Ireland and her faults

[heatmaster]

As a resident of Ireland, I'm daring to indulge in an act of audacity by speaking my mind and advancing the proposition that voicing viewpoints and opinions regarding the state of Ireland Inc. , The idea that Ireland is a Democracy and transparency is sacrosanct couldn't be further from the truth. First and foremost, knowledge of how things really are, doesn't guarantee that the truth will emerge. All the media outlets spin the official line. The threat of legal action and the ability of the powerful (Politics & business) to impose a muzzle on those who want to publicize injustices and political chicanery is simply breathtaking. Such an example was on full display, when Denis O'Brien was able to utilise Ireland's arcane slander laws to prevent Ireland's own parliament to publicize O'Brien's own business interests and activities. We have a political system which is rotten with corruption and incapable of or unable to reform. Our political classes are polluted with strokery and chicanery that would put Richard Nixon to shame. Our legislature is dysfunctional, a House of Representatives where debate is muzzled and rules dictate that real transparency is a concept completely alien to our public representatives, innovation is penalized and imaginative methods are deviced by those in power to ensure that politics and financial incentives go hand in hand. We have politicians who are unable to knit together a coherent thought or intelligent sentence without the aid or contribution of a faceless civil servant, our politicians lack gravitas or the smarts to provide imaginative leadership.  We have political parties, where tweedledum or tweedledee is the rule rather than the exception. We have laws which have prevented accountability and punishment for those responsible and involved in the near destruction of the Irish financial system. Instead there is reward for those same people, while those on the margins are expected and compelled to pick up the pieces. Immigration has skyrocketed. Unemployment is artificially low, because those who would be unemployed have emigrated. We have a tax system whose principle function is to stifle thrift and guarantee that a bankrupt and corrupt system survives at all cost. We have an upper chamber, the Senate, which is an institution of triviality. A parking place for failed or wannabe politicians.  The truth does not correspond to the fluff job that various media outlets engage in. I use this forum as a means to side step the bent slander laws which prevail in today's Ireland.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

[AelroseB]

As the progeny of both Protestant Ulstermen and Catholic Republicans, I give you my condolences when I hear of The Republic's current ailments.

From a historical perspective, however, I'm genuinely interested in how this happened.  (I know that a similar trend, albeit to a much lesser extent, has embedded itself within the DUP in NI).  Do you think it has anything to do with Fianna Fail's quasi-one-party-status for decades, or is it deeper than that?  The Republican-descended members of my family genuinely never wished to discuss the topic with me, so I'd like the viewpoint of a native Irishman.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Wait, I've heard Irish people calling the Seanad "senate", but never anybody calling the Dail the House of Reps? You may spend too much time looking at murican politics.

It's a very parochial society, Ireland. Political parties, aside from the obligatory trot front organisations, are less idealogical organisations and more clientistic organisations devoted to mutual backscratching. Some blend is because the years of mismanagement from Fianna Fáil (whether through De Valera's comely maidens delusion or the materialistic emptiness of the Celtic Tiger). Local government is weak as hell, and therefore rife with dodginess. Ireland is basically suffering a personality crisis - the churches of God (the Catholic Church) and of Mammon (Fianna Fáil/real estate/banks) are both completely disgraced in the eyes of the public, and nothing really is filling the gap.

The very odd thing is that Ireland had a chance to end one of the more egregious examples of elitist backscratching in the Seanad referendum; and voted it down under the nebulous promise of "reform" to stick it to teh government.

(Headmaster, are you voting Renua)

[heatmaster]

No, Renua is recycled former Fine Gael or Fianna Fail pols who were heaved out of there respective mother parties, they speak the language of reforms, most of there candidates are from the political class structure and have nothing new to add to the debate. The political establishment, be it Fianna Fail or Fine Gael have nothing new to say or offer. Cynicism is rife in Irish politics, and most politicians are so far removed from every day reality. The language of reform has sex appeal, but all it is, is talk. "The other party guy is corrupt, he should reform...not me, because I'm a good guy and I didn't cause the problems" Somebody said of the Irish body politic, "The passengers might be the different, but the gravy train is the same" and so it is in Ireland Inc., Northern Ireland's political arena is a different breed. The unionists represent those who want to preserve the Union with Great Britain, the Nationalists represent the nationalist identity in Northern Ireland, but I'm not sure whether Union with the Republic is a top priority. The Roman Catholic Church is slowly but definitely losing there dominant position in Irish society,  no doubt due to there role in the cover up of the endemic clerical sexual abuse of children in the magdalene laundries and industrial schools. The Irish political class was riven with corruption from the foundation of the state. You had one form of colonialism replaced by a national colonialism as represented by Eamonn De Valera, the most narrow minded two faced political hack, to "lead" Ireland. The culture that generated De Valera, was the midwife that delivered this country of it's current crop of political clowns. No accountability and pass the buck is the watch word of political survival.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

So who do you preference? Indies?

To be fair, I think Haughey was more poisonous than De Valera. I have a more mixed opinion on Dev, as opposed to the hilarious terribleness of the Haughey years.

[PJ]

It always makes me chuckle that "other" has been doing better than most parties in polling.

Isn't Renua Ireland just a useless moderate hero split from FG? From what I can find, it seems like a giant circlejerk about how "the left-right spectrum is FLAWED".

Ideally, Irish political parties would just be redone from scratch. But in the meantime, is there any chance of meaningful reforms being made to reduce corruption and general terribleness of the parties? Or is that going to take some anti-establishment party gaining popularity a la Iceland or Greece?

[heatmaster]

No chance of any reform, any reform is window dressing. Little else. The political parties, particularly Fianna Fail & Fine Gael are incapable of reforming politics in Ireland; it's like trying to entice an alcoholic to change there way's. Not going to happen. Those two parties and the smaller parties are unable to affect change, they have been adhering to the creed of "Do as I say, Don't do as I do" and Irish politics is rotten to the core. The politicians have no credibility and are inherently too stupid or arrogant to care.

[Simfan34]

Maybe you need to find a group dedicated to reform... The Reform Group, perhaps?

[heatmaster]

The powers that are, don't want real meaningful reform and any attempt by individuals or groups to usher in or promote a reform agenda would be snuffed out by the special interests (Politicians, business or media) as reform threatens there position. The system is wired to prevent change of any kind or description.

[heatmaster]

The idea that Ireland is back, is laughable and not laudible.  Years ago the power's that ought to be, promised a roll out of state of the art WIFI and broadband coverage, for all the promises made, none were kept. Ireland inhabits a 21st Century global economy, but subscribes to a mid 1970s frame of mind and mentality.