A lot of the mistakes heās made (bad politics) were made by his predecessors. Whatās disappointing about that is that his manoeuvres when trying to be leader showed a killer instinct that FG have generally lacked.
He assembled a pretty good leadership team actually and he didnāt shy away from giving SC an easy win front facing role.
Some of it doesnāt matter anymore though. There was a time when Bertie going to a FDI jobs announcement would get only positive press. Now a MN announcing more jobs gets the rooral Oireland clique moaning, people moaning about housing and mentions of Apple and tax. We are a deeply cynical nation now, which is a pity.
Weāre a nation that does complacency as a default. People think full employment and lots of jobs is to be taken for granted even though
weāre only ten years out from double digit unemployment
I think housing is fixable but the health crisis is worrying particularly as population ages and nobody seems to know how to solve it or have the appetite to do what is needed.
Thereās nothing cynical about the housing / rental issue. Or the health issue. Rural Ireland dying is also a reality for many townsā¦
Youāre too dismissive of these problems because they dont affect youā¦ maybe others are being cynical in how they use them for their own purposes but the problems are real.
FG have done well in some areas but if we werent faced with an election they wouldnt be looking to address any of these issues in a meaningful way - their record over the last few years shows this.
But I think youāre right about the killer instinct ā FG seem to be meandering along under him and thatās what people are probably most vexed at.
What does full employment mean when you cant afford rent / house and the cost of living is outrageous ā¦ when you hold back from going to the doctor or dentist? ā¦ thereās a good whack of people who would probably earn more on social welfare then the low paying jobs they have - and often on here we get the narrative of spongers and dolers, thereās a lot of people working hard in low paid jobs and seeing very little return for it.
Employment is great - wonderful ā¦ but itās a stat masking the real issues. You mong.
Health has been a mess since State was founded. The nuns kept our hospitals orderly & clean and tidy once upon a time, but we didnāt have the services or range of care. Now our hospitals are a disorderly money pit. But it was the exact same narrative in 2005.
Rural Ireland being left behind is a myth. We have OTT redistribution to this area. Itās also been put forward for decades by simpletons.
In the 2000s though, people took a balanced view. They donāt now. The number of jobs created in this country in the last decade is extraordinary. People expect things to be just fixed though, they canāt. You canāt just click your fingers and āsolveā housing surging (which is also a Western problem and not just Irish) when you didnāt have a construction industry for half a decade. You canāt just solve transport problems when you cut capital expenditure to the bone for half a decade to accommodate current day expenditure.
People have been infantilised. This is piled on by the media. A mass of journalism graduates have seen their profession go from being decently paid and respected to churnalism and the value of which is eroded. It does not help that amongst this all they have been given free reign to be opinion writers on Twitter when once upon a time they had to earn their stripes.
Regarding Varadkarās leadership, I blame him for trying to beat the Tory boy narrative. Himself and Simon Harris thought that being woke would stop them being called Tories. He also drastically over estimated the impact of Brexit. He has governed from the centre economically trying to be all things to all men, and given the FF influence, thereās been centre left budgets. The party for āpeople who get up early in the morningā gave more money per week to people on job seekers than those earning relatively modest salaries up to ā¬50k. On every matter you hear that FF or some Independent would pull the plug on the Government. Why not FG? They havenāt gone to bat at all during this administration outside of abortion and Brexit, and those were issues with little friction internally.
If ever there was proof that money donāt make you happy then youāre it. Your hatred of all things peasantry is just a reflection of your own self worth.
I believe it is, it actually happened between 2005 and 2010. The figures came from Eurostat and are quoted in an article by Gene Kerrigan on January 14, 2018. I cannot imagine the situation has improved in any way since then though I invite any further information as to the contrary.
Some 2019 figures for tax to GDP ratios according to Eurostat:
France 48.4%
Belgium 47.2
Denmark 45.9
Sweden 44.4
Austria 42.8
Finland 42.4
Ireland 23.0
I accept that leprechaun economics may distort that to some extent but it is a shockingly low figure. You canāt pay for public investment without a decent tax take.
As an example The levels of social insurance in Germany are very high but they are ring fenced and people get a service. Pal of mIne pays about 2k a month between him and his employer for health cover - covers family. Health system works very well but would people pay thar amount here
Here for example PRSI is not capped but everybody gets same unemployment benefit which does not seem equitable.
Actual economists and not Gene Kerrigan have already discussed this Sid. Irelandās tax take to our real economy goes up to 42% when the other stuff is stripped out.
FG or FG supporters canāt crow about the amount of jobs created and tell us there is full employment and then simultaneously say social welfare rates are too high. Itās a directly contradictory argument.