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As a teacher the biggest issue for me is classroom size. We're one of the richest countries in Europe and half the biggest student/teacher ratio. The kids deserve better and my job could be easier.Quote:
Originally Posted by SÓC
A FF candidate (stand up Mr. Crowe) called to my door and I mentioned class size. He answered by telling me there were 45 in his class and it did him no harm. I told the whole of my school and many others and he has lost plenty of votes. Moron.
I suppose you could make that arguement but experience shows that the smaller party always capitulates to the larger. If Labour had stuck to their principles years ago and gave up the practice of going into coalition they could be a formiddable force now and be able to present themselves as the alternative the country is looking for. As it is they are merely seen as Fine Gael Lite.Quote:
Originally Posted by OneRedArmy
Again I agree with the Bohs-supporting left wing loon. :eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by BohsPartisan
Labour could have toppled FG from 2nd position if they'd shown the courage of their convictions at anytime over the last decade. But, as we all know, they're a bunch of toadying wimps.
KOH
Stop it, you're scaring me! ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by WeAreRovers
oh, to not have a worry beyond my pastimes.Quote:
Originally Posted by SÓC
I'm in teacher training. Bertie recently promised there's be 2000 extra teachers trained ...note he didn't say 2000 extra teaching jobs. So the half truth soundbite that he trots out as a move to somehow address the teacher pupil ratio problem gets swallowed by some as a commitment to improving the situation when in fact these kids are being trained for the boat or to go to Bahrain and work there tax free.Quote:
Originally Posted by finlma
IMO a good opposition is not possible in this country. Just compare the House of Commons Question Time with the Dail. In the Dail questions are submitted in advance, civil servants prepare response & Minister reads the script. AFAIK you are not allowed to ask question off topic (a bit like here ;) ) whereas in the House of Commons seems anyone can ask question & the PM has to try to answer.
:(
D'ya know what I thought was amazing? I was listening to the radio there the other day and wasn't Mary Hanafin announcing that something like nine new schools would be coming in September? Such a coincidence it happens just as the election's being announced!
And I read in the paper that shortly we'll have /90/ in the Garda Reserve. A whole 90 like!
Vote Fianna Failure / Progressive Dummycrat, you know it mocks sense.
adam
What do the morons voting for Fianna Fail think of Bertie being caught accepting money off businessmen again? Jesus just reading about how the money was loaned to Cecila, then used on a house Bertie was renting before he bought it makes my blood boil. Anyone who doesn't look at that situation and see a crook is a downright idiot in my book, I'm sorry if some find that offensive, but frankly I find your lack of sense offensive to my lingering thread of national pride ;)
Does anyone fall for that these days?Quote:
Originally Posted by dahamsta
IMO FF/PD can only be judged on their record over the last 10 years. If they haven't done it by now never will so promises mean nothing. If you happy with last 10 years then vote for them. The opposition is a little different as you have to see if agree with promises & think they will deliver.
In the last local election I voted for the fella who follows UCD so SÓC isn't alone.Quote:
Originally Posted by GavinZac
That doesnt make any sense. You can't immediately turn around a country and that is what they are in the middle of doing. Rather than the opposition's tactic pointing out relatively small individual failures, as the "Private Life of Bertie" smear campaign characterises so much, look at the larger picture. In the last ten years, have things gotten better or worse?Quote:
Originally Posted by pete
and try to do it without the rosy glass of yesteryear because it is startlingly obvious that those so offended by the current situation are blinded by recent troubles being fresh in the mind.
They did the last time pete, remember?Quote:
Originally Posted by pete
How many new Gardaí are we supposed to have by now? Where are they exactly, under McDohell's garden gnome?
And they'll read these posts, and they'll still vote for this bunch of shysters.
adam
At the moment I'm one of the richest of all my friends, do you know how much money I have in my bank account? 50 euro.Quote:
Originally Posted by GavinZac
How am I one of the richest? Because I'm one of the remaining few who aren't anywhere between 5,000 and 400,000 euro in debt. Most people I know are scrapping by, part because of the government pushed consumerism, part because of poor wages and part because of our personal indulgences, and we aren't anywhere even close to being in as bad a position as some of the people in this country. This bright and shiny Ireland, where anyone can lay their hands on a easy 500 euro is a myth, go to a homeless shelter, or just ask anyone who doesn't want to borrow money from financial institutions how easy it is to get 500 euro.
As for the Bertie smear campaign, well you do dodgy deals you get called a dodgy dealer
The government can't tell you what to do with the new found money in the better society they've built, but they can try. They tried to stop people from frittering away the money by using the SSIA scheme to tie up money. It worked for the most part, and hopefully people will use some of the return to pay the debts they've gathered.Quote:
Originally Posted by jebus
The housing market is the largest example of what you've talked about and that is fueled by people's greed. If people are willing to pay over the odds and do nothing about getting ripped off, what can Fine Fail do about this?
Meanwhile you say wages are low, and yet we are top of the world in terms of Purchasing Power per Capita, and we're bringing in foreigners to do the jobs we're no longer willing to do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dahamsta
...and the 6000 hospital beds we were to get in this Dáil. They've managed less than a thousand.
...I could ask how much better could things have been or could things have gotten if the senior partner in our government wasn't conspiritorially beholden to the construction industry, if it's leader was a fraction as embarrassed about deaths on hospital trolleys and classroom sizes as he is about us not having an electronic voting system and if same leader wasn't the type of nod'n'wink chancer who'll look the Irish people in the eye and tell them he managed to spend somewhere between fifty and eighty thousand punts on a "refurbishing"...Quote:
Rather than the opposition's tactic pointing out relatively small individual failures, as the "Private Life of Bertie" smear campaign characterises so much, look at the larger picture. In the last ten years, have things gotten better or worse?
-of a three or four year old house...
-that he didn't own...
-in the year 1994...
-while he was supposedly broke.
But I suppose that's his own business :rolleyes:
In fairness, look at the minimum wage, then weigh it up against the cost of (say) a pint of beer, a new DVD, a pair of jeans. Do you really think an hours work amounts to 2 pints? or 3 hours work to a copy of the Departed? or 9 hours work to a pair of Lee jeans? That's not frittering away money, that's just being taken for a ride, what will Fine Gael do? Not much I reckon, but I'm willing to give them a chance, rather then let Fianna Fail keep on funding their friend's holidays at our expenseQuote:
Originally Posted by GavinZac
Well if you were on minimum wage I'd question whether you should be spending it on things like alcohol, dvds and designer jeans. In any case, not very many people are on minimum wage, according to the International Monetary fund which puts us at the top of the list of average spending power per year in countries with populations over 1 million, at $44,000 per head, ahead of Norway ($43k), the US ($ 43k) and a country mile ahead of the average EU PPP per capita, ($28k). THAT is why Poles are here, not for supposed charms of Bertie Ahern.Quote:
Originally Posted by jebus
What so they can take up our minimum wage jobs whilst we go and fritter away our fictional $44,000 a head?Quote:
Originally Posted by GavinZac
Please tell me why you think its fictional? The International Monetary Fund puts it at 44k and the CIA world fact book puts it at 43k. The OECD put us at 16th in the world in terms of employment rates, and that was in 2003. The sheer number of eastern europeans that have come here, and are virtually all employed, will have boosted that a lot.Quote:
Originally Posted by jebus
You're dangerously close to saying "They took our juuurrbs"