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IT’S ONLY TWO weeks out of the starting blocks but Lucinda Creighton believes there is enough interest in her as-yet-unnamed party that it will field at least one general election candidate in each constituency.
Speaking to reporters at a breakfast briefing today, Creighton said that almost 600 people had expressed a desire to become candidates and that another 1,900 people had expressed an interest in getting involved in the party in other ways.
Whether those contacts boil down to a strong field of candidates by the time a general election rolls round remains to be seen but Creighton is confident that she will have a spread for each of the 40 constituencies.
She asserted that there might be even more than one candidate fielded in some constituencies – the Clare, Donegal and Carlow areas, for example, have yielded high levels of expressions of interest according to Creighton’s team.
Wherefore the candidates?
Who those candidates might be is another matter. Creighton conceded that there are months of a “whittling down” process ahead. “We haven’t quite decided how we are going to do the selection process yet,” she said, “but obviously it will involve the members.”
However, she believes those with backgrounds in community organisations such as residents’ committees, grassroots GAA and so on, have skills every bit as important in representing their area as those from the traditional local authority route (although she’s not counting out approaching councillors either).
On the other hand, while stressing her interest in hearing from those with expertise in particular areas such as health, social justice, economics, business rather than just plumping for traditional political experience, she said that her own previous two junior ministry posts would give her valuable experience in preparation for governing.
“We really do want people with a mix of experiences,” she said.
Experience vs expertise?
As of right now, Creighton is the only established national-level politician pledged to the new party – which should declare a more permanent name for the campaign car bumper stickers by the end of February. Eddie Hobbs is the only other high-profile name to publicly commit to the project – Creighton told the Irish Daily Star this week that she believes he could make a good minister.
She said that she had extended a particular invite to women to get involved. While she is on record as not being a big exponent of gender quotas, she said yesterday that getting women involved in politics from policy-making to running for office is a “major challenge” that has to be met.
As for would-be candidates, they will have to wait until the end of February to know more about the actual policies of the party that has been labouring under the #RebootIreland hashtag – or indeed its name.
Policies?
Creighton defended the lack of stated policies thus far, saying that she wanted this party to create ”high-level, evidence-based” policies that are not put together by a “couple of people in a room” but which engage a wide variety of experts before coming up with a final draft to present publicly.
When can we expect to see these? Throughout the year, as they are put together – Creighton claims to have over 500 people who have so far proffered expertise or “opinions” which can be drawn on to formulate policy ideas.
What she was sure about is that there is space for a “centrist” party amongst the electorate, which may help clear up her colleague Eddie Hobbs’s explanation to TheJournal.ie about whether the party would be leaning left or right…
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Government needs to help these people and stop taxing them again and again.
I wonder if Davy Stockbrokers factored in rising fuel costs, water charges, house charges increasing cost of living due to staple food shortages and changes to the road tax when arriving at that figure of 18%?
If as suggested the government also puts a cap on child benefit I suspect that a lot more then 18% of house holds will be in trouble.
It’s the banks and building society’s that should help, by restructuring the morgatages so people pay what they can afford to, as long as the morgatages were not taken out for speculation purposes
Exactly Raymond. I went to the bank this morning and submitted that i can no longer afford to pay it being on the dole 2 years. I bent over backwards and never missed a payment but i just have NO life over it. It is a small council house and a small mortgage bit 2 thirds of my money goes to pay it. The government have to intervene. They are simply not doing enough to get the banks to do more for those of us struggling to pay our way.
Maybe the people in arrears should actually do something about it. You can restructure rather than keep your head in the sand.
There are also people doing this intentionally. They were hoping the legislation changes would let them off the hook. If their was actual honesty it would be easier to sort out.
Any solution will cost a lot due to weasels
Kal Ipers “weasels” you say, and according to you everybody in arrears is doing this on purpose,, well its clear were you tent is pitched. i suppose using your logic everybody on the dole is also a weasel, nothing to do with the massive loss of jobs in this country. % only and deferred payments are head in the sand polices employed by the banks,and we cannot trust there figures as has been proven again and again and again
perhaps if they passed on % reduction to there customers more would be able to address arrears.
by the way this crisis was not caused by joe six pack, it was caused by those at the top of pyramid scheme, those who were paid millions in bonuses for flooding the markets with cheap money and inflating prices at the same time causing a buying frenzy.
of course people have an obligation to pay back, but you cannot get what they do not have, and the banks like it or not have a responsibility here which they are not addressing.
perhaps a bit more empathy to your fellow citizens rather than siding with a faceless corporation, which YOU have already bailed out and in the next year or so will bail out again,,, were is the little guys bail out!!
Quite distinctly I am not saying everybody is doing this intentionally. I am saying those trying to scam are making it difficult to have a cheap quick solution. You have supposed wrong and made up your own claims of what I said.
Just because something comes from a big organisation doesn’t make it wrong. It also doesn’t make their part in what happens all their fault. If you put up an asset as security on a loan and don’t pay it back why be surprised when your asset is taken?
