

three distant memories of achill

sunny day, driving around, walking along the beach.....pretty great
stormy day, visibility about 20 yards, not so good but very sturm-und-drang.....i'd probably enjoy it more now
another time where someone had done (or elegantly redeposited) a shit in a pub urinal....possibly a german conceptual artist? [via kurt kren]

nah that was danny mac i'd say. avoid him.

achill in moody weather is best, but i think you'd need to see it on a good day first to compare/contrast, yeah. not much good if you're there for the beach, tbf.

but yeah this

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/818963/078.JPG

gotta get a decent camera ffs

just walked along the strand then drove around the hillier parts that day iirc....a+ tho, and the drive along the mainland near there is triffic too

tbf i kinda like the sea on gloomy winter's days now....usually try to get to the coast at least once in the winter, wander round a bit in a t-shirt looking mental/soulful....back to london in time for tea

#bobdylanmornings

will post these all night, the mood i'm in tbh

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/818963/Photos/Achill%20scenery/Achill%20(3).jpg

fantastisch

germans gonna sell my island ;_;

to get back to matters at hand;

Is the next great divide in irish society going to be homeowners vs non-homeowners? It's fairly likely that at least one party will offer a mortgage amnesty/bailout/whatever that will be funded, one way or the other, out of the central pot.

Another write-off of gambling debt imkneejerko. But i'm sure there'll be other viewpoints....

almost went to Achill last month while the girlfriend was over. climbed Croagh Patrick instead, also got a dose of weird flat grey winter beaches in Connemara.

There's a growing German presence in Kiltimagh, bearded self-sufficiency, poss 'modern relationships'.

anger at the travellers seems like the kind of thing that could be good kindling for right-wing party – always hear rumblings about what they've been up to locally when I'm over – but dunno, doesn't seem long-term fuel.

they keep stealin ppl's short term fuel, or so i heard from a fella

In the case of Ireland in particular, we need to recall that sovereign debt has not been at the origin of the crisis. Rather, private debt has become public debt.

O. Rehn, 09/11, never forget.

his prediction of a hard right anti-traveller party seems a bit baseless tbh...like the new world order has taken over and they'll be sending their soldiers back in time to kill john flynn-connor

I think maybe Kelly is moving outside of his area of expertise here - it's one thing for an economist to make economic predictions, but what does he know about politics? To suggest that a crazy anti-Traveller, anti-EU, anti-everything headbanger party will just spring into being and take over the country is a bit of a leap of logic.

That's not to say that there is not a rich vein of anti-Traveller sentiment here for any nasty politician to mine, but the Irish political system is rather resistant to new parties sweeping away the old.

yeah exactly. and like, there's always been anti-traveller sentiment, that last part just sounds like a total wackjob "oh and then this will happen, i reckon..." doomtimes prediction. there's never even been minor successes for a far right party in ireland.

If travellers were a reliable vote-winning topic, surely it would have been tried before? I can see it working in specific constituencies though.

I'd agree the country is ripe for some sort of populism, but I don't know what type. The mortgage amnesty might appeal but there's no way it's affordable. The anomaly of Ireland is that there is (on average) a large amount of private wealth, but the public finances are screwed. But transferring money from the voters to the government is unlikely to be the winning issue one might expect.

OP so poignant

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/14/ireland-economic-crisis-bailout?showallcomments=true#comment-fold

thought this was a bit hopeful/wistful. i don't believe in any sense of unity in ireland that could give rise to a new or better political system, and i don't think that's just cynicism either, even amongst the youth there are chasmic gaps in values and beliefs.

also as much as yes, it would be disastrous if everyone just fucks off and leaves the cronies in charge, why would anyone stay with nothing to do or no jobs?

have to say it's v easy for a columnist like o'toole to make hay over all this, he writes well and with passion but there's not a figure in sight in that article, and it's the economy that's fucked, the moral budget or the balance sheets of the soul or whatever are just consequences of that.

Well it's a respite from the Guardian's usual coverage recently, e.g. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/14/ireland-economic-crisis, from which you'd think half the population are starving on the streets.

it's v easy for a columnist like o'toole to make hay over all this, he writes well and with passion but there's not a figure in sight in that article

agree with you, though i enjoy his articles on this whole mess regardless.

it would be disastrous if everyone just fucks off and leaves the cronies in charge, why would anyone stay with nothing to do or no jobs?

not to mention that the govt of the day would rather you just fucked off rather than draining the social welfare budget. course, the housing collapse that's bound to occur when not only economic migrants but natives clear out over a relatively short period can only make things worse. the ensuing pensions and other balance of payments deficit will pretty much ensure that there won't even be a medium-term prospect for recovery. you need young people working for relatively low wages, paying relatively high taxes, entering into car and house loans, for things as they are to work. and the nearlydeads are less willing to give up any entitlements than any other group, i think.

xp nobody starving, tbf. aside from that.... give it a year or two i'd say, and it's not like it's a secret that things like health, education, social welfare, jobs etc are in freefall with each passing month/budget.

