Messages

What about other utilities then? Electricity?

You said it: 'utility'. We don't perish necessarily, deprived of a utility such as electricity.

Water is more than a utility, it's an absolute necessity.

Eh? Water provision most definitely falls under utilities.

Puckon kept you right there

On a lighter note -

I heard this last night in my local hostelry

Tis well I do remember
That bleak April day (1998)
When Martin, Gerry and cohorts
Signed our constitutional rights away

They signed upon the dotted line
A sight, thought never to be seen
And all because of the guarantee
They'd get their shillings from the Queen

(Traitors all)
[/quote

Must have been recited by an asshole full of that stuff that gives them Dutch courage.What did you do in the war Daddy.

Yeah very disappointing alright,even though we topped the poll had hoped we would have been well ahead that the transfers from FF,FG and Labour to the AAA would not have mattered.having said that happy enough with the vote in R/l so all will just have to regroup and move on.

Some craic this Sinn Féin thread, especially the first few pages. Imagine where they'd be now if they'd got rid of that liability Adams.

Maybe with another TD?

How?

The posters displaying such cynicism really should hang their heads in shame. Regardles of your personal opinion of McIlroy or Nike or whatever else gets your goat can you honestly deny these kids and families a tiny bit of joy or even a break from the horror of cancer.
Let me assure you that to go through that disease for a child and their family is a painful process you dont even want to imagine. So please set aside your negativity and maybe lead your life with a bit of the joy and enthusiasm these children have had torn from their lives.

+1,well said

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KnM6IEPoJ8

Frazer's wee mate on his court case. Is there something in the water ?

Wiser eating grass.

Have a good friend who does a lot of work for this children's charity and told me a fe weeks ago about this,gave £1 million and as far as I know £250k a year for next 4 years.He was their yesterday for MCilroys visit got a lot of golf shirts signed for auction at the golf day he runs for Clik Sargent.Just think we should be proud of what McIlroy has done and will continue to do and I can assure any of you on this board begrudging what Rory has done that the parents of these children don't think like you.Shame on you.

An absolute cracker of a performance from Phil Flanagan on Nolan. Clueless isn't the word - absolutely ripped to shreds. Well worth a listen. You'll either laugh or cry, depending on your particular allegiances.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04jm00z (near the start of the programme)
The thing is, he was actually on the right side of the argument. It should have been like scoring into an open net. Yet he managed to made a total mess of it. A real insight into how well SF is on top of the detail.

SF has also been caught bluffing on their welfare stats, quoting a NICVA report and claiming that welfare reform will take £750m out of welfare. NICVA has come out and said that over £500m of that has already been taken out and that SF is reporting on historic figures. So either SF is bluffing, or their politicians genuinely don't understand.

Then there was Maeve McLaughlin on GMU this morning on the abortion issue, unwilling or unable to give a straight answer to the interviewer on the party's position - caught between the more liberal party in the south, and playing to the 'catholic' vote in the north. SF really lacking the courage of their convictions on this one.

Would the abortion issue not be up to the individual rather than a party stance ?

SF don't do individual opinions.

Well you can have your own opinion but if you are speaking on behalf of the party you tow the party line.As it should be.

That's what the Politicians should be focussing on rather than that guff at Twaddell.

£40k a day to Gallaghers would soon keep all those people employed!

PS. Sinn Fein's stance on the Welfare Reform is disgraceful also. They need to get into the real world and realise that the Country's fucked and it's going to be hard for a while longer!!

Tories like you should be ashamed of yourselves,cut benefits to the disabled and the poor but look after big buisness.

Is your party not looking to reduce corporation tax? And there's no shortage of photo calls with the dFM at the announcement of new jobs supported by Invest NI grants.

Everyone seems to realise that welfare reform is needed except SF, well I am sure they know it is happening but are just grandstanding.

All the political leaders in the UK have said welfare reform has to happen, Labour have already said they would be introducing similar welfare reform, bar the bedroom tax, but yet it's easier to blame it all on "savage Tory cuts".

