Bus Éireann on all-out strike from today week - yes, cost rationalisation is required, but eliminating routes will disproportionately affect rural areas, making Shane Ross's inaction all the more exasperating.
The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote: It's amazing what results you can get in opinion polls if you ask the right questions. Ask in the Eurobarometer polls about whether or not you think migration is going well, then over 80% say yess. But if you ask a question about whether or not you think migrants are claiming too much social welfare, and you get a different answer altogether.
Peter Mathews, one of the greatest economic minds of the last Dáil, has passed away. Meanwhile, in rather unlikely news, Eoghan Harris's brother, a county councillor in Cork, has joined the Social Democrats.
Matthews was an odd figure. He left with lucinda over abortion. He had been some sort of financial services kind of guy, and he was the only blueshirt who would go on vincent Brown. Apparently his departure from the fine gael parliamentary party was treated with some relief, as he apparently would talk at length. I must admit that I wasn't necessarily very impressed by a lot of the stuff that he would say about economics either.
Have been reading in the Phoenix that Simple Simon Coveney has Damien English as his head of campaign. Damien English is not an intelligent man. If Simon Coveney becomes Taoiseach with Damien English as Phil Hogan, we're doomed. You're talking about people that could be tricked by a bright five year old.
If we weren't already sleepwalking towards a GE, then today's meeting of the Water Charges Committee heightened the possibility, with FF dead-set against their return, even for excessive usage, while FG support this. Coveney has vowed to ignore the Committee's finding, thereby breaching the Accord with FF. Meanwhile, both RTE and TV3 want to televise an FG Leaders Debate, which, surprisingly, could draw decent viewing figures, going by GE precedents.
Haha, FF is even against charges in the case of excessive water usage. They will bring down the government before a new FG Taoiseach is installed, all while taking care of the farming vote.
Hats off to them, they really have powergrabbing down to a fine art.
yeah, well lets see how happy they are when we have to introduce water charges anyway. This entire charade they are going through about which model of no water charges to introduce is fucking insane.
Do they have a plan on how to deal with the inevitable fines we get from the EU for being cute Hoors? I'm actually surprised at them, their inevitable u turn will straight away take half their hardcore idiot vote away again. Unless they're planning to float euro sceptic bollocks when they get in again.
No shocks at SF/PBP bollocks, but did I see that useless article Jan O Sullivan also stand against the excessive use charge last night? Fucking desperate Labour dicks.
Sometimes I really hate this country and its voters. Then I remember Big Island and Gombeen central looks almost as sunny as in Berba's most purple prose Munster is the new Ruhr posts.
Non-industrial, small scale organisations that use a lot of water or, more importantly, can be convinced during canvassing that they use a lot of water:
- Farms
- GAA clubs
- Famiies with multiple children.
- Premises where glassware is cleaned throughout the day and where customers make recurring visits to the toilet.
That's quite an influential coalition. The next Taoiseach will be from Cork and will not be called Simon Coveney.
Adrian Kavanagh's seat analysis of today's Irish Times poll:
FF 54
FG 54
SF 34
Ind 6
AAA-PBP 3 (Boyd-Barrett, Coppinger, Murphy)
Greens 2 (as currently)
Labour 1 (Howlin)
Soc Dems 1 (Shortall)
I expect the last two to have merged by this time next year, and the single party to have agreed a formal electoral alliance with the Greens, similarly to the rest of Europe. Further consolidation of the left will occur with AAA-PBP agreeing an electoral pact with Mick Wallace's Independents4Change bloc.
Hilariously, the Socialist Party/AAA are to rebrand themselves, yet, again, as Solidarity - after the Polish anti-communist union that rapidly dissolved into squabbling factions after becoming a governing party?
As Kenny begins his US junket, he announces a referendum on granting Irish citizens abroad the right to vote in presidential elections. Cue commentators crying "No representation without taxation".
Diable Rouge wrote: As Kenny begins his US junket, he announces a referendum on granting Irish citizens abroad the right to vote in presidential elections. Cue commentators crying "No representation without taxation"
Calvert will like this. He'll be able to vote for Dana Rosemary Scallon of the Mad Catholic Bastard Party
Votes for Irish Citizens In Orange Unionist Secession Statelets In D enial!
On a serious note, the one question that could defeat the idea is how an "Irish citizen" would be defined. If the implication is anyone born on the island of Ireland, the extra numbers would seem reasonable. On the other hand, basing it on entitlement to an Irish passport would see the franchise balloon out of all proportion - 6.4m in the UK alone!
Diable Rouge wrote: On a serious note, the one question that could defeat the idea is how an "Irish citizen" would be defined. If the implication is anyone born on the island of Ireland, the extra numbers would seem reasonable. On the other hand, basing it on entitlement to an Irish passport would see the franchise balloon out of all proportion - 6.4m in the UK alone!
Aye, maybe just a kite flying exercise- if the proposed citizenry is as per yr first example, it excludes millions of the diaspora while theoretically allowing my ViciousSid party to stand Jeff Donaldson Duck or Billy McKay Mouse.
Whereas your second option of doubling or trebling the electorate would make the office and thus the state look absurd. Effectively you'd be wasting millions on something with similar worth to one of those Buzzfeed quizzes on Facebook.
But let's suspend disbelief just for a moment. If it does happen, what need I do to get a ballot paper. Allow my birth certificate to be scanned? Buy a half of green Guinness at Toronto Airport? Shell out 100 Euros for a passport?
I would say that the easiest way to do this would be to have an an overseas electoral roll that is administered by the embassies/consulates. You go down to your local embassy, present your passport (which Irish citizens overseas will have) and get yourself put on the overseas electoral roll. Your details are then cross-checked with the domestic electoral roll to make sure double voting is not possible.
There may be 6.4 million people in the UK entitled to an Irish passport, but by restricting registration to people who actually hold an Irish passport, you are limiting the pool to people who are active Irish citizens. Of course, the other millions of 'inactive' citizens might decide to go down to the embassy and get a passport (which is their right) just so they can vote in an election, but I doubt that will happen.
Birthplace is irrelevant. If you restrict it to Irish-born Irish citizens, then Ronan O'Gara would be ineligible to vote for president at the Irish embassy in France.
It wouldn't be that hard to show proof that you've actually lived in Ireland in order to prevent "Mah fackin' grandpa's from Kerry and Boston DOES HAVE A FACKIN' BURGEONING COCKTAIL SCENE TOM BRADY WOO" from getting a vote.
Yeah, but I don't think those people are actually Irish citizens. Although in any referendum on the matter, the no side will be doing their best to make it seem that way.
There are people born overseas who have never lived in Ireland, who are Irish and who have no other citizenship than Ireland. For example, somebody born in continental Europe to two Irish parents. If they aren't considered full citizens by Ireland, then they basically have no full citizenship rights anywhere.
Now that Enda has returned from the States, he now refuses to leave until there's a government in the North and the Brexit talks begin - increasingly reminded of a tale my mother told, about a man in the Bogside who refused to cut his hair until Ireland was free, and presumably thus now resembles It from the Addams Family.
So once again Fine Gael have given Enda a loaded revolver and a bottle of whiskey. And once again he's drunk the bottle of whiskey and started shooting people. They never learn.
Renua have emerged from their hibernation as avowed defenders of the Eighth, to the shock of no-one. Most intriguing is the reference to FG as "free market Europhiles" - does that make Renua protectionist Eurosceptics?
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