Is FF gone as a party?

[shark]

What sort of economic policy would SF run?

You won't get an answer to that from a SF supporter.
Someone else is going to pay for it, so it really doesn't matter !

I look forward to seeing what they actually do. They'll be the biggest part after the next election, absent a complete collapse.
FF and FG should of course not go into coalition with them due to their diametrically opposed policies and strategies. So they'll need to get the parties of the left to come together, if they don't get the overall majority. That'll be interesting.

Any economists out there like to describe the current FFG economic policy?

Well for example, today's news on economics includes:
- projected growth of 4.5% in the economy this year
- despite the damage wrought by Covid, the economy has been resilient and tax income has held up better than expected
- Modified Domestic Demand, which focuses on the domestic economy, is forecast to grow by 2.5% in 2021 and 7.5% next year

Wheres it all going?

What the SF line of "Just to the rich"?

Pre Covid we were as close to full employment as you can get. Probably would be full employment but our social welfare payments are well in excess of our nearest neighbours.

Pre Covid, the following stats would make very interesting reason and comparisons to other countries:
- % of people who go on regular foreign holidays
- % of people who eat out in a restaurant once a month or more
- % of people who subscribe to Netflix
- % of people who have a least 1 gaming system in the house
- % of people who have a car

I've a strong feeling we'd be high up.

Certainly the UN and other bodies who do "Best places to live" / "qualify of life" analysis, puts Ireland as almost always one of the Top 10 places in the world to live and often closer to the top. In the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, we'd scraping into the Top 50.

As I've said before, FF and FG are a long way from getting everything right, but by in large economic policy in the last 30 years has been pretty good, notwithstanding the crash.

So why are FF & FG at a lower combined total of the vote than they ever have had in history? We are amongst the happiest people on earth, we have a great economy yet we are turning away from the parties that delivered it? I am not sure this all stacks up Hound.

Why did 74 million Americans vote for Donald Trump to be their president?

But in an Irish context, I believe that mistakes get focussed on much more than successes. Some people say that FG and FF don't get criticised in the media. I think that's a load of nonsense and belongs on the conspiracy thread, similar to unionists saying nationalists get special favourable treatment from the PSNI.

You might get away with the odd thing here and there, but in general mistakes are front page news, they are analysed and scrutinised and there's lot of outrage and often exaggeration.  And (apart from the exaggeration piece if that happens) that's exactly what should happen. The government should be accountable for their mistakes.
But when they get stuff right, there's not a whole heap of credit going around, "they're doing their job". Those things I listed above seem to be taken for granted by a lot of people.

Economic policy over the last 3 decades has been very successful, when judged in totality. That's really unarguable, even though some very poor decisions were made by FF around the crash. And people in general would criticise the mistakes of the crash a lot more than give credit to the way the economy has gone since then. In particular in recent years they learned a lot from the mistakes of the crash which resulted in the economy surviving Covid a lot better than expected. But you see don't see too many headlines or social media posts about that.

From an academic viewpoint, I would be fascinated to see how a SF / left alliance would govern this country. I would worry (a lot) that they could jeopardise the economy and drive down employment levels, but maybe they wouldn't and it'd be interesting to see. But when I hear people say "well they can't do any worse than the current crowd", then I think "gobshite". Because certainly that's very possible!

Agree with most of that.
Of course SF could do worse. But I do think their ability to change anything dramatically would be limited. Certainly if they only got one term.  I've seen first hand how much power the departments have. Change happens at a snails pace, and only when they want it to. Ministers come and go and the civil servants know this. They'll have the attitude of "we'll just wait this minister out".

[macker15]

Jobs for the boys 🙄🙄

https://www.newstalk.com/news/government-may-be-having-second-thoughts-on-robert-watt-e292k-salary-ross-1181758

[Angelo]

Interesting thread.

Amazing the biggest SF bashers are extremely reluctant to disclose who they vote for, are very silent when it comes to criticism of FFG and seemingly vote for unnamed independents.

These people are what you would refer to as the ashamed FFG voter. It's clear as day Rossfan gives his no 1 to a disgraced former minister from the FG gene pool but he's too much of a coward to admit it.

Dublin7 doesn't have the balls to tell us what sort of policies and mandate he votes for but will jump in baldheaded on the SF bashing.

[northsideboy]

Jobs for the boys 🙄🙄

https://www.newstalk.com/news/government-may-be-having-second-thoughts-on-robert-watt-e292k-salary-ross-1181758

Actually Robert Watt is neither Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael in his politics but there you go

[Rossfan]

Don't be letting facts get in the way
Latest Red V poll
FG 30% no change
SF 27% -2
FF 13% +2.
Seats equivalent
48
44
21

[Angelo]

Surely this should be huge news in light of what happened this week.

https://extra.ie/2021/05/09/news/irish-news/housing-minister-darragh-obrien-was-an-early-investor-in-so-called-cuckoo-funds

A housing crisis with cuckoo funds profiting out of it and the person who was responsible for the new legislation which did nothing to close these loopholes had previously been involved in these schemes.

[macker15]

Surely this should be huge news in light of what happened this week.

https://extra.ie/2021/05/09/news/irish-news/housing-minister-darragh-obrien-was-an-early-investor-in-so-called-cuckoo-funds

A housing crisis with cuckoo funds profiting out of it and the person who was responsible for the new legislation which did nothing to close these loopholes had previously been involved in these schemes.

f**king hell

[Angelo]

This is a perfect example of why Hound is a bullshit extraordinaire.

The MSM are doing their best to not report on this story when it should be huge news.

1/10 of the coverage the SF database got and it's a far bigger story.

[macker15]

This is a perfect example of why Hound is a bullshit extraordinaire.

The MSM are doing their best to not report on this story when it should be huge news.

1/10 of the coverage the SF database got and it's a far bigger story.

I'm sure a couple calls were made to DOB. The national media in bed with government doesn't help.

[Angelo]

This is a perfect example of why Hound is a bullshit extraordinaire.

The MSM are doing their best to not report on this story when it should be huge news.

1/10 of the coverage the SF database got and it's a far bigger story.

I'm sure a couple calls were made to DOB. The national media in bed with government doesn't help.

This is the type of spin you are dealing with:

We will have to agree to disagree as there is no scientific way to measure this, my gut tells me all parties are not treated equally in the south yours say not true.

That's fair itchy.

I'm not denying that SF get treated harshly at times by IT, RTE and VM, but so do FG and FF at times. And the other parties. But totally agree that it is difficult to measure and of course the tabloids and social media muddy things completely in all directions!

Hard to imagine him having typed that out with a straight face.

[macker15]

Darragh O'Brien looks to have ambitions replacing Mehole later in year according to article

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/big-read-will-darragh-obriens-fianna-fail-ambitions-run-into-a-brick-wall-40403960.html

[Angelo]

Oh dear.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/276c34da-b3fd-11eb-9055-64edaa2be8dd?shareToken=a4b38395992d4212887cb7d05c63d1a7

Are FFG capable of making decisions that don't benefit themselves personally first and foremost?

[Rossfan]

Lefties, SF etc won't be happy

https://www.thejournal.ie/fianna-fail-motion-housing-right-5458317-Jun2021/