The title of this thread has a question mark, meaning I have a question and I do not have "the answer".

I posted this thread ,in this forum,in the light of the recent "Ming" Flanagan incident.

"Ming" thinks it is all right to fulminate against corruption while taking advantage of it. Mick Wallace thinks that saying ' "Ming" was wrong but so were the gardai' clears "Ming".

Fine Gael and Labour think it is acceptable that Party Hacks are rewarded with State positions ,where they have neither experience or value .

Fianna Fail are just annoyed that they can no longer advantage their friends.



We have the "Established Parties", we have the "Independents", we have the "Small Parties". All take full and excessive advantage of the public purse. Within those three groups there are a very few "non-corrupt " politicians.

The idea that politicians are so convinced that they are "special" frightens me.

How do we bring politicians back to reality?

I have a naive answer ,but, even I do not believe it will succeed.

I do not believe it will succeed because I do not believe we the electorate will implement it.


Every politician who arrives at our doors is wiling to promise to fulfil our demands. All in the future.

Why not change the dynamic and hold them to account on past performance.

Your meetings at your front door could go like:-

To Incumbent TD:- "You promised X you did not deliver , You will not get my vote" or

To New Aspirant:- " The incumbent promised X" and did not deliver , If you will give me "X" I will vote for you!




I would really appreciate an adult conversation on this topic.

All you 11 year olds who seem to have overwhelmed the majority of threads on P.ie , please suck a lollipop or go to bed!!

It's gonna be hard, Irish people are born and bred in an environment of 'cute hoorism' - it's very hard to breed that out of people!! Let's be honest here...most of us would still be happy to accept a favour from a councillor or TD and be proud of the fact that we managed to pull a stroke....sad but true!!

Lampposts, piano wire around the ankles. It's the only way.

The truth is that the voters do not want the desired change because we do nothing. Not until this county totally crashes will we demand change. As far as corruption is concerned, Ming actually made this point, the confidence the county councillor had in knowing that a phone call to a garda and the points on his licence would be removed. This "I'll fix it" premates every aspect of Irish political life, our legal system, our education system, our banking, our planning laws, etc, but it's this easy complicity between state personnel that makes the corruption insidious.

A starting point might be dumping out politicians who tell blatant lies in order to get elected and/or improve their party's chances. Kenny, Reilly, Quinn, Gilmore, Rabbitte should all be shown the door by their electorates for blatantly lying before the last election. If politicians understood that the electorate demands honesty in every sense of the word we might get more integrity in politics. Instead we have people like Rabbitte justifying lying before elections on the basis that "this is waht politicians do".

Honesty? Insane, I know.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely...that's not just a quote, it's a fact. Politicians will always pull favours for friends and associates, it's whether or not they are remembered more for strokes or for what they achieved for the common good that matters. There will always be a certain level of corruption or human nature, or whatever you choose to call it!!

the only chance is to burn down the dail, then start again, from the foundations up.

Originally Posted by dresden8

Lampposts, piano wire around the ankles. It's the only way.

Like in Italy?

Originally Posted by jackryan

Like in Italy?

They're classicists.