Anyone that doesent think there needs to be a reform of the welfare system is living in cuckoo land, and it doesent make you a Tory for seeing the need for welfare reform.

Kidder I have no problem with anything being reformed for the better and I am well aware of those who abuse the system but this is not reform this is CUTS and those suffering will not be the cheats but the old,sick and children.

Would it not be an idea to look for reform to get rid of the cheats? Maybe that would cost too many votes? As far as I can see the system is too easy for cheats to work so change the system would be a good idea. May not be too popular with a lot of voters though!

Yeah I would have no problem with that,but that is not what is happening.

it is happening already, everyone on DLA is having their case reviewed. Wether it weeds out the cheats remains to be seen.

Yeah very true and I know a doctor who sits on the review panels and it is getting extremely hard to stay on DLA,but I am always concerned as it appears cheats are a bit like criminals they are always ahead of the posse and it will be the genuine cases who suffer.

That's what the Politicians should be focussing on rather than that guff at Twaddell.

£40k a day to Gallaghers would soon keep all those people employed!

PS. Sinn Fein's stance on the Welfare Reform is disgraceful also. They need to get into the real world and realise that the Country's fucked and it's going to be hard for a while longer!!

Tories like you should be ashamed of yourselves,cut benefits to the disabled and the poor but look after big buisness.

Is your party not looking to reduce corporation tax? And there's no shortage of photo calls with the dFM at the announcement of new jobs supported by Invest NI grants.

Everyone seems to realise that welfare reform is needed except SF, well I am sure they know it is happening but are just grandstanding.

All the political leaders in the UK have said welfare reform has to happen, Labour have already said they would be introducing similar welfare reform, bar the bedroom tax, but yet it's easier to blame it all on "savage Tory cuts".

Anyone that doesent think there needs to be a reform of the welfare system is living in cuckoo land, and it doesent make you a Tory for seeing the need for welfare reform.

Kidder I have no problem with anything being reformed for the better and I am well aware of those who abuse the system but this is not reform this is CUTS and those suffering will not be the cheats but the old,sick and children.

Would it not be an idea to look for reform to get rid of the cheats? Maybe that would cost too many votes? As far as I can see the system is too easy for cheats to work so change the system would be a good idea. May not be too popular with a lot of voters though!

Yeah I would have no problem with that,but that is not what is happening.

An absolute cracker of a performance from Phil Flanagan on Nolan. Clueless isn't the word - absolutely ripped to shreds. Well worth a listen. You'll either laugh or cry, depending on your particular allegiances.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04jm00z (near the start of the programme)
The thing is, he was actually on the right side of the argument. It should have been like scoring into an open net. Yet he managed to made a total mess of it. A real insight into how well SF is on top of the detail.

SF has also been caught bluffing on their welfare stats, quoting a NICVA report and claiming that welfare reform will take £750m out of welfare. NICVA has come out and said that over £500m of that has already been taken out and that SF is reporting on historic figures. So either SF is bluffing, or their politicians genuinely don't understand.

Then there was Maeve McLaughlin on GMU this morning on the abortion issue, unwilling or unable to give a straight answer to the interviewer on the party's position - caught between the more liberal party in the south, and playing to the 'catholic' vote in the north. SF really lacking the courage of their convictions on this one.

100% Flanagan was awful on Nolan but more a case of him not being over the brief rather than lying,think later Maskey can on and cleared this up.Regarding SF policy on abortion it is very simple.SF are against abortion  on demand and against the 1967 act being approved in the North.They agree on the woman's  right to choose were her life is in danger and also in the case incest or rape.

That's what the Politicians should be focussing on rather than that guff at Twaddell.

£40k a day to Gallaghers would soon keep all those people employed!

PS. Sinn Fein's stance on the Welfare Reform is disgraceful also. They need to get into the real world and realise that the Country's fucked and it's going to be hard for a while longer!!