This isn’t big guy versus little guy, the big guys are protecting the little guys. If the banks fail where do the savings go or get paid back from. Empathy can not eliminate reality nor consequences on individual choices.
The savings were protected in Iceland Kal lpers.
So never mind the scaremongering.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0dabbb86-eabe-11e1-984b-00144feab49a.html#axzz2474yc2SO
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0820/1224322498419.html
These (most likely criminal) banks corruptly operated to the point of bankrupting the entire country.
I can’t see how they are given any say whatsoever in these decisions.
I agree Kal. I am one of those who never fell into arrears by sacrificing everything. And I bought an old council small house to keep the smallest mortgage possible but now i am unemployed just 8 years into the mortgage. I want to keep paying but need the payment cut to a realistic level. Yes I agree there are some people out there who bought way over their heads above their means and you will always get them. All I can say is there should be some way to sort out who is genuine struggling or who is not making an effort in the first place.
well man it reads that way to me!!
there is no cheap/quick solution, this is a big S**t sambo we are all going to have a bite.
secondly no i don’t trust banks or most big corps, why because only one thing matters to big business and that is “the bottom line” and they make no apology for this.
also why on earth would you trust them, they have shown in the past they cannot be trusted, libor scandal ring any bells. false info supplied to Govt re true debt figures, recent lending figures etc etc etc. my question is WHY you would trust these institutions.
this is little guy versus big business, its a class war going on and the 1% are winning this war hands down, why as you have shown above, divide and conquer, distract the masses with stories of dole cheats or people living in there homes for free with no intention to pay, and the mob is distracted and turns on each other, its a simple tactic but works very well.
by the way if people could simply hand back the asset to the banks (like US) and call it a day we would not have high arrears figures,, but you can’t!!!
And the governments solution is property taxes and water taxes. And other ways to get as much cash out of our pockets. So continue with these policies and budgets and there will be rapid defaults on mortgages. And that really is the elephant in the room.
Where are the repossessions? Why are we letting people stay in houses they cannot pay for whilst the rest of us struggle.
Repossessions just lead to people/families going onto a council housing list and put up in private accommodation. It will cost the tax payer alot more, re-structure your mortgage is what people should do.
Kick a young family out onto the streets what good will that do?. Alot of people paid 300 k more for average 3 bedroom houses because they feared if they didn’t buy then they could never afford a place of their own and now one of them might of lost there job while the other one has had to take multiple paycuts which the cost of living rises
A short para from here: http://namawinelake.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/more-than-22-of-irish-mortgages-are-in-arrears-or-have-been-restructured/
”Compared with our neighbours in the UK, we can see that there is little appetite in Ireland to deal with the mortgage crisis where people are unable to repay their mortgages. Despite our mortgage arrears rate being a staggering five times that of the UK, our repossession rate is less than a quarter of the UK rate – in other words, you are 23 times more likely to have your home repossessed in the UK compared with Ireland.”
Somebody has to lose in this game. Why should it be the family who are having tp put up with renting in Dublin whilst they should be benefiting from the property crash. Rental and sales supply is being restricted artificially to benefit mortgage holders and bank balance sheets to the detriment of the honest renter.
Would you support me Conor if I stopped paying my rent for a year?
Get a grip renters !!! if all these people are put out onto the streets where will they live??? You seem to be under the impression that these people woke up one day and decided to stop paying their mortgage. But me and you have had this conversation and I can see that you still feel hard done by and still have no compassion for your fellow citizen that has been forced into this situation by others.
They can live in one of the hundreds of thousands of empty properties. They can pay money for this like everyone else. Maybe it won’t be in the area they prefer or the size that they like but thats life. Lets get all dump all of the empties on the market and have rents halved so everybody can afford a place. 100K repossesions would be great to see as property prices would again plummet making it more affordable for the average person. The net result is that the people who have been well behaved financially get to live in a higher standard of property/area and those that have messed up will be in the poor properties. That is how it should be.
Your not well Renters..I think you need to go back to your facebook page (with its 44 people) before you hurt yourself. I firmly believe you are just a sad TROLL.
The usual ad hominen attack because you have no answer.
No..its just because you’re a troll..
@ John Murphy
Spot on.
The main difference between us and the U.K. is that the the U.K have a functioning property market.
A mature functioning property market at that.
We never did and probably never will.
In Ireland boom values were driven totally of the scale of fundamentals by the Government, Banks, Media, Builders, and other vested interests.
60, 70, 80, 90% Negative equity??
Only in Ireland.
What bank is going to repo a house that they know no one wants to buy,even at for a knockdown price.
Does anyone not remember pre boom, when you could buy a house in a growing economy for 40-50,000??
When there was no property taxes??
The Emperor has no Clothes. The whole Irish economy is slowly disappearing into a black hole. The lack of repossessions (horrible as they are) is just another indicator that we don’t have the willpower to save ourselves.
Repossessions??
Only after realistic up to date insolvency legislation, mortgage write downs, and prosecution and jailing of bankers and officials.
