Personally I didn’t know SF were in bed with beef barons and dairy processor lobbying? That push mega farms, that are buying/renting land from small farmers that can’t compete. Seems they are fine with destroying the Irish biodiversity and river systems also. They have lost my vote.
The government don’t give a solitary shite what Sinn Féin think, on any issue, and this ‘eco-fingerpointing’ is just passing the shit sandwich around so everyone has to take a bite.
I despise FFG and I can’t wait till they’re fucked out of it, but as someone that genuinely cares about environmental issues I have long despaired at Sinn Féin’s lacklustre views on it. I would like to see them in government but when it comes to green issues they aren’t at the races whatsoever.
This can be said about alot of their polices….
November 2020 – Open the Pubs.
December 2020 – Why did Government open the pubs.
General election Manifesto – We will bring in a new tax rate for those earning over €100000. While also making Ireland an attractive place to work for hospital consultants…
Pre Brexit – The EU is bad ….
Post Brexit – Tory Brexit is bad.
Everyday – We need to more houses built but not of that type, not there or there or there.
They are trying to appeal to the broadest sections of Irish Society and when they get into government alot of people will be very disappointed
Also health, education etc. Why would they. Topping the polls for doing nothing for years. To be fair FG did the same thing during the 2000’s.
There’s nothing unreasonable in that,.
Edit
>Mr O’Rourke said Sinn Féin cannot come up with a position on agriculture reductions without seeing a report compiled for the Government by McKinsey.
>The targets must be fair, they must be ambitious, but they must be achievable.
>”we do not have the detail, line by line, percentage by percentage, and we’re not going to pick a figure out of the air.”
I would wager they have a position but will wait until after a GE to announce it.
This is completely in line with their entire MO as the ‘most effective opposition in the history of the State’.
If they give a position, they might annoy someone. If they say we need to cut emissions or the national herd by X%, they annoy farmers and rural Ireland. If they say they don’t want to make those cuts they annoy anyone with an interest in the planet not turning into a flaming wreck.
It could also be they’re waiting for the govt to take a stronger position and as soon as that happens they’ll just come out and say “well we’d have done the opposite!!”, as we saw time and time again during the pandemic.
Every single thing they say is the thing they think **in that moment** will garner the most votes. If they think the polar opposite will garner more votes in a weeks time they will say the opposite. I am fascinated to see their approach to apartments and rental property when they get into govt. At the moment they have a vested interest and in fact are doing everything they can to maintain the housing crisis. It obviously won’t suit them when they’re in govt. Will they keep objecting to everything that moves I wonder.
Tbh FF/FG/SF are all the same on climate they don’t want to hurt their rural vote. The greens have compromised on so many things based on the promise they will get ambitious climate targets. They have never had a rural vote so I hope they threaten to bring down this government. Could potentially work in their favour if it results in a SF/Green government.
Oh no…anyways…they’re still getting my number 1
Well they called the ban on commercial sale of peat “political cowardice”, not because it didn’t go far enough, but because the government brought in any legislation at all. They haven’t got a leg to stand on in relation to climate, which is saying a lot when the current benchmark to date has been FFG.
They had some fella debating with Richard Bruton on Newstalk last week, and it was embarrassing to listen to. Disagreed with everything being proposed, but had no alternative to achieve the cuts needed.
Fierce horrid awful useless – call that an opposition party? They’re the no-position party. The mathematics are not that hard – you need to slash emissions from every sector by 51% – it’s the law you signed up for, lads.
I really wish we had a viable alternative to FFG that wasn’t Sinn Fein. The best that can realistically be said about them is that they aren’t FFG and that they actually know how to use social media.
Which already puts them above Fine Gael… Vote for us because the alternative is worse is an absolutely horrible strategy for a party who has been in government for a decade.
People voting green en mass is a sign of peaceful prosperity. We are a million miles from having it so handy that we can focus on environmental issues.
Is any party in Ireland actually done anything to benefit the climate. Mostly empty promises and failed objectives as far as I can see
SF’s main policy is to make sure it has enough support to form a government and then to try its best to pull down the current one (when they’re comfortable they have enough support).
The easiest way to do this is just let the other guys shoot themselves in the foot, it’s easy to criticise a decision and even easier with a lot of the poor decisions FFG make. When you have an unpopular government it should (in theory at least) be pretty easy to adopt a populist agenda and ride in on a wave of dislike for the other guys.
I think any SF led government is going to be one of the shakiest in the past 50 years. Their best hope is to get close to an overall majority and buy off the more mercenary independents. Even then, in order to fill up their back benches they’ll be getting a lot of people to run that haven’t been a TD previously. Those people are quite skittish if they are supporting the gov making a decision that is unpopular in their constituency so I’d expect that they are likely to lose a higher proportion of backbenchers compared to the seasoned career politicians in FFG (just look at the issues the greens have had).