Tories like you should be ashamed of yourselves,cut benefits to the disabled and the poor but look after big buisness.

Is your party not looking to reduce corporation tax? And there's no shortage of photo calls with the dFM at the announcement of new jobs supported by Invest NI grants.

Everyone seems to realise that welfare reform is needed except SF, well I am sure they know it is happening but are just grandstanding.

All the political leaders in the UK have said welfare reform has to happen, Labour have already said they would be introducing similar welfare reform, bar the bedroom tax, but yet it's easier to blame it all on "savage Tory cuts".

Anyone that doesent think there needs to be a reform of the welfare system is living in cuckoo land, and it doesent make you a Tory for seeing the need for welfare reform.

Kidder I have no problem with anything being reformed for the better and I am well aware of those who abuse the system but this is not reform this is CUTS and those suffering will not be the cheats but the old,sick and children.

That's what the Politicians should be focussing on rather than that guff at Twaddell.

£40k a day to Gallaghers would soon keep all those people employed!

PS. Sinn Fein's stance on the Welfare Reform is disgraceful also. They need to get into the real world and realise that the Country's fucked and it's going to be hard for a while longer!!

Tories like you should be ashamed of yourselves,cut benefits to the disabled and the poor but look after big buisness.

Is your party not looking to reduce corporation tax? And there's no shortage of photo calls with the dFM at the announcement of new jobs supported by Invest NI grants.

Yes Maguire we do want corporation tax to be the same on both parts of the Island as we believe there should be an equal playing field regarding attracting investment.SF are not economically illiterate and are aware we need to try and encourage companies to set up in Ireland sometimes doing things that are not particularly palatable but the difference between us and Tory parties North,South and in Engalnd is we will not do it at the expense of the vulnerable in our society.We will stand againist the Tory cuts,water charges and anything else we feel is being brought in to benefit the wealthy and big business to the detriment of old,disabled and disadvantaged.SF in the 26 today have just released their costed budget for 2015 which think is worth a read in detail but here is a short synopsis.


Sinn Féin budget supports fair and sustainable recovery - Pearse Doherty

8 October, 2014 - by Pearse Doherty TD

7

 
Sinn Féin Alternative Budget 2015 (1 MB)
Read now
Sinn Fein's Finance Spokesperson Pearse Doherty TD has said Sinn Fein's alternative Budget would repair communities, rebuild the economy and renew society. The budget lays out how Sinn Fein would abolish the local property tax and water charges and our programme for investing in disability services, health and education.

Speaking at the alternative Budget launch Deputy Doherty said:

"Sinn Fein's alternative budget, which is once again costed by the Departments of Finance and Public Expenditure, shows how this year's Budget could start to repair communities, rebuild the economy and renew society. The budget is fiscally neutral which as Minister Noonan has pointed out would bring Ireland under the targeted 3% deficit for 2015.

Our priority in Budget 2015 is to reduce the tax burden on working families and low and middle income households by scrapping the property tax and water charges. We would remove all people earning under the minimum wage out of the USC net while we keeping the exemption for households earning under 60,000 and on medical cards.

In a full year our tax raising measures would bring in an additional €1.7bn through a third rate of income tax, restoring CGT and CAT to 40%, a 3% betting tax and a range of other measures. However, the net tax increase will be just €263.7million as our measures would see €1.053bn going back to low- middle income workers.

We have prioritised investment in disability services, through a €202 million package of 11 measures. We would also reverse cuts to the respite care grant and increase the Family Income Supplement. We would tackle the scourge of emigration by restoring the full rate for young jobseekers over two budgets starting with €40 in this budget.

We would hire 1,000 resource teachers and 1,000 nurses and midwives as well as a fund for other frontline workers as required.

On the capital side we would tackle the social housing crisis with a €1 bn injection from the Strategic Investment fund. This alternative would give people a break while balancing the books."

