26 County General Election 2020

[Itchy]

Sinn Fein are running a candidate in Cavan Monaghan who married a Garda killer while he was in jail. To say the modern Sinn Fein are not really connected with violence would be wrong.

I'm sure she has learned a lesson onr that one considering he almost killed her in a domestic violence incident. You dont have to vote for Pauline Tully but I remember her as an excellent county councilor many years ago. Judging her on who she married isnt right either.

I was wondering though, how long has this connection with violence to be dorment? At what point do we forget about FF link to the old IRA and FG link to fascists, labours link to the Official IRA? 10 years, 20 years??? Why is it ok to be critical that SF werent in government in the north or dont take their seats in London but to have a major issue with them in government in the south?

[five points]

The public service pension was not mismanaged and  is neither here nor there in this discussion.

Not mismanaged? It was overly generous to public sector workers and completely unfunded by them. How on earth can you say it was not mismanaged when there's now complete pay inequality in the public sector and the next generation are the ones who pay the price to fund these overinflated pensions?

Correct. It was grossly mismanaged and one of the big contributors to our public finances collapse in 2008-10.

[Angelo]

There has been changes in the north over the last number of years with regards to how much of your rental income can be offset against the finance (Mortgage) which has made buy to let much less appealing. In the South can you still offset the full mortgage against the rental income? Surely some changes along those lines will have an impact?   

That was tried in 2009, when only 75% of the mortgage interest was allowed against tax. It backfired as it scared off new investors. A few years later we had a housing shortage which through neglect has morphed into a full blown disaster.

Scared off investors? The rental market continues to spiral out of control. Vulture funds and investors continue to hover up property and profit from that rental market.

[Angelo]

SF should make "Angelo" their finance spokesman.
He or she is pure comedy gold.
Who do I apply to for one of the €65,000 houses?

Maybe FF/FG can get you to contribute more glib remarks about euthanasia and 65k houses.

[yellowcard]

Briege Quinn has been blue in the face for years calling for political accountability for the torture and murder of her son.

Yes she has and where have FF and FG been for the last 13 years?  This is a dogs on the street situation but the police cannot convict anyone with that type of evidence. The dogs on the street know what happened and the dogs on the street know why it happened. Not one fcuk was given about her till she became a political weapon. That's the disgusting thing.

In politics, you strike while the iron is hot. If Briege Quinn wants accountability now, then good luck to her if she gets it.

Conor Murphy is the current Minister for Finance in the Stormont assembly and has stood for countless elections since the Paul Quinn tragedy. Yet only now are we hearing of calls for him to resign. Why now? This isn't politicians 'striking when the iron is hot'. This is politicians using a horrible tragedy for their own political capital. The cynic in me tells me that it is a carefully orchestrated media campaign after a series of poll results showing a surge in support for SF. It is aimed at stemming the tide and might well succeed. Where have the same people calling for accountability for the Paul Quinn murder now been for the last 13 years?     

[five points]

There has been changes in the north over the last number of years with regards to how much of your rental income can be offset against the finance (Mortgage) which has made buy to let much less appealing. In the South can you still offset the full mortgage against the rental income? Surely some changes along those lines will have an impact?   

That was tried in 2009, when only 75% of the mortgage interest was allowed against tax. It backfired as it scared off new investors. A few years later we had a housing shortage which through neglect has morphed into a full blown disaster.

Scared off investors? The rental market continues to spiral out of control. Vulture funds and investors continue to hover up property and profit from that rental market.

Yes, it has scared off investors and the result is a cartel where individual new investors are excluded and a small number of conglomerates are hoovering up properties and putting themselves into a position where they can control the market. These groups lobbied for rent controls and hoodwinked idiot "housing charities" to support them.

[Evil Genius]

Except that Sinn Féin were not involved in Paul Quinn's murder. That's the sort of 'shady' obfuscation that people cynically abusing his name are trying to engage in. The issue was that Conor Murphy stated Paul was involved in criminality.

By trying to deny the ineluctable link between SF and the IRA, it is you who is obfuscating.

All throughout the Troubles, SF was subordinate to the IRA Army Council, taking its instructions from them. And many leading figures were members of both, whether they acknowledged it or not. All that is known and undeniable.

Of course, now that the Troubles are over, it suits SF to pretend that there is no longer an IRA, even at the same time as their leader is pointing out that "they [IRA] haven't gone away, you know". This despite the clear evidence of continuing IRA activity after the ceasefire (eg Northern Bank robbery). Which in turn prompts the question, if the IRA were in charge of SF pre-ceasefire, aren't they still likely to be in charge post-ceasefire? After all, most of the most prominent members of SF were also known to be in the IRA.

