Irish politics discussion thread

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.

havent read the article. Wtf does/could that sentence even mean ffs.

tbh that's just stock local garda cod irish patter on ilx

nah seriously, i feel literally euphoric when that happens

article is a list of 50 "good things" about ireland, tweeted to shane o'hegarty of the irish times...

"10 @greenscribbler Community – People will always know and remember you no matter how long you have been away"

sinister. and obv no other country in the world has small towns.

39 @SOIreland People going to amazing lengths to help each other. Never ceases to amaze me

unlike the total and utter cunts to a man that inhabit other countries.

x-post no second cup of tea for you...

@greendribbler the miasma of child neglect, rape and the stench of alcoholic hopelessness that lends the rural west it's grave, deep, solemn and sorrowful beauty

@irishbot101 when you walk into a shop and give someone money and get a product in return

say goodbye to that one

otm. barter is back.

economic policy this past ten years scripted by ronnie barter imo

Cowen is very sure that europe havent even noticed us. Inda thinks they're comin like those metal spiders in the matrix. Cowen reckons gilmore is 'not a very clever man'.

We three kings disorient are imo

you'd think there'd be a better word than "bailout" in the english language

'raking'

'rehn has absolutely bailed him out there, tell you what geoff. Cowen's never even seen him coming'

In a heated exchange with Brian Cowen, Labour leader Eamon Gilmore told Brian Cowen he was "handing over the deeds to the country" while Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny branded the government's banking policies "catastrophic".

"The IMF are not coming here this Thursday to say 'Keep at it, Brian', " added Kenny for good measure.

not wanting to take any side here (if there are sides) but what the fuck do kenny and gilmore think we should do?

score points

thats all anybody is doing, trying to position themselves historically

because the train is on the tracks now so theres nothing anybody can do

well, lets be fair.

The opposition have had no say in the vote for nama, i believe that labour opposed the guarantee.

They have consistently been denied the info to which they are entitled, even throughout calls for them to support a corrupt and defunct govt in the national interest. That in itself is a fair insult.

They havent been a great opposition, but the manner in which they've been stymied and kept in the dark this past two years, and in particular the last week where cowen and lenihan are just outright lying, is not only discourteous but edges on subversion of the way in which our democracy is meant to function.

When they get cowen and lenihan in a dail debate - rare enough- it's probably a lot to ask to at least get a public direct hit to the tune of 'this is your fault, not ours. There are no good options. We're not in this together.'. it's all they've been left, it's all true, and it's probably the most they can do to get ff out or under pressure. I'd rather they'd realised that game and played it from day 1, back in sep 2008.

You can bet ff will in opposition, and with far less justification.

it's a lot to ask for them *not* to go for the direct hit, sorry.

Just want to say that in all of this, the charity single of the aul triangle from hansard and dempsey may well be the final straw that breaks the back of law & order in fair erin. Ear poison

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.

― I see what this is (Local Garda), Wednesday, November 17, 2010 2:13 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

Absolutely OTM.

The country that can't bear not to be special.....

even if it's just to be hated from the Danube to Thames.

o good heres david mcwilliams.

'a bakery owner in kilkenny is worried matt. Lets forgive all mortgage arrears'

Sound, yeah, dave. richard curtis is looking for someone to soften his characterisations a bit, you might take a look.

the charity single of the aul triangle from hansard and dempsey

ah ffs i am fucking raging at this, thank fuck i'm not home till dec 21st.

are you ragin at the concept or the execution- cos if you've not heard it, it's worse than you think.

i've not heard it but the concept enrages me. i hate both of those bastards. don't fuck with that live in germany youtube version ever. only rivalled by dad having it as his too much booze anthem...

yeah classic booze anthem, german cikusenspiegel whatever is definitive for sure, they've tried to improve it by dempsey freestylin i think. it's hard to say wtf they were doing tbh.

rapping, ffs. one of my friends loves dempsey and always plays a song of his at weddings or get togethers, it would be grand apart from him being a doctor and this adding to his heroic upstanding young man loved by gfs and parents mystique.

nah, not rapping. just singing to his own time with bells on.

ach, bad enough being 'that guy' w/out being a fuckin dr with it like

i know...he admits it's all a front himself too. one time my friend's dad was really hammered and just walked up to him and said "YOU.....i know your game".

fuckit, played that game myself at times, but then i'm not a dr

Wish my rep was worth ten fucking million

During the six day hearing, the court heard Mr Kinsella had sleep walked naked up to the door of Ms Corcoran’s bedroom three times during the night before being told to go back to bed by Kenmare MD Michael Carvill.

