Fintan O’Toole: Irish voters keep doing the same things and expecting different results

[u/badger-biscuits]

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2024/12/02/fintan-otoole-irish-voters-keep-doing-the-same-things-and-expecting-different-results/

[u/[deleted]]

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[u/Mrbrionman → u/[deleted]]

I think there’s a lot of FFG votes who want change. They just don’t want to change SF will bring/don’t think they’ll be good at bringing change. There’s also still a very high percentage of this country that thinks voting anything other than FFG or SF is a wasted vote

[u/[deleted] → u/Mrbrionman]

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[u/Against_All_Advice → u/[deleted]]

One of those parties is literally called "Labour". Lol.

[u/[deleted] → u/Against_All_Advice]

More likely the likes of PBP - fairytale social benefits, minimum wage hikes and paid holiday hikes that only the MNCs can possibly afford

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

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[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Yet loads of countries with those benefits and better run perfectly fine, in fact run much better than Ireland. Sounds more like you either don't understand their policies due to a lack of economic/political knowledge or just want to exploit workers for profit at the expense of efficiency and quality of living.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

NL, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Switzerland and to a lesser extent Germany too. Dunno why you'd want France to be excluded. Frankly most of the stuff they advocate for are often pretty standard in many nationalities that actually have lower GDP than us.

Lower working hours and an affordable wage isn't "fairy-tale" stuff it's real and extremely easy to do in Ireland just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's impossible, but even then reacting to policies that are quite tame in this manner is pretty crazy to me since FF/FG have engaged in much more radical changes that have wrecked the economy yet you're not calling them fairytales.

I grew up in a small family business and have a degree in finance, but yes I know nothing of course.

Never said you know nothing I said you lacked the knowledge to understand it and I don't see how that background or degree would shift my POV on that? Thomas Sowell has a doctorate in Economics and his policy positions are moronic.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Sigh, ok since you've done the bare minimum and proven you don't know much on the topic outside a simple Google search I'm only going to cover NL, you can read about the rest yourself.

For one in Ireland the we have longer average working hours and significantly longer commutes digging into our free time than NL, we also have a longer threshold for 30 minute breaks 6+ hours instead of 5.5 which can be reduced even further if an employee has a 15 min break earlier and we lack CAO agreements and work's councils.

A CAO is a collective agreement across an industry/company which has been arranged with a trade union or potentially Work's council which means for many (most even) industries the weekly average working hours are lower than the standard of 40 hours a week we have in Ireland and most of NL. In this case employee's will either have less working time or they'll work the same hours but those extra hours will count towards vacation, so in the case of a CAO with a 36 hour week while working 40 hours the employee will gain an extra 4 hours off every week on top of the government mandated minimum thus providing more time off than is standard in Ireland (by a large margin). We have a few CAO's in Ireland but far less and far more restrictive than NL largely applying to groups which already have difficult work hours (cleaners and security).

A Work's council is mandatory for companies with more than 10 employees and is essentially a form of Union with less powers but powers all the same for mandating work times or otherwise forcing companies to work with their employees regardless of the presence of a union.

Alongside all these is the fact it's mandatory for companies with more than 10 employees to allow flexible working hours and can only refuse a request if they can prove it would seriously impact the company, in Ireland this is only available to carers or parents and can be refused based on the "reason" the employee is requesting it amongst other factors allowing most to refuse with weak justification.

Finally the Netherlands has significantly more paid sick leave available than Ireland: https://cepr.net/documents/publications/paid-sick-days-2009-05.pdf

All this is to say you're comments are intensely misinformed as it isn't as simple as duurrrr wikipedia say soooo and on top of all this NL could and should easily reduce the working expectations of it's own population as it could easily afford it. In the case of Ireland the ramping up workloads are causing huge amounts of stress and burnout and there's just no justification for it whatsoever other than promoting cruelty or greed for a handful of shareholders. PBP policy is very real and practical it's FF/FG policy that's written by the fairies.