John & Harry i do agree with you, i think the Irish property market today is like the UK property market of the early to mid 80s. I would say the Irish property market will become a mature functioning property market maybe in 30 years.
The virus that runs through all of this is the out of control euro. It’s patently clear that the property bubble has burst spewing the disease throughout the wider economy. The rate of mortgage default will increase as the economy struggles under the burden of bond payments and rising government taxation and charges. Basically the pencil is being pared from both ends to see if any lead is left in the middle.
It’s going to happen in a times of trouble ,, in 1993 in the uk I just put the keys in the letterbox and walked away ,, but I think the Irish banks are not going to let this happen it think the government should be looking at this ,,, if the quinns the Leim carrolls and so on can do this why can’t the we all do this,, the bank holds on to the house
We have a Government obsessed with paying back their pals gambling debts! All they’ve done is tinker with bankruptcy laws, using this as a guise to help ordinary people with massive mortgage debt! Only pressure from their big property developer cronies persuaded them to make this move! Don’t anyone be under the illusion that a right wing government cares about the ordinary people of this country! The only thing I’m surprised about is that they haven’t come up with a grant to help people emigrate!
Rodrigo….Stop saying stuff like that!!! ‘their pals’…Conspiracy theory bs….Thats what that is……
This is just an average from all mortgages. It’s probably close to 30% if mortgages from just last 7 to 10 years are the ones in question. Frightening.
rentboy might have an idea there,it’s disgraceful that loads of nama owned apts lie idle when even if people payed 600 quid or something a month straight to the government for these it’s surely win win for all concerned no?
And what happens when the economy bounces back and NAMA throw those people onto the street and sell the house.?
The economy won’t be “bouncing back” with the current faint hearted measures. And if it does then those people will have more options, so not a problem.
I read this story in the times online and under it was a litany of financial gibberish from some accountant. I wanted to put this comment on but for some reason it wouldn’t let me log in so I’ll put it here. There is a lot of double dutch gobbledegook financial speak these days that we now all have to contend with. I am not a banker. I do not like financial studies or have any interest in finacial products garbage. There seems to be something seriously wrong these days. We are supposed to all have degrees in financial affairs to be able to make sense of the terms and conditions that are growing daily in relation to banks. Why? Why should we have to suffer this. I am a gardener by trade. Do I walk up to people and say get your platanus Acerifolia cut or it may be in danger of collapse, and then expect them to understand what I am saying and if not frown on them and view them as ignorant????? I hate this bank talk and i refuse to be forced to understand it. banks learn to speak plainly or don’t bother giving people headaches with terms invented to deliberately confuse people and hide the truth.
Do the figures referred to in the article above include the many people who have restructured their mortgages to allow for a longer pay-back period?
I know several people who bought pre-boom and who have extended their mortgages from 20 year terms to 22-25 years. These people are living very comfortably and are managing their finances prudently.
so some should get a write down on their mortgages while other are expected to repay in full. funny that.
and what about the 10,000s of tracker mortgages that will go into arrears when interest rates increase, should they also get a write down?
And the BTL properties being funded by astronomical rents in dublin helped by the dead hand of NAMA rigging the market in their favour at the expense of renters. a write down for them too?
can people in private rented accommodation get a reduction in their rent because their real income has fallen?
I’m sure a suitably complex algorithm can be determined allowing for:
Purchase price.
Current value.
Time lapsed.
Repayments made.
Interest rates charged.
Wind direction.
Phase of the moon.
And other contributory factors.
It may not be completely fair but it’ll be not completely fair for everyone.
the economy would certainly benefit short term from revenue on these ghost nama empty shells,the quicker the economy gets up and running the quicker people get back to work and start getting back on the property ladder,make nama pay for itself instead of the taxpayers always footing the bill for greedy property investors and speculators
Nama won’t pay for itself, they factored in upward only rent reviews when they took on those massive commercial mortages from a handfull of people. The ghost estates will need to be knocked as the weather has got in and rot started. What will happen when the masses need their smaller mortages taken over. There’ll be trouble at mill yet lad.
Instead of trying to bail out the banks, we would have been better off using the money to do a mortgage writedown across the board.
Of course some people would have screamed that it’s unfair, but it would have been a practical measure that would have better protected the Irish economy as a whole.
Even the US is doing this. The banks agreed to a writedown in return for cancelling an investigation into their dodgy lending practices. Imagine that!
The US did it in the thirties crash and it was realised both the banks and the ordinairy people needed a safety net, as did Iceland and Norway recently. . . but the fekkers in the Dail just don’t get it , they are still on the retribution trail . .. get on with the job lads rather than the old neanderthal reaction. There’s a Big advantage her to do good – minute possibility for some tricksters – but the huge gain overall is far more worthwhile . . when you think they can print money for the hell of it and then write it – off anything is possible. Where there’s a will there’s a way as grandma said and as Roosevelt was of her generation – he was saying that too . . .
How do all you people have the time to be writing lovely crafted short essays on this??…
Im sure theres loads of work to be done at home..
Public Sector here.
have your say