We cannot keep constantly explaining to our voters and our citizens why the taxpayer should bear the costs of certain risks and not those people who have earned a lot of money from taking those risks.”

did merkel really say this? hasn't been explained once to me tbh

is there any way of reneging on nama at this point? surely they can see what an unmitigated disaster bailing out the banks has been?

so do we fold? is it too early to take the bailout? do we have a choice? would you say it's now time to crack each others heads open and feast on the goo inside?

i'm not sure what the downside to this bailout is that wont happen next year, and worse, anyway

nama is harder to call- the housing stock of the country, well i can see possibilities in having that in quasi-govt hands

yeah it's obv hard to unpick a lot of this if you're not an economist but it strikes me that we might as well just get the rotten leg cut off now rather than possibly just die in future. why is the gov being so cagey on this, surely there's no other way out...

and while the govt is still doing all it can to prop up property prices, nama cant work.

When repossessions start in earnest, the market bottoms out, etc, then there'll be activity and we'll see nama maybe freed up to dispose, deal, whatever

time for rotten leg amputation was two years ago. Govt, not just ff but the entire gang of em, in total denial at the time.

tbh, from eu perspective we are prob the rotten limb

amusing footnote: my friend's brother moved back to ireland after not being able to find a job in london, TO WORK FOR NAMA

have mates there or at ntma meself. Leeches to a man

hoping against hope that the euroheads simply come out today and force ff to remove the bank guarantee and all moneys paid under such so far be returned somehow.

when they take inda's gloved off and push him into a fight, he's good. It's not enough, by a long way, but his john wayne callout of cowen today should have been a standing order since 2008

dont get all enda support reactionary or i actually will just go illegal here

eh, no. I've always liked him personally on local level. Wasted as a td, and hopeless enough at statesman level, but v bright, warm and energetic to deal with. But no.

At the same time, i'll cheer anyone that calls ff out, publicly, loudly and pointedly. When miriam tore into lenihan over the bank guarantee it was about the first time i'd see him even questioned toughly on it- a multibillion euro call and nothing but murmurs about it for two years.

More confrontation, blame, diryiness required. It doesnt get shit done, but with the irish electorate i'm not sure they just dont need constant reminding.

watching the dáil live now, enda is a joke. he's reading off two bits of paper to say things like "this bailout has been a disaster", like ffs can he not write and remember a speech. then he gives fg a plug after that, nobody gives a fuck about who to vote for at this point...

cowen's massive statement- godawful boring lie. big letdown, wanted fireworks

Madam, – Knowing how things work in Ireland, it is unlikely we will ever get an honest answer as to why Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan thought it right, ethically, morally or politically, to give a blanket guarantee to the entire Irish banking system in the middle of the night, or why Cabinet members literally couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed to ensure the decision being taken was the correct one. The consequences of that decision, which we have to assume was made to protect those with whom Fianna Fáil is financially compromised, are now becoming clearer. Yet, Mr Cowen and Mr Lenihan still refuse to face the reality of what they’ve done, and have done nothing to make banks provide verifiably accurate data or to give the Opposition full access to the State accounts. They are allowed peddle the myth that Ireland is “funded” until the middle of next year, conveniently not mentioning that funding is just more debt that has to be paid back.

So, instead of structurally reforming how the country is financed and how it spends its money, Mr Cowen and Mr Lenihan seem to think the solution is to rack up as much debt as possible and, by the stage that time- bomb explodes, they’ll have walked away with their golden pensions (so what do they care?).

It is truly astounding that the bank guarantee, at the stroke of a pen, transferred more debt to the Irish people than Cromwell transferred from them. How much more is the bunker mentality of Mr Cowen and Mr Lenihan going to cost us? How many more lost jobs, homes, suicides and broken families? We can only hope the EU has the sense to end this farce, and make Mr Cowen and Mr Lenihan face the reality that Ireland is broken and they are responsible, before they bring the whole EU down around them too. – Yours, etc,

DESMOND FitzGERALD,

letter from dessie to irish times.

bank guarantee is the big one.

Dropped the crom bomb!

Will the EU have any notion of scrapping the bank guarantee?

i'd hope so, but frankly dunno. They've got, as individual nations, reasons to want those debts honoured, but it's an absurd guarantee and o. Rehn has all but come out and said so this week.

good luck ireland western external territory of the european union

truth

guys - GOOD NEWS!!!!

http://www.obsessedwithsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/John-W-Henry-Red-Sox.jpg

Won't scrap the back guarantee, that's the surest way of blowing the situation up and having it spread as fast as possible.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/1117/1224283516687.html

can't think of anything i hate about ireland more than this sort of utter shite. now isn't the time to resort to the national pastime of slapping ourselves on the back cos we have tayto crisps and "everyone knows everyone", jesus, bit of national rage would be far more appropriate.

pull on the green shirt!*

*the green shirt costs 75 euro, no refund

i dont know ed. It will certainly need to be amended to allow for more of a hit to the bondholders.

1 @emmagination our turns of phrase – “get up the yard” “get out of that garden” “down there for dancin’”

Land of Joyce and Beckett, etc.

The ritual “no thanks I’m grand I’m only after a cup” followed by “well if you’re having one yourself”

yeah this is fucking brilliant.