do you live outside a city?
has a family member died recently?
did the local politicians attend?
did the family remark on who didn't show?

the dead play a central role in irish culture attendance is expected if not demanded by the electorate

There are 3 types of voter in Ireland.

1. Party aligned voters, who vote for their party candidate come what may (65%)
2. Floating voters, who vote on a)whats in it for them b)whats in it for their area (30%)
3. Floating voters, who vote in the interests of the country (5%)

Every credible politician is aware of this.

Given that there is no point in fishing in Pool 1 (You either have the votes or you don't) and that there are 6 times as many voters in Pool 2 than Pool 3, you put all your energy into Pool 2, which means lots and lots of constituency work.

Politicians can't be blamed for this. If every voter in the country woke up in the morning and started voting based on the contents of manifestos and policy documents, the constituency stuff would stop overnight.

There is no democratic virtue whatsoever in a parliament being filled with people who are there in spite of voters wishes.

__________________
Countries than produce fewer total CO2 emissions than Ireland:

Bangladesh (Pop. 162m)
Ethiopia (Pop. 80m)
Peru (Pop.30m)


To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Yes

Yes

No. And politicians would not have been welcome.

No.

Balls to that.

__________________
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus

Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum

A TD told me once: "I never got anything for anybody that they were not entitled to anyway if they had gone about it themselves."
Constituency TDs are for lazy b'stards who won't get off their ar$e and handle their own affairs.

A civil service friend also relates that documents accompanied by a TD's letter of intercession get treated with the contempt they deserve and go straight to the bottom of the pile!

__________________
Do not ask what your country can do for you - ask what your country is doing to you.
Welcome to the Former Irish Republic of SPV.

Again I say, rubbish. People are not stupid, and know full well that the majority of politicians that turn up at a funeral are not there to sympathise, but there to be seen.

If they really feel the need to sympathise, then go meet the family alone and privately

__________________
1,197 people agree with me.. how many agree with you ?

Agreed. I drove for hours last night to attend the funeral of the father of one of my colleagues. I remember the consolation of seeing my workmates (and yes a local politician) at my own father's funeral. As some of the less mature posters here grow up and experience death, loss and just life in general, they will be less inclined to jeer at the ordinariness of real lives, or at the democratic process. Our rituals around supporting each other at these times of trial,-- funerals, wakes etc.-- is one of the good traditions left in Irish society. Politicians will reflect that in their behaviour. Perhaps they try to go to too many funerals, but that is probably a separate issue.

The immature jeering of some posters at "social workers" and the "thicks" who elect them, is sickening. We need something better than the nihilistic "Politicians are idiots. So are the people who elect them".

There's no doubt some truth to this but you have to admit it is a disastrous state of affairs. We are paying parliamentarians to run the country and they instead spend their time watching complete strangers going into the ground.

I'm too urban and trashy for it to apply anyway but if some gombeen came to one of my relatives funerals I would tell him (always a him) where the f&^% to go.

Roc - I have to disagree with you here - meybe in the Dublin you can get away with it - but in Rural Ireland - the funeral thing is vital.

I know that its not nothing to do with how good you will be as a legislator - but thats not the point here. The point here is that the family of the bereaved are important enough in your world for you to take the time out to be there, be seen there and that the family know that everybody has seen you there - from your (in the eyes of the electorate) busy hi-powered world - the fact that you had absolutely nothing on for the evening and were going to spend a few more enjoyable hours adding to your collection of handbuilt Tall ships inside glass bottles is neither here not there - the family keep count and by jesus you will know about it next time you can canvass there.

Irish society - in common with every other society on earth - is class and status obsessed - its hardwired into our biology - everything we do or dont do in life - when you break it all down to its basic components - is down to sex - the fight to get your genes matched with the best genes possible and that the next generation will have the best opportunity to do the same - its a barrier that every ideology comes up against and the best that any of them can hope for is to make an impression on it.

Ye know sometimes I think that whole electoral system is like asking a woman what she wants in a man - you'll get the list in triplicate - it will be the most idealistic, aspirational high falutent job description ever - then you'll see her walking down the street the next week arm in arm with 90kgs of spam - and then you "go figure" as the Yanks say.

There are a lot of intelligent people posting here - a lot of them know seem to know their ideologies and political systems inside out and fair play to them - but they also appear to know very little about human nature and human interaction - a lot of folks here could do worse than just sitting with a cup of coffee inside or outside a streetside cafe and just the watch the world go by and the people in it and how they conduct their lives.

It is possible to beat the electoral odds and really leave your mark and change things - but you are going to have to play smart - you are going to have to take account of the massive divide that exists between what a person will give out about when stuck in traffic listening to Joe Duffy on a rainy afternoon - and what floats their boats in the ballot box on election day. Instead of decrying FF and to a slighty lesser extent FG and the rest - take a hard objective look at what they and their elected representatives doe to get elected and how their machine works - and learn and take what you can for your own advantage..........

I keep coming back to this - Garrett Fitzgerald telling me that politics is all about getting the chance to do one or 2 good things to make up for all the populist bullsh^t you have to do get the chance to do it in the first place - if Garrett had said that on the stumps in 1981 - he would have been horsewhipped, instead he told me many years later in retirement - its as relevant today as ever - Garrett was the celebrity economist who joined FG in the mid 60's to the chagrin of the party's conservative establishment etc etc and look what he achieved- Pity George Lee didn't give him a call for some advice - but then it appears that George knew everything already.

Lee said he flounced because he wanted to be an economist not a legislator.

Would you have thought any less of the local politician if he had met you in private to sympathise with you ?

I've done the Pol trail. I've tried to do the funeral trail. It is sickening in its hypocrisy. Politicians would be better off looking after the living then worrying about the dead.

__________________
1,197 people agree with me.. how many agree with you ?