Death Notices

[macdanger2]

G'way ta fcuk would yis. The cheek of a Kerryman to extort a few bob for the people of the West, when it's Denis O'Brien or Tony O'Reilly milking the people dry sure they're f**king great men altogether. Fair f**ks to Healy-Rae and his kind, spited by your West Brit media for being a bog-standard Mick ruffling a few feathers up in the Pale, he was a great man for the people that voted for him.

You hear this shite about "parish pump politics" as a derogatory comment, what's the f**king problem with local politicians looking after local people. Who the fcuk else is gonna give a fcuk about the people of rural Ireland, Angela Merkel? Ruari Quinn? Joan Burton? the D4 squadron in RTE? Dya think the Pat Kenny, Tubridy or the Irish Independent is gonna start looking after them? The non-Pale region of this country could be starving in the ditches and the Indo would still be writing about BOD's latest photo and the car park extension for Dundrum shopping centre.

Here's to Jackie, a man who stood up to the toffs and the bigwigs, was proud of his homeplace and his heritage and was slandered by the shites in Dublin because he bettered every last one of them. Fair fcuks ta ya Jackie.

The people of the west? How far west did you have to be living to benefit from it? I can assure you it never reached down as far as where I'm from at any rate. The fact that successive governments have had little or no rural development plan doesn't change my opinion of him nor does the unrelated actions of Denis O'Brien. To me it embodies the idea of "I'm ok, f*ck the rest of ye".

The Dail is a national parliament and should be dealing primarily with national issues. A sweet deal for one constituency in the country is fundamentally undemocratic.

Fair enough stephenite, I shouldn't have equated him with those pair of crooks. A better comparison might be Michael Ring or Mattie McGrath who rarely miss a funeral.

[seafoid]

I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment, point is that democracy by it's very nature rewards such behaviour.

Local representatives that deliver for their voters will get voted back in. Out of interest, how would you have expected him to behave?

There's a tendency on here to view this is as a particularly Irish trait, when it actually happens in all democracies. Calling out Healy-Rae as representative of ills of Irish politics is wrong in my view. Correct me if I'm wrong but he wasn't guilty of mass corruption like some of those others you've rightly mentioned.

Clientelism is about local bigwigs delivering citizens what is theirs anyway.
And taking a cut elsewhere. I always noticed the roads driving into Kilgarvan.

[stephenite]

I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment, point is that democracy by it's very nature rewards such behaviour.

Local representatives that deliver for their voters will get voted back in. Out of interest, how would you have expected him to behave?

There's a tendency on here to view this is as a particularly Irish trait, when it actually happens in all democracies. Calling out Healy-Rae as representative of ills of Irish politics is wrong in my view. Correct me if I'm wrong but he wasn't guilty of mass corruption like some of those others you've rightly mentioned.

Clientelism is about local bigwigs delivering citizens what is theirs anyway.
And taking a cut elsewhere. I always noticed the roads driving into Kilgarvan.

And you'll see the same thing the world over. Politics (at it's base level) works on patronage.

[seafoid]

I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment, point is that democracy by it's very nature rewards such behaviour.

Local representatives that deliver for their voters will get voted back in. Out of interest, how would you have expected him to behave?

There's a tendency on here to view this is as a particularly Irish trait, when it actually happens in all democracies. Calling out Healy-Rae as representative of ills of Irish politics is wrong in my view. Correct me if I'm wrong but he wasn't guilty of mass corruption like some of those others you've rightly mentioned.

Clientelism is about local bigwigs delivering citizens what is theirs anyway.
And taking a cut elsewhere. I always noticed the roads driving into Kilgarvan.

And you'll see the same thing the world over. Politics (at it's base level) works on patronage.

Very few other OECD countries are as clientelist as Ireland
It was one of the factors that meant the country was fucked in 2008.
It is very expensive in Minsky moments. 

[stephenite]

I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment, point is that democracy by it's very nature rewards such behaviour.

Local representatives that deliver for their voters will get voted back in. Out of interest, how would you have expected him to behave?

There's a tendency on here to view this is as a particularly Irish trait, when it actually happens in all democracies. Calling out Healy-Rae as representative of ills of Irish politics is wrong in my view. Correct me if I'm wrong but he wasn't guilty of mass corruption like some of those others you've rightly mentioned.

Clientelism is about local bigwigs delivering citizens what is theirs anyway.
And taking a cut elsewhere. I always noticed the roads driving into Kilgarvan.

And you'll see the same thing the world over. Politics (at it's base level) works on patronage.

Very few other OECD countries are as clientelist as Ireland
It was one of the factors that meant the country was fucked in 2008.
It is very expensive in Minsky moments.

