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It’s time for a church hall tea party — 7 Comments

  1. Ian – I’m with you and David – Thought his article last week in Indo if I recall re freezing mortgages to stimulate economy was spot on – It is time for an intelligent revolt!
    Stephen

  2. The opposition party is behaving as though it realizes that the cosy cartel between themselves and FF is in danger of being swept away, agreeing with the Government’s philosophy because ideological differences might open up real political discourse and an end to civil war politics. We need a new Republic, and it’s not going to come from those whose comfort and secirity depends on the perpetuation of the old one. If David McWilliams could at least start a debate, we might see some changes.

  3. I’ve been away so I’ve just read this post. FF are scared of losing their hold on power (sorry, perks) and some of their backbenchers are suggesting a merger with FG while others are talking about changing the term of the current Dail to seven years. (The constitution states that a Dail term can be set by law but must not exceed seven years. The current five years can be changed.) Some FG backbenchers were so scared of Labour’s rise in the opinion polls a few months ago that they were talking about a deal with FF! By the way, THE opposition party?

  4. Given that there is no prospect of Labour gaining power alone, the only way of breaking the Civil war duopoly is for a new Centre Party based on republican and constitutional reforming principles.

  5. I thought that was part of the original PD philosophy – Republican and Reforming – and look where they have brought us.

  6. Sows’ ears and silk purses come to mind!

    It needs a one term, one-off party to break the mould and push through a raft of constitutional reforms. A Fine Gael-Labour colaition will simply perpetuate the present broke system.

  7. The political parties have largely wasted the opportunity presented by the recession. Instead of taking the opportunity to look at the sort of society we want to have they are largely keen on a rush to get back to business as usual. This doesn’t need to be the case, there are voices calling for an new type of society, one with the reforms you are looking for and one that can be more equal, fair and just. You have probably heard about the Claiming our Future project http://www.claimingourfuture.ie which aims at the sort of changes you would like to see. It takes a moderately Social Democratic stand on most issues, not a centrist one. After all, FF and FG are centrist parties and the PDs promised reforms. Look where they have us today.

    I agree that an FG/Labour coalition of the type we’ve had in the past would change little. However, if the balance was changed from the 3:1 ratio of FG to Labour seats that these coalitions had to a more even split or with Labour having more seats than FG things might change.

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