Which brings us right back to Paul Quinn. He was murdered, without even a semblance of a "trial", in the most brutal and cruel way by the IRA. After the murder and the outrage it provoked, they tried to deny involvement, whilst tarnishing Quinn's name.

Which is where Conor Murphy comes in. He was a member of the IRA, having been found in possession of explosives and convicted of that and IRA membership, incidentally after a trial of the sort denied to Quinn. And he, in his capacity as a leading member of SF, was part of the campaign to blacken Quinn's name, in order to "exonerate" his old pals in the IRA.

All of which might be just about understandable, if not acceptable, if Murphy were no longer prominent in SF and/or if he had expressed any sort of regret or made any genuine attempt at reconciling his past with his present and future.

But as eg the relatively recent case of his sectarian appointment of Sean Hogan to  to be Head of Northern Ireland Water* demonstrated, by any standards such a person should never be permitted to be anywhere near any normal democratic political party, never mind be entrusted to a very senior position. And until or unless the Party clearly distances itself from that sort of representative and those sorts of practices, it must call into serious question exactly how they should be entrusted with ordinary peoples' votes.

Which, whether "opportunistic" or not, is at the very heart of the other parties' drawing attention to SF's actions in the aftermath of the murder of Paul Quinn.


* - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-18526303
* - http://www.irishnews.com/news/employment-tribunal-criticises-ex-sinn-fein-minister-murphy-1168267
* - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-20451694

[Itchy]

shock horror, the establishment and there national media lapdogs are trying to smear the new kid in the playground. The Quinn family will feel justified to bring it up now when opinion suggests SF are on the cusp but as snap says the West Brit control freaks won't give a toss for the Quinn case in a weeks time. Lost a lot of respect for Miriam O Callaghan last night, seem intent on badgering Mc Donald at every turn and constantly talking over her. Hope the southern electorate see all this for what it is and vote accordingly.

Its senior hurling now

Why would you have any respect for Miriam?

Now, last night was a set up. 1) Miriam is a FF'er, well known. 2) Leo and Michael didnt do a lot of shouting at Mary Lou because they know it looks bad men shouting down at women 3) So instead Miriam attacked her, woman on woman. That is ok you see. Notice how the other fella said damn all to Mary Lou. It is an inside job. No point moaning about it, RTE, Sindo etc are part of an establishment that are afraid of their lives of real change. Mary Lou needs to accept that and fight them all.

In addition the TV3 debate was headed by two total blueshirts, Ivan Yates (former FG TD) and Matt Cooper (Denis O Brein pet). You will find no fair play here so dont even get worried about it.

[five points]

Briege Quinn has been blue in the face for years calling for political accountability for the torture and murder of her son.

Yes she has and where have FF and FG been for the last 13 years?  This is a dogs on the street situation but the police cannot convict anyone with that type of evidence. The dogs on the street know what happened and the dogs on the street know why it happened. Not one fcuk was given about her till she became a political weapon. That's the disgusting thing.

In politics, you strike while the iron is hot. If Briege Quinn wants accountability now, then good luck to her if she gets it.

Conor Murphy is the current Minister for Finance in the Stormont assembly and has stood for countless elections since the Paul Quinn tragedy. Yet only now are we hearing of calls for him to resign. Why now? This isn't politicians 'striking when the iron is hot'. This is politicians using a horrible tragedy for their own political capital. The cynic in me tells me that it is a carefully orchestrated media campaign after a series of poll results showing a surge in support for SF. It is aimed at stemming the tide and might well succeed. Where have the same people calling for accountability for the Paul Quinn murder now been for the last 13 years?     

You'd prefer Briege Quinn to be silenced, wouldn't you? Water under the bridge and all that.

[weareros]

Genuinely not having a go, as I'm not particularly up-to-speed on Irish politics and affairs, but how can there be full employment with rising levels of homelessness?
Something doesn't add up there.

A shortage of housing means that rents have gone through the roof so that even people with jobs may not be able to afford rent / may have f*ck all leftover after paying rent. Increasing the supply of housing (increased supply to meet demand will reduce rent) is basically the only way to resolve this but that takes time

They have had 8 years. The housing market works exactly as designed.

8 years would never solve it given we required an 80 billion bailout to cover the costs of bad mortgages - ie Irish people who took out property loans they could not afford, and Irish developers who borrowed money up to their arse to build property that the said mortgage holders could not pay back, nor could they. On top of that, many of those in the trade headed to Australia, Canada and US, and never came back.

