Whitaker:"The rule of law is an essential guarantee of personal freedom and social order".

Brendan Burgess

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A very interesting article by Eddie Molloy


He quotes Ken Whitaker

"The rule of law is an essential guarantee of personal freedom and social order. Lobbies have legitimate functions in protecting and advancing particular interests. But society as a whole cannot be expected to tolerate abuse of their power, particularly by intimidation in any form or defiance of the law of the land,"

Molloy goes on to show the abuse of power and how the rule of law has broken down in relation to
Water Charges
Garda Pay
Public Service pay demands

and concedes that this results in unfairness towards society as a whole.

Brendan
 
Everyone in Ireland should read that. Unfortunately most of them wouldn't understand it.
In an age of sound bite and celebrity false dichotomy and reason have been drowned by sound bites and emotions.
 
An interesting article that rather emphasises more than anything else the ineptness of Government & the vacillating nature of opposition parties .
His comments regarding the legality of the mooted Garda industrial action are however a cop out , the GRA & the AGSI played an extremely canny game in going the individuals right to withdraw Labour route rather than suggesting that the mooted action was an out & out collective strike , obviously many felt that such an argument was as Dr. Molloy says a " wash out " - it behoves Dr. Molloy to illustrate why he feels such action was illegal rather than present it as a fact as this continues to be an extremely grey area - I note that he makes no mention of the fact that European Commission of Social Rights ruled that Gardai should be permitted to strike , negotiate pay & engage in union action - on the bright side they have achieved much of that.
Dr. Molloy has always had problems with the Lansdowne Road Agreement & has previously railed against the Croke Park Agreement but surely he must be cognisant of the fact that in the absence of such Agreements the country's industrial relations landscape may have looked very different & not in a good way !
As for accelerated pay restoration I believe that negotiations were inevitable once the Gardai won substantial improvements to pay , terms & conditions far superior to those enjoyed under the auspices of the LRA - its little wonder that Pascal Donahoe has agreed to an early meeting with Unions to address " anomalies " in the LRA as a result of the Gardai settlement.
 
I see from today's IT that Cheif Whip Regina Doherty
will ‘fully support’ farmers and landowners in ‘civil disobedience’ action
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http://www.irishtimes.com/news/poli...-against-electricity-interconnector-1.2915531
Doherty to back campaign against electricity interconnector
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This week we had Govt Minister (and long way round, driver to work) Katherine Zappone offering support for the taking over of private property.

We are on a slippery slope, being lead from the top
 
Deiseblue said:
His comments regarding the legality of the mooted Garda industrial action are however a cop out
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I think 2017 will be very interesting. We can't really borrow any more money and we can't print our own currency. It seems my whatyamacallit "Money only comes from other people" is going to hit home, where departments will have to take money from services to pay for higher wages.

Interesting times indeed!
 
There is no such thing as society.

There are individuals, families, and groups.

Thatcher got some things wrong, but on that she was quite correct (in my view).
 
Are you insinuating that money does NOT grow on trees? That will be news to Claire Daly Ruth Coppinger and all the others who would argue othereise
 
But can "we" not tax (ie. take all their money) Michael O'Leary, Denis O'Brien, JP McManus and all the other Irish billionaires (including all the foreign based Irish national billionaires -Weston's, Mistry etc)? Surely that would solve all our problems?
I think that we should double everybody's wages (and quadruple Social Protection payments). That will increase money in circulation. Daly, Coppinger, Murphy, Boyd-Barrett etc would surely support such policies. It's so simple, really.
 
Vanessa said:
Are you insinuating that money does NOT grow on trees? That will be news to Claire Daly Ruth Coppinger and all the others who would argue othereise
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Claire Daly said that all work was exploitation so it must grow on trees or else people would have to earn it.
 

I understand that this comment is tongue in cheek, but it is worth pointing out that while Denis O Brien is tax resident in Monaco, Michael O Leary is tax resident in Mullingar.

Not all billionaires are alike.
 
cremeegg said:
I understand that this comment is tongue in cheek, but it is worth pointing out that while Denis O Brien is tax resident in Monaco, Michael O Leary is tax resident in Mullingar.

Not all billionaires are alike.
Click to expand...

If you had tens of millions and saw the monumental waste and stupidity in how your taxes were spent would you live here or in Monaco?
I'd like to think I'd stay here but it's a tough one.
An effective income tax rate of 52% with 23% of what's left taken in VAT. That's a total tax take of 63% of your income.
Forget about Monaco, what about a place like Seattle, Washington. Someone earning a million there will pay 37% of their income in payroll taxes and sales tax is only 6.5% so total tax take, including property tax, income tax, social insurance and sales tax (VAT) is 40% of total income. That means that same person in Ireland is paying over 50% more tax.
 
The Rule of Law should always be enforced ,until its obviously wrong.

What Regina Doherty has done is very very wrong .
I have no big issue with a TD taking a principled stand on an obvious wrong but to do this on a local NIMBY (not in my back yard issue) is woeful in the signal it sends.
 

But who decides if it is wrong or right?. To the powers that be, the law may be right but to the ordinary Joe Soap it could be very wrong. One man's rebel is another man's freedom fighter.

Having said that, I do wonder if the pylons were going through Offaly or Cavan would Regina Doherty be saying the same thing or would she be condemming the protestors actions. Or maybe I am too cynical about politicians
 
The Daddyman,

I think we can all differentiate between right & wrong .
Moreover , when something is patently incorrect in Law ,it is not a few Joe Soaps who challenge but a broad spread of people.
Regina has without any doubt (if what is reported is true) forfeited her right to be a law maker as a TD.
She smells of Fianna Fail / Sinn Fein at their (best).
She wrecks consensus and feeds the thought that anyone can challenge the common good.
Her attitude means nothing can get done !and society gets full of selfish issues.
 
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