We have an election in a couple of weeks and if the press was to be believed things are “hotting up”. Over the past couple of nights we have had on prime-time TV debates between the leaders of the various parties – although I disagree that the two main parties, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael had one show to themselves and Labour, PD’s, Greens and the rest had the other show; they should all have been on the one show squabbling likes kids for their patch. Did these shows actually tell us anything we did not already know? NO. The one thing it did show was the lack of passion, zeal or personality of any of those who vie to lead this great country of ours. What we had were the same old leaders making the same old dull points. Where are the idea’s? the ground-breaking policy statements?

There has only been one half hearted attempt at a good idea – and that was from Fine Gael and Labour, who for those out there are trying to get a “rainbow” coalition into government. This policy is the aboluton of the much hated Stamp Duty on property purchasing. As soon as this was announced virtually every other party jumped on the band-waggon.

So what do I want to see…. pretty much what everyone else want:

  1. A police force that go hard on crime and criminals – and by this I mean murder, drugs, gangsters, corruption rather than the “easy” ones they do seem to focus one which is car offenders.
  2. A faster judicial system – why does it take 1-2 years to get someone to court!!!! and why are witnesses allowed to be intimidated by the “friends” of the accused and thus refuse to testify. Ipso Facto murderers and gangsters go free to cause more misery in society.
  3. When you are sent down for 10 years, it’s 10 years you serve – not this you are let out after 6 for good-behaviour. You should get 10 years and thats it. Time should be added for “bad” behaviour not deducted for “good”.
  4. A decent health system with a good A&E service. The PD’s and Fianna Fail have had 10 years to make things better and all they have done was initiate one disaster after another.
  5. Better planning of housing market. Why should a developer be allowed to build anything before the infra-structure and societal resources are in place to support that. By that I mean: schools should be built/expanded to cater for the proposed amount of new “youngsters” in a development. Sewerage and water processing structures should be available and adequate for the increase in usages, roads to support the proposed increase in traffic, shops and medial/dental units built etc. There should be none of the current brown-envelope initiated “let them build and the infra-structure will follow”. No lads that is the arse way around way of doing things – all you get is the current chaos, blight and mahem that is current Irish Housing market.
  6. Child-care facilities. In France there is adequate child-care provision for all parents and at reasonable cost. By reasonable cost I mean a couple of hundred euro’s a month. It is rediculous that in Ireland you have to pay 800+ euro/month for EACH child. I know the little mites are treasures, but that is day-light robbery. There are many unemployed girls who may be suitable for retraining as nursery school staff; especially since so many of them are single mothers who “only have” no future but benefit claiming and bringing up their children.
  7. Politicians should work the same “regular” hours as the rest of us – plus the unpaid overtime too; it only fair for these over-worked members of society. A TD’s salary is something your “average” man in the street would love to have. So to bring them in line with the rest of us,,,, the Dail sat for what 100 or was it 120 days last year? With nice long breaks for Christmas, summer, easter and paddies day. So why not make them work the 210-220 days plus 4-5 weeks holiday I work a year paying for their salaries. The Dail should sit for 5 days a week and TD’s who are not ill or government ministers should be there for 90% of them or suffer penalties – docked wages, disciplinary action etc. We pay them to be in the Dail and vote on our behalf as a professional. If they are not prepared to sit in the Dail then they should not be in the Dail. A lot of our TD’s have a terrible attendance record and it is an insult to the voter, democracy and our country.
  8. Government ministers can rarely be found in the country on our national day – St Particks day, March 17th; Why you may ask are they missing? well they are swaning off at the public expense to places foreign – America, Australia, China; You name a place and on Paddies day you will find a government minister representing the “public interest” and “flying the flag” – maybe in conjunction with a “fact finding mission”. Funny enough often the ministers partners are there as well. This is wrong. Whats wrong you ask. Well apart from the “junket” label, they should not be abroad – they should be at home in their home consituencies having a good craic with the people who put them in the Dail in the first place. The flag should be flown in the foreign countries by the local Irish Diplomat. After all it is the Job of a Diplomat to represent the Irish people abroad, otherwise why employ them if they cannot be used to represent us on our National day. Odds on they will do a better job of it than the minister would, basically because the Diplomat should able to speak the local language an know how not to offend the natives.
  9. Ban all election posters… by this I mean all those “vote for…” with a inane grinning prospective candidate that spring up on every pole at election time. A real eye-sore and next to useless. I don’t care what a candidate looks like, I do care about what their policies are. So why the posters? The only time I usually see my local TD is when they (or their lackies) come around grovelling for my vote at election time; apart from that they are conspiquous for their absence. Therefore I would therefore ban the “personal picture” telegraph-pole election poster. Not only will it keep the countryside looking a lot better, it is better for the environment too.

Now back to my usual Friday evening and a nice pint – have a good one.

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