Put €800m back into the pockets of ordinary workers through the abolition of the property tax and by stopping water charges
Invest an additional €202.6m in disability services and supports
Prioritise investment in health and education to make back to school more affordable and recruit an additional 1.000 nurses and midwives
Help stop forced emigration of our young people by restoring the Jobseekers payment for those under 26 over two years
Invest €1bn from the Strategic Investment Fund to build an additional 6,600 homes over the next 18 months and create 8,000 jobs
Reduce salaries and allowances of high-earners in the public sector and Oireachtas

That's what the Politicians should be focussing on rather than that guff at Twaddell.

£40k a day to Gallaghers would soon keep all those people employed!

PS. Sinn Fein's stance on the Welfare Reform is disgraceful also. They need to get into the real world and realise that the Country's fucked and it's going to be hard for a while longer!!

Tories like you should be ashamed of yourselves,cut benefits to the disabled and the poor but look after big buisness.

ast week, as the Tory faithful cheered on George Osborne's new cuts in benefits for the working-age poor, a little story appeared that blew a big hole in the welfare debate. Tucked away in the Guardian last Wednesday, an article revealed that the British government had since 2007 handed Disney almost £170m to make films here. Last year alone the Californian giant took £50m in tax credits. By way of comparison, in April the government will scrap a £347m crisis fund that provides emergency cash for families on the verge of homelessness or starvation.

Benefits are what we grudgingly hand the poor; the rich are awarded tax breaks. Cut through the euphemisms and the Treasury accounting, however, and you're left with two forms of welfare. Except that the hundreds given to people sleeping on the street has been deemed unaffordable. Those millions for $150bn Disney, on the other hand, that's apparently money well spent –whoever coined the phrase "taking the Mickey" must have worked for HM Revenue.

Politicians and pundits talk about welfare as if it's solely cash given to people. Hardly ever discussed is corporate welfare: the grants and subsidies, the contracts and cut-price loans that government hands over to business. Yet some of our biggest companies and industries operate a business model that depends on them extracting money from the British taxpayer. The operators of our supposedly privatised train services are kept afloat by billions in public money. Or take the firm created by billionaire Jeff Bezos: last year it emerged that Amazon had paid less in corporation tax to the UK than it had received in government grants.

The bill for corporate welfare is huge – and largely hidden. We know a lot about the people who claim social welfare: we know how much each benefit costs the public, the government sets strict rules for eligibility – and we even have detailed estimates for how much cheating goes on. Between them, Whitehall, academia and NGOs have churned out enough surveys on social welfare claimants to fill a wing of the Bodleian library. But corporate welfare? The government has itself acknowledged: "There is no definitive source of data about spending on subsidies to businesses in the UK." The numbers are scattered across government publications and there is not even any agreement on what counts as a corporate handout.

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Instead, what you get on the issue is silence. A very congenial silence for the CBI and other business lobby groups, who can urge ministers to cut benefits for the poor harder and faster, knowing their members are still getting their bungs. An agreeable silence for Osborne and David Cameron, who still argue that the primary problem in Britain is that the public sector "crowds out" private enterprise, without ever acknowledging how much the public subsidises business. Most of all, a silence at the very centre of our democracy.

Kevin Farnsworth, a senior lecturer in social policy at the University of York, has spent the best part of a decade studying corporate welfare – delving through Whitehall spreadsheets and others, and poring over Companies House filings. He's just produced what is, as far as I know, the first ever comprehensive audit of the British corporate welfare state.

The figures, to be published in a forthcoming report, are astonishing. Farnsworth takes the financial year 2011-12 and tots up the subsidies and grants paid directly to businesses. They amount to over £14bn – that is, almost three times the £5bn paid out that year in income-based jobseeker's allowance.

Add to that the corporate tax benefits, the value of the cheap credit made available to banks and other business, the insurance schemes run by the government to protect exporters, the marketing for British business laid on by Vince Cable's ministry, the public procurement from the private sector ... Farnsworth calculates that direct corporate welfare costs British taxpayers just shy of £85bn a year.