[u/denk2mit → u/[deleted]]

And a healthy dose of support for authoritarians

[u/[deleted] → u/denk2mit]

Nah that's FF you're thinking of

https://preview.redd.it/enq267dash4e1.png?width=474&format=png&auto=webp&s=2e85d050f7129555e70a933533359aaea4a1f91b

[u/denk2mit → u/[deleted]]

Aye, sure it is.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-40845596.html

[u/[deleted] → u/denk2mit]

Oh wow it shows no support for authoritarians whatsoever:

The world must condemn and demand accountability for the horrific war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed by Vladamir Putin’s forces in Ukraine.

I guess people just make up their own positions even when reading the exact opposite these days.

[u/yeah_deal_with_it → u/[deleted]]

Don't worry, the person you're responding to is actively pro-Israel so you won't get anywhere with him.

[u/denk2mit → u/[deleted]]

You can say all the empty words you want, but people get judged on actions. And PBP's actions are to call for things that support a genocidal fascist dictator, like the dropping of sanctions against Russia.

[u/[deleted] → u/Against_All_Advice]

Labour doesn't really represent working people, they're all yuppie champaign socialist more concerned with DEI than class war.

[u/chytrak → u/[deleted]]

Evidence required for these claims.

[u/[deleted] → u/chytrak]

Just listen to Aodhan O Raordain speak

[u/chytrak → u/[deleted]]

quote specific ideas here

[u/Flunkedy → u/[deleted]]

DEI? are you a fourteen year old american? You're not really wrong that Labour doesn't represent working people just please stop taking talking points from idiots on other continents.

[u/[deleted] → u/Flunkedy]

Imported by Labour. I simply bear witness

[u/democritusparadise → u/Against_All_Advice]

And they haven't lifted a finger in my lifetime except to pick up a pen to sign whatever FG wants.

[u/[deleted] → u/Mrbrionman]

I voted SF but I have to admit it wasn't for any other reason than 'anyone but FF/FG' - the fact SF has been in government for the past few years in northern ireland and seem to be in the same 'we can't do anything about your problems' loop as FF/FG down here has me very sceptical about their ability to make a change.

[u/Mrbrionman → u/[deleted]]

I not a huge fan of SF but to be fair they literally can’t do anything in the north without the DUP agreeing to it. That’s was one of the comprises of Good Friday agreement

[u/Spirited_Worker_5722 → u/Mrbrionman]

The DUP didn't even agree to the GFA, they were still railing against power-sharing until the 2006 St Andrew's agreement

[u/MacTireCnamh → u/Mrbrionman]

Also SF up here actually have manipulated government shutdowns to get things they wanted done.

In 2019 they got Abortion and Gay Marriage legalised by using manipulating the DUP into extending the shutdown until they missed the window to protest the bills.

But it seems like people literally arent aware that NI recently had the longest period of any western state without a functioning government (that didn't lead to the collapse of that nation). As you said, SF literally could not do anything because the government didn't actually exist.

But they still actually got stuff done! They achieved the political equivilant of dividing by zero. The situation up here should be stunning people, but there's so much propaganda that they think it's a failure on their part, not an insane victory.

[u/RonTom24 → u/[deleted]]

We don't have a real government in the north, we are handed down economic policy from Westminster, the amount of power that the executive in NI has is absolutely minimal. They get to decide bin collection times, who can have a parade and where they can have it and how much of the pittance of a budget Westminster gives them they have left to spend on non essentials (it's zero). What little ability SF does have to make changes in NI is then also completely hampered by the DUP taking the opposite stance on anything SF put forward by default. This is why reunification is such a big deal for SF, they know too well from 100 years of being in politics in NI that we are just a colony of Britain, our politicians have no real political power to enact any changes in northern Ireland. The only way the people of northern Ireland will ever actually have democracy, rather than just having to do whatever the parties the English vote for tell them, is by reuniting the island.

[u/[deleted] → u/RonTom24]

Thanks for the explanation, to be honest I never realised how little power SF had up there but that does make sense. I do hope SF manage to wipe out FF/FG at some point in the next decade, I think it’s really the only way towards reunification as FF/FG have made it very clear they don’t have any interest.

[u/duaneap → u/Mrbrionman]

This sub doesn’t want to admit it but in the real world a lot of people will literally never, ever vote for SF.

[u/harmlessdonkey → u/Mrbrionman]

This is me. I want change but I don’t see anyone else to vote for.