The Official 2016 Irish General Election thread

[deiseach]

I actually think their mantra changed last week after that poll about people not feeling the recovery. Varadker was on Newstalk or RTE news, and he mentioned 'We need to bring the recovery into the home' or 'into everyone's home' at least 3 times. Then I heard another lad, maybe Coveney, saying the very same thing.

they are al on message. IBEC supports FG which is al you need to know.
Stil thousands and thousands in negative equity, thousands with no wage increases, many many seeing how shoddy the health system is, hundreds of thousands of people un der 30 seeing their salaries slashed ..lots of economic losers out there with votes

Thousands underemployed, thousands fearful of any form of demand for better pay/conditions ("be grateful you have a job"), thousands on zero hour contracts, thousands dependent on tips to top up their income . . . it's impossible to know if there was a strategy that the government could have deployed that would have let them cruise back in, but the blasé manner they approached the campaign, the flippant assumption that enough people have seen their situation improve to the point where the votes would be there, has definitely not worked.

[Hound]

You would be taxed on the profit when you sold it. If you live in it until you die, you wouldn't pay tax on it, nor would your spouse, but after, or in the event of a sale, or transfer via inheritance, it would be taxed heavily.

I believe any gain in value should be taxed, in preference to income tax, because you worked for the latter and did nothing to profit from the former. In my opinion of course.

I don't think I'm in favour of increasing inheritance tax due to double taxation, i.e. your parents paid tax on earnings.

Perhaps a simpler soultion would be to remove the CGT principal private residence exemption, and have everyone pay 33% tax on profits they make on selling their house (or on a gift or inheritance).
Although you'd need to include some deferral if the child who received the house as an inhertiance was going to live in it - it would not be palatable to receive a family home and then have to sell it in order to pay the tax due on receiving it!
But I don't think there's a whole heap of logic in exempting gains on selling a home - though of course most sitting on a big gain would be dead against it!

[mikehunt]

Stil thousands and thousands in negative equity, thousands with no wage increases, many many seeing how shoddy the health system is, hundreds of thousands of people un der 30 seeing their salaries slashed ..lots of economic losers out there with votes

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/rising-house-prices-lift-45-000-out-of-negative-equity-1.1884332

http://www.thejournal.ie/minimum-wage/news/

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/jobs-minimum-wage-to-be-increased-to-9-15-from-january-1.2388570

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/work/irish-workers-are-likely-to-get-pay-rises-next-year-1.2472855

I agree with you to a certain extent on the health system (I've no personal experience with this apart from getting the young lad a free doctor visit lately), I'd imagine it has slightly improved from 6 years ago though.

Raising the minimum wage is not the answer and is a lazy approach to take. To help the less well off they need to reduce the cost of living. The only benefit I see is that it'll p!ss off those leeches in IBEC.

[macdanger2]

I actually think their mantra changed last week after that poll about people not feeling the recovery. Varadker was on Newstalk or RTE news, and he mentioned 'We need to bring the recovery into the home' or 'into everyone's home' at least 3 times. Then I heard another lad, maybe Coveney, saying the very same thing.

they are al on message. IBEC supports FG which is al you need to know.
Stil thousands and thousands in negative equity, thousands with no wage increases, many many seeing how shoddy the health system is, hundreds of thousands of people un der 30 seeing their salaries slashed ..lots of economic losers out there with votes

Thousands underemployed, thousands fearful of any form of demand for better pay/conditions ("be grateful you have a job"), thousands on zero hour contracts, thousands dependent on tips to top up their income . . . it's impossible to know if there was a strategy that the government could have deployed that would have let them cruise back in, but the blasé manner they approached the campaign, the flippant assumption that enough people have seen their situation improve to the point where the votes would be there, has definitely not worked.

Zero hour contracts should be abolished except for perhaps students

[muppet]

You would be taxed on the profit when you sold it. If you live in it until you die, you wouldn't pay tax on it, nor would your spouse, but after, or in the event of a sale, or transfer via inheritance, it would be taxed heavily.

I believe any gain in value should be taxed, in preference to income tax, because you worked for the latter and did nothing to profit from the former. In my opinion of course.

I don't think I'm in favour of increasing inheritance tax due to double taxation, i.e. your parents paid tax on earnings.