I disagree that very few other OECD countries have less of this type of behaviour.

Australia, Canada, Belgium, Mexico, France, Italy, Greece, NZ, Portugal off the top of my head are hardly shining examples of pure driven democratic virtue.

Tammany Hall, Pork-Barrelling, Shoneeism, call it whatever but it exists where people who gain power do so with the promise of favours, promotion etc. and this happens in every democratic or vote inducing scenario.

To suggest Ireland or the Irish are any worse (or better) than elsewhere is ludicrous.

[muppet]

I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment, point is that democracy by it's very nature rewards such behaviour.

Local representatives that deliver for their voters will get voted back in. Out of interest, how would you have expected him to behave?

There's a tendency on here to view this is as a particularly Irish trait, when it actually happens in all democracies. Calling out Healy-Rae as representative of ills of Irish politics is wrong in my view. Correct me if I'm wrong but he wasn't guilty of mass corruption like some of those others you've rightly mentioned.

Clientelism is about local bigwigs delivering citizens what is theirs anyway.
And taking a cut elsewhere. I always noticed the roads driving into Kilgarvan.

And you'll see the same thing the world over. Politics (at it's base level) works on patronage.

Pee Flynn didn't actually build the roads. Unlike.......

[muppet]

http://kerrynews.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/council-paid-healy-rae-plant-hire-e679000/

The Company owned by Independent councillor Danny Healy-Rae was among the highest-paid plant hire and haulage contractors to Kerry County Council last year. Healy-Rae Plant Hire, Main Street, Kilgarvan, earned over €679,000.

The company received the second-highest single sum in the contractors' list. A total of €8.67 million was paid and there were over 100 contractors employed by the council in the area of plant and equipment hire and haulage. The highest amount paid was €701,638 to O'Dwyer Plant Hire T/A Sandmore Ltd, Camp Cross, Tralee. The third-highest sum was paid to Clancy Plant Hire, Knockanure, Listowel. It received €636,668.

via The Irish Times

[seafoid]

I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment, point is that democracy by it's very nature rewards such behaviour.

Local representatives that deliver for their voters will get voted back in. Out of interest, how would you have expected him to behave?

There's a tendency on here to view this is as a particularly Irish trait, when it actually happens in all democracies. Calling out Healy-Rae as representative of ills of Irish politics is wrong in my view. Correct me if I'm wrong but he wasn't guilty of mass corruption like some of those others you've rightly mentioned.

Clientelism is about local bigwigs delivering citizens what is theirs anyway.
And taking a cut elsewhere. I always noticed the roads driving into Kilgarvan.

And you'll see the same thing the world over. Politics (at it's base level) works on patronage.

Very few other OECD countries are as clientelist as Ireland
It was one of the factors that meant the country was fucked in 2008.
It is very expensive in Minsky moments.

I disagree that very few other OECD countries have less of this type of behaviour.

Australia, Canada, Belgium, Mexico, France, Italy, Greece, NZ, Portugal off the top of my head are hardly shining examples of pure driven democratic virtue.

Tammany Hall, Pork-Barrelling, Shoneeism, call it whatever but it exists where people who gain power do so with the promise of favours, promotion etc. and this happens in every democratic or vote inducing scenario.

To suggest Ireland or the Irish are any worse (or better) than elsewhere is ludicrous.

Ireland has ultra centralised government with virtually no power locally. The separation of powers doesn't function. A small clique in government makes all decisions.
Semi state boards are for political favours. Sure they do corrupt stuff in France but they have a less inept political structure. The civil service doesn't document a lot of its decision making. Joined up policy making still doesn't happen. Evidence based decision making would be super. The Financial regulator on tv in 2008 was a political appointee.

The people were ignorant in the 50s so maybe clientelism made sense.I saw it in action in India. It can work well when people are ignorant. But irish people are not ignorant now. They deserve a much better system.

[stephenite]

I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment, point is that democracy by it's very nature rewards such behaviour.

Local representatives that deliver for their voters will get voted back in. Out of interest, how would you have expected him to behave?

There's a tendency on here to view this is as a particularly Irish trait, when it actually happens in all democracies. Calling out Healy-Rae as representative of ills of Irish politics is wrong in my view. Correct me if I'm wrong but he wasn't guilty of mass corruption like some of those others you've rightly mentioned.

Clientelism is about local bigwigs delivering citizens what is theirs anyway.
And taking a cut elsewhere. I always noticed the roads driving into Kilgarvan.

And you'll see the same thing the world over. Politics (at it's base level) works on patronage.