One also only has to look at life in some of those ghost estates like in parts of Roscommon (low income families in shitty housing) to know it's a very bad idea to lump 100,000 low income all together in public land in shitty housing. It's no way to raise a family. We need to allow x percentage of new developments be affordable so low income can have pride of home instead of sentencing them to slums. But I don't know how anyone thinks this could have been solved following the collapse of our economy over property craziness and it's amazing our economy has itself recovered so quickly. But as a country we do amnesia well, except the old joke: we never forget our grudges.

[Angelo]

There has been changes in the north over the last number of years with regards to how much of your rental income can be offset against the finance (Mortgage) which has made buy to let much less appealing. In the South can you still offset the full mortgage against the rental income? Surely some changes along those lines will have an impact?   

That was tried in 2009, when only 75% of the mortgage interest was allowed against tax. It backfired as it scared off new investors. A few years later we had a housing shortage which through neglect has morphed into a full blown disaster.

Scared off investors? The rental market continues to spiral out of control. Vulture funds and investors continue to hover up property and profit from that rental market.

Yes, it has scared off investors and the result is a cartel where a small number of conglomerates are hoovering up properties and putting themselves into a position where they can control the market. These groups lobbied for rent controls and hoodwinked idiot "housing charities" to support them.

The problem is that investors are interested in properties as a commodity and to generate wealth from those. there should be legislation that prohibits residential property being acquired by people who aren't going to occupy that residence but that doesn't suit the wealthy and the landlords as they can cream the current rental crisis.

[armaghniac]

The public service pension was not mismanaged and  is neither here nor there in this discussion.

Not mismanaged? It was overly generous to public sector workers and completely unfunded by them. How on earth can you say it was not mismanaged when there's now complete pay inequality in the public sector and the next generation are the ones who pay the price to fund these overinflated pensions?

People get half their pay as a pension, this seems a reasonable and proper thing, rather than overly generous. Other proper pensions should also provide this and many did.
The pay inequality in the public sector is not justified now that the economy has recovered. 

[yellowcard]

Briege Quinn has been blue in the face for years calling for political accountability for the torture and murder of her son.

Yes she has and where have FF and FG been for the last 13 years?  This is a dogs on the street situation but the police cannot convict anyone with that type of evidence. The dogs on the street know what happened and the dogs on the street know why it happened. Not one fcuk was given about her till she became a political weapon. That's the disgusting thing.

In politics, you strike while the iron is hot. If Briege Quinn wants accountability now, then good luck to her if she gets it.

Conor Murphy is the current Minister for Finance in the Stormont assembly and has stood for countless elections since the Paul Quinn tragedy. Yet only now are we hearing of calls for him to resign. Why now? This isn't politicians 'striking when the iron is hot'. This is politicians using a horrible tragedy for their own political capital. The cynic in me tells me that it is a carefully orchestrated media campaign after a series of poll results showing a surge in support for SF. It is aimed at stemming the tide and might well succeed. Where have the same people calling for accountability for the Paul Quinn murder now been for the last 13 years?     

You'd prefer Briege Quinn to be silenced, wouldn't you? Water under the bridge and all that.

Definitely not, I hope she gets justice for her sons brutal murder. She deserves as much and Conor Murphy should have apologised a long time ago. However the timing is curious as media will have deliberately resurrected the story on the cusp of an election. Unfortunately for Mary Lou she is the one left fielding the questions when it is the murky past of SF that is responsible for them. There are countless other cases that could have been brought up but if you can't see that the Quinn family are being used as a political football then I'm not going to convince you otherwise. 

[Angelo]

The public service pension was not mismanaged and  is neither here nor there in this discussion.

Not mismanaged? It was overly generous to public sector workers and completely unfunded by them. How on earth can you say it was not mismanaged when there's now complete pay inequality in the public sector and the next generation are the ones who pay the price to fund these overinflated pensions?

People get half their pay as a pension, this seems a reasonable and proper thing, rather than overly generous. Other proper pensions should also provide this and many did.
The pay inequality in the public sector is not justified now that the economy has recovered.

People get half their pay as their pension? How does it seem reasonable when public sector workers got it based or next to no contributions (along with a 1.5 annual salary as a lumpsum) while private sector workers will now have to work extra years of their lives in order to fund it for the pre 2013 recruits with their overinflated pensions?

It's utterly scandalous mismanagement.

[mouview]

shock horror, the establishment and there national media lapdogs are trying to smear the new kid in the playground. The Quinn family will feel justified to bring it up now when opinion suggests SF are on the cusp but as snap says the West Brit control freaks won't give a toss for the Quinn case in a weeks time. Lost a lot of respect for Miriam O Callaghan last night, seem intent on badgering Mc Donald at every turn and constantly talking over her. Hope the southern electorate see all this for what it is and vote accordingly.

Did the northern electorate vote for SF despite their Brexit stance and the damage that could and will cause socially and economically on both sides of the border?