The other alternative is a broad left coalition, but outside SD the options are limited enough. SPBP are very principled in what they believe and I would imagine even getting a programme for government would be difficult or even if they succeed then they would rather pull down the government than concede on their principles.
Fighting climate change won’t be a vote winner in this election cycle. The cost of living will be the big one, and people can see that fighting climate change will cost money, money they haven’t got.
I mailed all four of the TDs in my constituency on this.Catherine Murphy (Social Democrats) office came back to point me to the party’s position that agricultural emissions must be cut by 30%.A quick glance reveals that Labour and PBP have made their position clear too.Presumably Sinn Fein have access to the same reports and data that other opposition parties do.Pure cynicism and an abdication of responsibility.
Lads, can ye give up this debate already. This is the most efficient country for milk and beef production, any herd cuts here would probably worsen climate change because the gap would just be filled with produce from countries with even worse environmental records. Look at the Mercosur deal with Brazil destroying the Amazon to produce beef for the EU. We’d only be outsourcing our emissions to other countries.
I take it “national herd” is the big issue that will be used for political point scoring for the next few weeks? Until its forgotten about again for ages…
Doesn’t really matter to me. I would bet any amount of money we will fall short of targets, which are probably already too little to begin with, set by any party. I’ve little hope in that department.
They don’t have a policy because all it will do is alienate some people. This is normal political stuff, they shouldn’t be singled out for it.
I’m all for a smart approach to sorting out climate change however people seem to be going on as if we can change things…
We contribute less than 0.1% of global emissions. No matter what we do ourselves, we will still experience the full force of climate change due to the main instigators not giving two fucks about it…
Nobody knows what they’re voting for with SF, except vague aspirations for a United Ireland.
FF/FG are doing everything they can to put SF in power, though – so I guess we’re going to find out.
…they don’t have to?
No one should be surprised about the SF position. Populist as always. In the north they also skipped any decisions that might be unpopular.
A proper government has to make unpopular decisions at times. But let’s be clear, the only objective for sinn fein is reunification. It’s fine in its own right but it’s a con job to try to achieve it by populist means that they can’t fulfil if they are in government.
28 comments
Populist parties often have no real policies.
Personally I didn’t know SF were in bed with beef barons and dairy processor lobbying? That push mega farms, that are buying/renting land from small farmers that can’t compete. Seems they are fine with destroying the Irish biodiversity and river systems also. They have lost my vote.
The government don’t give a solitary shite what Sinn Féin think, on any issue, and this ‘eco-fingerpointing’ is just passing the shit sandwich around so everyone has to take a bite.
I despise FFG and I can’t wait till they’re fucked out of it, but as someone that genuinely cares about environmental issues I have long despaired at Sinn Féin’s lacklustre views on it. I would like to see them in government but when it comes to green issues they aren’t at the races whatsoever.
This can be said about alot of their polices….
November 2020 – Open the Pubs.
December 2020 – Why did Government open the pubs.
General election Manifesto – We will bring in a new tax rate for those earning over €100000. While also making Ireland an attractive place to work for hospital consultants…
Pre Brexit – The EU is bad ….
Post Brexit – Tory Brexit is bad.
Everyday – We need to more houses built but not of that type, not there or there or there.
They are trying to appeal to the broadest sections of Irish Society and when they get into government alot of people will be very disappointed
Also health, education etc. Why would they. Topping the polls for doing nothing for years. To be fair FG did the same thing during the 2000’s.
There’s nothing unreasonable in that,.
Edit
>Mr O’Rourke said Sinn Féin cannot come up with a position on agriculture reductions without seeing a report compiled for the Government by McKinsey.
>The targets must be fair, they must be ambitious, but they must be achievable.
>”we do not have the detail, line by line, percentage by percentage, and we’re not going to pick a figure out of the air.”
I would wager they have a position but will wait until after a GE to announce it.
This is completely in line with their entire MO as the ‘most effective opposition in the history of the State’.
If they give a position, they might annoy someone. If they say we need to cut emissions or the national herd by X%, they annoy farmers and rural Ireland. If they say they don’t want to make those cuts they annoy anyone with an interest in the planet not turning into a flaming wreck.
It could also be they’re waiting for the govt to take a stronger position and as soon as that happens they’ll just come out and say “well we’d have done the opposite!!”, as we saw time and time again during the pandemic.
Every single thing they say is the thing they think **in that moment** will garner the most votes. If they think the polar opposite will garner more votes in a weeks time they will say the opposite. I am fascinated to see their approach to apartments and rental property when they get into govt. At the moment they have a vested interest and in fact are doing everything they can to maintain the housing crisis. It obviously won’t suit them when they’re in govt. Will they keep objecting to everything that moves I wonder.