This, he admits, is a conservative estimate. I would throw in the public subsidy provided to too-big-to-fail banks, or the £25bn taxpayers shelled out that year in tax credits, housing and council tax benefits to people in work but not paid enough by their employers to live on. Nevertheless, Farnsworth has achieved something extraordinary: he has yanked into the open an £85bn subsidy that big business and the government would rather you didn't know about.

Thinking over this giant corporate bung, two responses immediately suggest themselves. First, it shows up the stupidity of all those newspaper spreads and BBC discussions constantly demanding "What would you cut?", like some middlebrow ransom note ("Choose now: or the lollipop lady gets it"). It's a question you'll be hearing more and more in the run-up to the election. Perhaps next time, as well as mentioning schools, fire services and benefits, some brave Radio 4 presenter will mention the business coaching and marketing and advocacy services provided by the Department for Business (annual cost: nearly £5bn).

The other response you might make is that some business funding is inevitable, even desirable. Perhaps you consider keeping Kenneth Branagh employed in these islands to be a national priority – in which case, roll on those tax reliefs for Disney. I might argue that renewable energy deserves a subsidy. But voters are at least entitled to an informed debate. That is precisely what we've not been allowed, through the deliberate obscuring of these sums.

And if taxpayers are to fund corporations, why shouldn't they demand that those businesses observe certain conditions of basic fairness? The publicly funded train operators should pay their staff living wages, provide decent pensions and sick pay. And all recipients of public money should be banned from using elaborate structures to avoid paying tax.

Our semi-secret system makes no such demands: of the 44 companies that received over £1m in government grants between 2005 and 2011, 13 didn't pay any corporation tax at all; a further 17 didn't pay any corporation tax either the year before or the year of receiving their public money. These aren't two-bit firms, either: Farnsworth's list includes Tesco Personal Finance, Dell and Plusnet.

And, of course, Amazon – which in 2011 alone took £7.7m from Holyrood for placing a distribution centre in Fife. The Welsh assembly promised it even more: £8.8m, as well as a £3m highway to connect its operations with other road networks. Just finished, it's called the Ffordd Amazon road, for the avoidance of ambiguity about whose interests it's meant to serve.

Farnsworth's research should trigger a public debate about the size and uses of the corporate welfare state. Personally, I'll believe we're getting somewhere when Channel 4 puts on Corporate-Benefits Street – with White Dee replaced by Amazon founder and inveterate tax-dodger Jeff Bezos.

glens abu is as willing an idiot as you will get

Ha ha,Martin Og allow you to post again or is it Dee now who gives you the orders.

Ah the old "Martin Og" thing again. Are you even old enough to vote?

Directed that to Saffrongael,but if the cap fits.

Nothing to do with me, don't know who this Martin Og character is, not as versed in the Belfast republican spats as others, but that is your default response to anything he ever posts where he is being critical of your cult of any nature, it's quite predictable by now.

Well if you don't know anything about it you shoul keep your snout out of it.Martin Og and Dee head up his cult, but sure the Shinners the only ones allowed to be insulted.You would be better just commenting on subjects you know about.

Well maybe you might at least enlighten us as to who these people are and what group they represent, RSF, Eirigi, RNU, 32CSM etc. rather than being so dismissive. Incidentally the shinners might get insulted, but you and your buddies haven't exactly been behind the door in giving it out about other parties, as indeed other parties often get slated by a variety of posters here for one reason or another, the difference being few here see themselves as obliged to act to defend those parties since its a GAA forum and most people post here because of that, and even if a few may have certain affinities towards a party, they aren't so wrapped up in the cult mentality as shinners like you are that they feel they have to throw out retorts to even the mildest criticism of the party.

Sure I wasn't talking to you I was answering Saffrongael and he knows the people I am talking about.I will throw out retorts to whoever I like and will not wait on your permission to do so,now go and inform yourself about subjects you want to stick you nose into before commenting on them.