Ireland politics (Part 2)

Current Affairs
4710

No one has said anything of the sort. You’re making things up now and going to extremes.

Being a parent means actively taking part in your childs life and both imparting and sometimes imposing ideas and structures on them.
Your job is to prepare them for adulthood not to non parent. This includes a multitude of things but it doesn’t include not doing anything.

Gender neutral upbringing is a middle class ideology. Calling a child born with a penis a boy is not an ideology, it’s very basic science. It’s also not being judgemental. It’s a fact.

1 Like
4711

Are you not identifying as @Tierneevin1979 any more?

Also it isn’t false equivalence. And certainly not merely because you say so.

4712

Raising your child as the gender that matches their sex is child abuse apparently.

4713

Raising your child in a loving, non-judgmental environment is now Nazism, apparently.

And the Lawrensons of this forum wonder why they aren’t taken seriously.

4714

That’s what the headbangers want alright. Meanwhile in the real world the rest of us will call our kids by the sex they were born and the poor child that has these headbangers for parents will have a grueling time being called him/her by other 4 year olds in the play ground.

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4715

You literally called raising a child in a loving, non-judgmental environment “Nazism”.

4716

I’d say we can leave this topic to Irish politics now.

4718

His mask slipped there.

4723

It’s impossible to take him seriously with his virtue signalling after what he led a mob to do to Joan Burton. Nor is it as he remains silent on SF. He won’t need to worry about a coup as he won’t get back in, SF will eat him up. I’d say all well and good for him except he would probably be happy enough. He can moan on Twitter again and do absolutely nothing of value for society. Since his UCD says he has always been a self centred arsehole.

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4724

It’s remarkable how a fella in the public eye being a good parent can make lads here fly off the handle with rage. Truly.

4725

I didnt see the links, but then I wasn’t looking for them at the time. No need to be snarky, it was a simple request.

4726

I’ll bite


He’s a father a wet week and has committed to classifying his child as an “it” in a desparate dying wasp sting to appeal to moronic libs and try and broaden his base as some sort of progressive bandwagon jumping cunt.

He’s a scumbag. He always was a scumbag. Ignoring his mental instability and delusion, his treatment around the Joan Burton thing was evil. His son will read this back in the future online and come to the conclusion that he was a cunt and is a cunt.

That’s the only upside to this story.

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4727

You need to calm down and stop moaning about good parents.

4728

Whatever side of the argument you’re on, this is the kind of stuff that gives Bourke and his ilk plenty of oxygen.

4729

Why cant they call their son a boy and teach him to reject the gender traits and supposedly sexist norms they are so aggrieved by,? It would make a lot more sense than calling your child it and setting him up to fail.

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4730

I presume you’re talking about the Burkes of Mayo.

The way the world works now - and unfortunately it is determined by the technology we consume - is that we live in a world of idiotic spectacle, where idiots or frauds spout bullshit and gain notoriety, fame and cult like followings of the back of saying stupid and hateful shit, or just plain lying.

This applies to pretty much every demagogue operating in the world today. It applies to Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Nigel Farage, Tucker Carlson, the owners of Manchester City FC, Mohamad Bin Salman, the Burkes of Mayo, Jamie Bryson, Darren Grimes, the “you can grow concrete” guy, anti-vaccine headbangers, climate crisis deniers, anti-trans ideologists, anti-refugee ringleaders, pretty much everybody.

Liberal society, decent society, hasn’t yet come up with a way to combat this. It didn’t come up with a way to combat this in the 1930s. This is why we are likely heading for very bad times, and quite possibly the end of liberal, free society in many countries.

4731
4732

Meant to send a text instead of a tweet and he director of communications.

1 Like
4733

If somebody who has access to the text of this article could legally borrow it and post it here that would be great, thanks.

4735

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Subscriber OnlyOpinion

Kathy Sheridan: Truth the first casualty in a housing crisisHammy theatricals, performative anger and ranty soundbites designed for the main news bulletins are no substitute

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Housing, we are told all day every day, is in crisis. But everybody knows this now. Photograph: iStock

Kathy Sheridan

Wed Mar 15 2023 - 06:00

Housing: the ideal vehicle for the caring, compassionate left to distinguish itself from the greedy lumps of landlords and vultures on the right.