Mr Kinsella, who was prone to sleep walking, had been drinking earlier and was on medication and was not wearing pyjamas, the court heard.

I've come to the opinion, considered opinion, mind, that the courts system in Ireland from district up to this level and beyond, is pure fucking stupidity.

finally just sad and scared btw

With respect to that libel judgement, the award was made by a jury of 12 brave and decent Irish citizens. O Tempora! O Mores!

ey t cheer up, the sharp shock will not, unfortunately, be short, but it's very necessary. two years from now a multibillion bailout that puts economists in charge wll have been A Good Thing imo. two years ago, we could have done with it.

it's a terrible pity that the suffering will fall disproportionately relative to blame and ability to absorb it, but you live in hope that we learn and change as a country. you kinda have to, i think.

To adapt a football chant:

90 years and we learnt fuck all...

Why would we start now?

maybe i'm in an unusually optimistic frame of mind, but now that the inevitable has started to happen after being foreshadowed for 2 years and damn near guaranteed for 6 months, the fact that there will soon be strong, logical and unbiased, uncorrupt & untainted-by-dirty-politics decisions coming from a central source is at least something to be thankful for.

the puling lies of cowen, lenihan and roche this past week ought to finally force even their remaining supporters to admit that we're better off without irish govt than we are sticking with the ones we've had for the past 15 years or so.

a word on corporation tax- imo it's symptomatic of the short-cut cheat mentality of the irish political class, and if we can trade it in now to earn some credit with europe, we should do so. if there are firms in ireland that only remain here because they get away with contributing less than their fair share to society, they're best out of it. as a quick-fix strategy for a country without modern business infrastructure, it worked and worked well. the failure to build on its success and the importance we placed on multinational profit-skimmers keeping us working is one of the larger faults in a largely faulty ff regime.

tear it all down

ps i dont really give two runny shits for irish sovereignty. national central govt that dismantles local decision making in the way we have since jack lynch in 1977 isn't worth crying over.

Agree on the sovereignty - the irony of the IT asking this morning what the men of 1916 would be thinking was fantastic.

What i don't get is all this whinging about sovereignty coupled with the 'line in the sand' attitude to our corporation tax rate, as if that were part of the glorious heritage of our patriot dead, instead of being the financial equivalent of the red light on a brothel window for MNCs looking for a cheap - and temporary - extra- national bed for their profits.

i think the IT editorial even nodded to that, yeah

i cant remember who it was, maybe john bruton?- but his argument was (paraphrased) 'i don't think that the EU want us to do anything to effect the only tax that is consistently over-delivering'.

yes, but at whose expense? pretty much the rest of the EU i think, looking at all the multinational european headquarters based here atm.

it's classic irish cute hoor politics, the corporation tax rate. i think i might actually loathe it.

ps i dont really give two runny shits for irish sovereignty. national central govt that dismantles local decision making in the way we have since jack lynch in 1977 isn't worth crying over.

sovereignty is being mistaken for like...national identity or national pride, or irishness. totally otm in your words there. if there's any meaning in being irish it transcends economic decisions. it's not that it's not important that we can run our country, just that actually being irish can't really end or be taken away. nationality is an idea at the end of it all i suppose.

yeah- it's part of you, assuming it means anything to you at all. i'd be very glad if my compatriots could not run the nation we co-inhabit into the ground, but if that is the case then by all means import expertise. don't change how i feel about the way sally o'brien would look at ya or anything, kind of thing

if there are firms in ireland that only remain here because they get away with contributing less than their fair share to society, they're best out of it.

They do contribute 10% worth of taxation though, and employment. If Facebook/Google left I don't think there would be much net benefit to the country.