Pee Flynn didn't actually build the roads. Unlike.......

But you can be sure the man who did wasn't a blue shirt.

Interesting link re the sons business, thanks for that

[orangeman]

Jackie was far more than just a 'parish pump' politician

It WAS like Hamlet without the Prince. As the ballot boxes were opened, there was an unmistakable void amid the mass of tired bodies gathered round the count staff and poring over the verdict of the people. For the first election in 40 years, there was no Jackie. The unmistakable figure - so familiar at Kerry count centres with elbows cocked on the barriers, clipboard in hand, gathering snippets from his loyal tallymen around the room - was notable by his absence.

A hospital stay meant the count for the 2014 local elections was the first Jackie Healy-Rae had ever missed in his many decades in politics. If he had any worries about the fate of the Healy-Rae dynasty in his absence, they were unfounded. His son, Danny, and his grandson, Johnny, both romped home.

On Radio Kerry from his hospital bed the morning after, Jackie - his voice not its usual booming self - reverted to type, rattling off the largesse that came south Kerry's way in his 14 years in the Dail.

Jackie only came to national prominence with the vibrant campaign - styled on Donegal's Neil Blaney - that propelled him into the Dail in 1997 and the first of three deals with Fianna Fail Taoisigh that saw the money flow into south and west Kerry. But like Blaney, he had been the go-to man for decades wherever a by-election was held.

John O'Donoghue, despite a cabinet position, was often reduced to the role of spectator as Jackie doled out the goodies from his Bertie-approved wish-list. His opponents could only look on with envy as Jackie's dynasty could simultaneously attend meetings and funerals in the furthest reaches of the peninsulas that made up Kerry South, omnipresent and ever visible.

To dismiss Jackie as a parish-pump politician was to misunderstand the man and the political system in Ireland which demands that TDs fix the roads before they trouble themselves with amendments to legislation.

Though often frowned upon by those 'above in Dublin', as he called them, Jackie managed to articulate the sense of peripherality and isolation felt in rural Ireland better than most of his peers.

To deride his message simply because of the unrefined but unique manner of his delivery was to engage in the political snobbery which was grist to his mill.

Election campaigns in Kerry will be all the duller for Jackie's absence.

St Peter must be busy piling up the pallets and the tyres for the bonfires for Jackie's final rally. "No way in the wide earthly world" will Heaven have seen the likes of it.

Owen O'Shea is a journalist with Radio Kerry and the author of 'Heirs to the Kingdom: Kerry's Political Dynasties' (O'Brien Press, 2011)

Irish Independent

[muppet]

Though often frowned upon by those 'above in Dublin'

He and others play the 'them feckers up in Dublin' card very well.

The reality is that they were the biggest feckers of all up in Dublin.

http://kerrynews.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/jackie-healy-rae-claims-e40000-in-travel-expenses-in-6-months/

He was entitled to free travel on the train, but didn't use it. Instead he claimed expenses for his rail travel.

When Bertie wanted his support for Government he did a deal. Everyone knows about the €71m for Kerry roads.

But there was also this: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/revealed-secret-deals-for-lowry-and-healyrae-26721908.html

Mr Healy-Rae's son Michael -- who has assumed his father's Dail seat -- was appointed to the Citizens Information Board (CIB) during the last Government, a position he still holds.

Sources also said Mr Healy-Rae got Killarney-based engineer Colm Lonergan on the board of the National Roads Authority. Mr Lonergan refused to comment last night.

Barrister Rosemary Healy-Rae was appointed to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal by then-Justice Minister Brian Lenihan in 2007, and was reappointed for another three years by Dermot Ahern last December.

They all denied the above were part of any deal. They think we are that stupid.

Healy-Rae was no gombeen. The people who elected him were the gombeens.

[ziggysego]

Hey lads, this is the Death Notice.

Take your political debates elsewhere.

RIP Una Crudden, who passed away during the week after battling ovarian cancer. She fought hard to get Ovarian Cancer Awareness campaign started in the north.

[5 Sams]

Its a pity we have no parish pump politicians in the black north....useless fcukers.

[never kickt a ball]

Singer Joe Cocker dies aged 70


Singer Joe Cocker, best known for his cover of the Beatles' With A Little Help From My Friends, has died aged 70.
The singer song-writer from Sheffield had a career lasting more than 40 years with hits including You Are So Beautiful and Up Where We Belong.
His agent Barrie Marshall confirmed that he had died of an undisclosed illness.
He said he was "simply unique" and "it will be impossible to fill the space he leaves in our hearts."


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-30582761?print=true

[BennyCake]

Was Joe related to Jarvis? Both being from Sheffield and all.