The degree of passion in your quibble with either label will depend on a few things. Your grasp of multiple national housing plans from different government parties, your familiarity with the landing points of the billions being pumped into the housing sector, and your theories on why the number of homeless people is growing instead of abating.

It may also depend on whether you believe the Government reached its house-building target last year or brazenly lies about it. It depends on how much you think you know and how you know it.

Can you say whether more apartments than houses were built last year? How many in total and how many are in the pipeline? What are the current housing targets and how, why and how fast are those targets changing? Where do you stand on current building standards, planning conditions and general nimby-ism? Do you know what changes to any of these are afoot? Do you know how long it takes to obtain planning permission, the procedures for appeal, the fast-track systems in place, how they work and for whom? Do you support the Bill that will restrict the bringing of judicial reviews against proposed developments? Do you know how often groups and political representatives object to developments? How many schemes are delayed or stopped and the reasons why (warning: answers may include dead people’s signatures on opponents’ petitions)? How should construction industry inflation be tamed? How would you go about bumping up housing supply? Where would you find sufficiently large numbers of construction workers and to what extent would you be prepared to incentivise and accommodate them? What is the difference between the Government’s Help to Buy and First Home schemes and do they work?

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That’s before we even get to the rental sector. Should the eviction ban end? Why and when would be the optimum time? What can be done about the evictions to come? Would a three-year rent freeze help or hinder the situation? Do you know the difference between the HAP and the RAS schemes, who may avail of them, and what difference they make? Do you know what an RPZ is? Can you understand how rents nationally could rise by nearly 14 per cent – as reported by Daft.ie – while RPZs are obliged to maintain a cap of 2 per cent? Do you know what percentage of all rental residential property is owned by institutions aka vulture funds? How do you define a vulture fund? Are all small landlords gombeen men? Should they be punished severely or incentivised to stay in the market or offered a chunky cut in capital gains tax if they agree to sell up with a sitting tenant? What is the actual percentage of TDs/senior party apparatchiks who are also landlords?

This is just a surface run over common terms, questions and accusations. If none of this is your speciality but you have nonetheless done extensive research and you know all the answers, congratulations. Your prize should be a regular segment on the evening news shows.

But if, like the vast majority, your head almost explodes at every uncontextualised headline, then do not rely on Dáil “debates” for anything that might promote public understanding. Housing, we are told all day every day, is in crisis. But everybody knows this now. Everybody is acutely aware of the horrendous burden on blameless tenants anticipating a notice to quit and the stunted lifestyles of children confined to hotel rooms. We know about the near impossibility of renting or buying a home in Dublin where a third of the national population seems bent on buying.

We remember 20 years ago when banks guilt-tripped parents into selling equity in their homes to get their children on the “ladder” in a disastrous housing bubble fuelled by banks and tax incentives.

We know that untold numbers of today’s parents are digging deep into savings and pension funds to help their adult children, with equally unpredictable outcomes.

We know about the rural generations (this writer included) that moved through successions of bedsits and flat shares in decrepit old houses around Dublin 6 with a single communal shower, when cash was king and security rested on the kindness of landlords.

Expectations are radically different now, as they bloody well should be. Despite the political rhetoric fomenting generational division while offering no solutions, every generation has had good reason to “get” it.

Politicians get it too, if only because their political survival depends on it.

What we are missing are facts. A housing and homelessness emergency – with all the fear, despair and suffering that implies – is no vehicle for hammy theatricals, performative anger and ranty soundbites designed for the main news bulletins.

Where is the regular, accessible Government-led information on the great housing plan and its progress? Where are the clear explanations for obstacles, slowdowns and non-starters?

Where are the crisis press conferences?

Let’s reinstate that podium outside government buildings. Let’s hear it all, weekly, from the Taoiseach himself.

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