Perhaps a simpler soultion would be to remove the CGT principal private residence exemption, and have everyone pay 33% tax on profits they make on selling their house (or on a gift or inheritance).
Although you'd need to include some deferral if the child who received the house as an inhertiance was going to live in it - it would not be palatable to receive a family home and then have to sell it in order to pay the tax due on receiving it!
But I don't think there's a whole heap of logic in exempting gains on selling a home - though of course most sitting on a big gain would be dead against it!

My parents paid tax on earnings for a house they purchased in the 1980s, at 1980s prices. I will presumably get a share of it priced sometime in the future. They won't pay tax twice and, under the current system, I won't pay tax at all. If we introduce, say, a 75% inheritance tax above a threshold of, again say, the cost of an average house, I will still pay very little unless the house is extremely valuable. I can understand your point about a child living in the house of the parents possibly having to sell it. Firstly, they will still pay nothing up to the value of the average house and secondly, if the house is worth way more than that, they should pay the tax. They didn't earn it and if they are still living at home all those years, and don't have the money to pay the tax, what have they been doing with their lives? I accept there will be the odd genuine welfare case, but in general I wouldn't have much sympathy from a tax pov.

But the real problem is with real wealth. People who own many properties will only pay CGT on price rises. I believe they should be crucified for profits made from rising property prices. Remember these people make rent as well. They also drive up property prices which excludes other from being able to get in to the market.

We have all seen the statistic whereby the combined wealth of something like the richest 63 people is equal to the combined wealth of the poorest half of the planet. I don't believe in simply taking the wealth off them, but we can't allow them to transfer the wealth to their offspring as we will end up with both the 63 number and the half of the planet number rising until something major gives.

Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have the right idea, in that they know if they leave all of their wealth to their kids it would destroy them. They expect their kids to be able to succeed themselves, so they are giving away most of the wealth before they die. Now those kids are hardly going to be poorly off, they will still have had the best education and doors open for them that won't open for others. Their head start in life should see them fine. But the current system of them being allowed to get all of the wealth with a relatively low inheritance tax is crazy.

[Declan]

Powerful stuff here from the Ballyhea man
https://youtu.be/ONQ5HR3-oP4

[Denn Forever]

Powerful stuff here from the Ballyhea man
https://youtu.be/ONQ5HR3-oP4

Powerful stuff alright.

[manfromdelmonte]

Car Insurance up by 30% year on year

It will never affect the boys in ministerial cars, but the cost of living is a huge issue

added onto water charges
property taxes
college fees rising
USC

[muppet]

Powerful stuff here from the Ballyhea man
https://youtu.be/ONQ5HR3-oP4

I really hate stuff like that.

He lists every topic with a hint of scandal or cordite and blames the recent government for it. He provides no context for anything. 'Flood debacle' me arse. He doesn't put forward a single proposal other than 'real change'. He doesn't suggest what 'real change' might be other than, presumably, electing himself to join all the other 'real change' merchants, from FG & Labour in the last election, to SF, FF, PFP, Renua, Wallace, Daly etc 'really change' bullshit artists this time round.

It is desperately easy to knock everything, it is much harder, and of course more useful and honest, to propose something. But he doesn't bother with that.

[seafoid]

Powerful stuff here from the Ballyhea man
https://youtu.be/ONQ5HR3-oP4

I really hate stuff like that.

He lists every topic with a hint of scandal or cordite and blames the recent government for it. He provides no context for anything. 'Flood debacle' me arse. He doesn't put forward a single proposal other than 'real change'. He doesn't suggest what 'real change' might be other than, presumably, electing himself to join all the other 'real change' merchants, from FG & Labour in the last election, to SF, FF, PFP, Renua, Wallace, Daly etc 'really change' bullshit artists this time round.

It is desperately easy to knock everything, it is much harder, and of course more useful and honest, to propose something. But he doesn't bother with that.

real change would mean taking on the lobbies in the health service, all the parasites who suck money out of the gravy train and the CS unions.
Because nothing changed post crash. There are so many things in the country that are shite. the legal system is a joke. the civil service don't look at best practice when deciding on policy. I started following it in 2009 and have hundreds of pages from jsut the Irish Times on where things are dysfunctional.

This is just a snippet

Medical apartheid surely more shocking than €100 tax The few dozen who crippled the country helped by political stooges have largely exited the stage in considerable comfort.