Tbh FF/FG/SF are all the same on climate they don’t want to hurt their rural vote. The greens have compromised on so many things based on the promise they will get ambitious climate targets. They have never had a rural vote so I hope they threaten to bring down this government. Could potentially work in their favour if it results in a SF/Green government.
Oh no…anyways…they’re still getting my number 1
Well they called the ban on commercial sale of peat “political cowardice”, not because it didn’t go far enough, but because the government brought in any legislation at all. They haven’t got a leg to stand on in relation to climate, which is saying a lot when the current benchmark to date has been FFG.
They had some fella debating with Richard Bruton on Newstalk last week, and it was embarrassing to listen to. Disagreed with everything being proposed, but had no alternative to achieve the cuts needed.
Fierce horrid awful useless – call that an opposition party? They’re the no-position party. The mathematics are not that hard – you need to slash emissions from every sector by 51% – it’s the law you signed up for, lads.
I really wish we had a viable alternative to FFG that wasn’t Sinn Fein. The best that can realistically be said about them is that they aren’t FFG and that they actually know how to use social media.
Which already puts them above Fine Gael… Vote for us because the alternative is worse is an absolutely horrible strategy for a party who has been in government for a decade.
People voting green en mass is a sign of peaceful prosperity. We are a million miles from having it so handy that we can focus on environmental issues.
Is any party in Ireland actually done anything to benefit the climate. Mostly empty promises and failed objectives as far as I can see
SF’s main policy is to make sure it has enough support to form a government and then to try its best to pull down the current one (when they’re comfortable they have enough support).
The easiest way to do this is just let the other guys shoot themselves in the foot, it’s easy to criticise a decision and even easier with a lot of the poor decisions FFG make. When you have an unpopular government it should (in theory at least) be pretty easy to adopt a populist agenda and ride in on a wave of dislike for the other guys.
I think any SF led government is going to be one of the shakiest in the past 50 years. Their best hope is to get close to an overall majority and buy off the more mercenary independents. Even then, in order to fill up their back benches they’ll be getting a lot of people to run that haven’t been a TD previously. Those people are quite skittish if they are supporting the gov making a decision that is unpopular in their constituency so I’d expect that they are likely to lose a higher proportion of backbenchers compared to the seasoned career politicians in FFG (just look at the issues the greens have had).
The other alternative is a broad left coalition, but outside SD the options are limited enough. SPBP are very principled in what they believe and I would imagine even getting a programme for government would be difficult or even if they succeed then they would rather pull down the government than concede on their principles.
Fighting climate change won’t be a vote winner in this election cycle. The cost of living will be the big one, and people can see that fighting climate change will cost money, money they haven’t got.
I mailed all four of the TDs in my constituency on this.Catherine Murphy (Social Democrats) office came back to point me to the party’s position that agricultural emissions must be cut by 30%.A quick glance reveals that Labour and PBP have made their position clear too.Presumably Sinn Fein have access to the same reports and data that other opposition parties do.Pure cynicism and an abdication of responsibility.
Lads, can ye give up this debate already. This is the most efficient country for milk and beef production, any herd cuts here would probably worsen climate change because the gap would just be filled with produce from countries with even worse environmental records. Look at the Mercosur deal with Brazil destroying the Amazon to produce beef for the EU. We’d only be outsourcing our emissions to other countries.
I take it “national herd” is the big issue that will be used for political point scoring for the next few weeks? Until its forgotten about again for ages…
Doesn’t really matter to me. I would bet any amount of money we will fall short of targets, which are probably already too little to begin with, set by any party. I’ve little hope in that department.
They don’t have a policy because all it will do is alienate some people. This is normal political stuff, they shouldn’t be singled out for it.
I’m all for a smart approach to sorting out climate change however people seem to be going on as if we can change things…
We contribute less than 0.1% of global emissions. No matter what we do ourselves, we will still experience the full force of climate change due to the main instigators not giving two fucks about it…
Nobody knows what they’re voting for with SF, except vague aspirations for a United Ireland.
FF/FG are doing everything they can to put SF in power, though – so I guess we’re going to find out.
…they don’t have to?
No one should be surprised about the SF position. Populist as always. In the north they also skipped any decisions that might be unpopular.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/sinn-fein-under-fire-over-welfare-cuts-move-1.2435441
A proper government has to make unpopular decisions at times. But let’s be clear, the only objective for sinn fein is reunification. It’s fine in its own right but it’s a con job to try to achieve it by populist means that they can’t fulfil if they are in government.
They want the farmers votes