The article did state they might also favour a reprise of their past coaltion with Labour, which did untold damage to that party after it bed-hopped from Fine Gael's embrace to snuggle up with the Soldiers of Destiny.
So, the biggest party in the country again, only a few short years after bankrupting it.
They're a funny lot, the Irish - they'll bang on about The Brits and the supposed 800 years but they'll run out and vote for the very shysters that gave Cromwell a run for his money in the amount of damage they did to dear old Erin... just yesterday, in relative terms.
And who they hell can you vote for here anyway? Fine Gael have shown they are no different when it comes to local backyard politics. James O'Reilly and the primary health centres in his own constuency being one example and Enda Kenny's Mayo being the the beneficary of disproportionate amounts lottery money. Not to mention his conservatism on abortion rights and all this empty promises, from ending compulsory Gaeilge to abolishing the senate.
So who do you vote for if you are not a Cyclops nationalist or a public servant? The former are well catered for by FF and SF. The latter by FF, SF, FG, Labour, the ULA and the Socialist Party.
Labour in particular, would run the country into the ground to preserve FF's original Croke Park deal which the fine Irish proletarians who make up the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors are threatening to down tools over, if it is touched. Marx would be very confused, indeed.
There really is little to chose between the Irish parties in many respects, when it comes down to it. Apart from the fact that one of them did single-handedly bankrupt the country... so by rights Fianna Fail should not even exist any more.
But Paddy and Mary will forgive them that little indiscretion once the other lot have been in power for a term.
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9 comments:
Anyone who thought FF is dead an buried is likely to be severely disappointed. At the end nobody really believes they are to blame for bankrupting the country. It is true that if they had adopted a more rightly regulated banking system then Ireland would have weathered the storm much better, but at a time when more regulation would have made a difference they were being praised by all and sundry for demonstrating how a deregulated system could transform a country for the good.
If I were to choose a metaphor that explains the problem FG and Lab have with the voters it would be that FF built a titanic II and we all had onsite cabins and were having a ball until it hit the iceberg, but when this happened FG and Lab were more concerned with getting their own into the lifeboats, rather than saving the ship.
JB
Why does this bring to mind the observation that "800 million Catholics can't be wrong" Time to pass out the firebrands and the GPS locations of all churches and FF Electoral offices.....
I don't have any comment on the news piece itself, I'm just still shocked how this could actually happen, and worse, how this is not ringing any alarm bells with the voting public. It's beyond a joke, it's a complete mockery of democracy. It basically proves we're not fit to run ourselves. Party #1 in the survey literally bankrupted the country, party #2 is presently in power, party #3 is essentially part of a world renowned terrorist organisation... how are such things even allowed to exist? How come Fianna Fail hasn't been completely obliterated in public opinion? Do the people that want to vote FF even understand the word "bankruptcy" ?
Bulwark
A Nation of Gombeens Once Again, to paraphrase that dreadful dirge. Words fail, or Fáil, me. Martin's posturing that he will not go into Government with Sinn Féin/IRA fools nobody with an iota of sense or decency. As always with auld Oireland, just when you think that things cannot get any worse, they do. Incapable of self-governance, as usual. Ochone agus Ochone O..
JB, yes, it's true, deregulation made us the darling of the worldwide business press. Deregulation was championed for many reasons, one of which was to make government less "in the way" of conducting business. However the same press was most likely not aware of what was really going on in Ireland: a process of complete UNregulation. Deregulation is the removal or simplification of rules governing a certain activity. However in Ireland, the few rules that even were on the books were simply not enforced. Anglo broke the law. Quinn broke the law. Bertie was corrupt. Fitzpatrick broke the law. The Financial Regulator was incompetent. The Government either chose to ignore what was going on, was too busy making money out of it, or was simply incompetent. It sucks any way you slice it.
However only in Bovine Ireland can the government in power actually succeed in convincing its people that it is somehow not Ireland's [Government's and People's] fault. Some countries did OK in the recession, some countries did worse... and some countries like Ireland did so bad it became a global laughing stock. There is a reason for that, and it is close to home.
Bulwark
NOT SURPRISED.
Not all of us were so stupid as to think house prices could increase forever, as the first commenter supposes.
Anyone with an iota of sense who was living here at the time could see it was madness.
What FF did went beyond deregulation. It cut capital gains tax and kept property-based tax shelters and incentives going in the midst of a crazy boom/bubble. It was stupidity writ large. The government actually intervened to stoke things up.
Anyone who spoke sense was portrayed as a naysayer and a doom-merchant who should, in the corrupt B-B-Berties words, commit suicide... just as he thought the boom could only get boomier.
Another commenter sums it up rather well:
"However only in Bovine Ireland can the government in power actually succeed in convincing its people that it is somehow not Ireland's [Government's and People's] fault."
I suspect that FF and Sinn Fein will be the next government. Looks like the voting public like to be Shafted again and again.
Not only did FF bankrupt the country through inflating the property market by tax incentives for housing estates nobody wanted to live in GM (and they are now ripping down), and decreasing CGT as they were in the pockets of the developers. They gave us benchmarking too.
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