110617 . Brian Hayes rattled private sector interest groups when he signalled an intention in April to seek better
procurement terms from companies selling goods and services to the State.
Shane Ross in 2010 questioning Alan Dukes about the Anglo Board.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RbE4ZHIzvTY#

dead children in care
\ As one person at the heart of the arts world put it, the fear is that there is no strategic thinking of any sort being done by those who are in charge of culture in Government, something that would have
October 26th, 2011 at 9:27 am
Reflecting a little. This is the third time I recall serious (material damage) flooding along Dodder. Pretty stream in dry weather, but a monster after heavy rain. We know what will happen, just not the when.
•   111125Sir, – I couldn't help but be amused while looking at the CV of Kevin Cardiff to note that while assistant secretary (banking, finance, and international division) at the Department of Finance between 2000 and 2005 one of his achievments was "Managing a major programme of financial sector legislation". – Yours, etc,
RUARY MARTIN,
Clonard Court,
110526 There was some praise from the OECD for the Government's jobs initiative yesterday, with Mr Lenain describing efforts to regain control of the public finances as "remarkable".
However, he was critical of State training programmes, saying bluntly that the Government should stop spending money on training people for the construction sector
•    Labour also promises to introduce cost-benefit analyses for "major capital projects
•   
•   
•   110117 The Society of Chartered Surveyors has been calling for the establishment of a public database to maintain and publish relevant details of all property transactions including sales, lettings and rent reviews along with details of all incentives and side agreements which would address the issues raised.
•   
•   110118 Ireland already has one of the worst records in the developed world for access to education generally, coming third from bottom among 31 OECD countries in a recent German study. The Hunt report itself puts third-level participation from the top socio-economic group at almost four times that of the bottom group.
•   
•   Health services everywhere spend a great deal on medicines, but work hard to contain costs (there are many ways to do so). Here, public spending on pharmaceuticals rose from €565 million to €1,901 in the eight years to 2008. Health ministers did almost nothing to contain it. Big pharma is never slow to spot a sucker.
•   How drugs are procured is mirrored in how the State purchases legal services. They are not subject to competitive tendering. This allows lawyers to dictate prices, at massive cost to taxpayers. Astonishingly, this is still the case despite the enormity of the crisis.
Inaction is also to be seen in the administration of justice. Tribunals have failed by every measure, yet they have been allowed to grind on and successive justice ministers have put forward no alternatives – such as the creation of the role of investigating magistrate, as exists in other jurisdictions

[muppet]

Brian Hayes rattled private sector interest groups when he signalled an intention in April to seek better
procurement terms from companies selling goods and services to the State.

This type of stuff should be a no-brainer, but we never seem to be able to get it done. We go through the same cycle of parties making  promises for their own supporters, followed by the realisation that they can change nothing when they get in.

They take the electorate for mugs, and they are right every time.

[Rossfan]

I see anti water charge yokes at their thuggery again today.

[mikehunt]

Enda Kenny spoofing again on the news. He hasn't a breeze.  Any question asked was answered with the same response. Jobs, economy, services.  How a leader of a modern day country can have so little knowledge of the basics of economics is a poor but accurate reflection of the calibre of politicians in this country.

[seafoid]

Brian Hayes rattled private sector interest groups when he signalled an intention in April to seek better
procurement terms from companies selling goods and services to the State.

This type of stuff should be a no-brainer, but we never seem to be able to get it done. We go through the same cycle of parties making  promises for their own supporters, followed by the realisation that they can change nothing when they get in.

They take the electorate for mugs, and they are right every time.

It shouldn't be hard to standardise procurement terms, to do cost benefit analysis or to cut down on waste.
With Health they ignore problems and just throw more money at it. I reckon at least 20% or 2.8bn is waste.
That is around 700 PER HEAD in the country. 

I like the idea of investigating magistrates. Someone like Eliot spitzer or that Garzon in Spain could go to town on the parasites.

[Declan]

Meanwhile this is what happens during our campaign while we have record number of families becoming homeless in January

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/election-2016/battle-of-ballymahon-gardai-called-to-dispute-between-candidates-following-alleged-leaflet-theft-34476773.html

Muppet - I've read O'Flynn's website and campaign literature and he does list his priorities with the promissory note deal being top of the list so I don't think he's just a whinger to quote our great leader.