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CATHERINE MURPHY HAS said the Social Democrats are reliant on a huge amount of voluntary work to fight the general election.
The Kildare North TD, who is one of the party’s three leaders, said that a “huge voluntary effort” is helping the new party, which the latest poll places on 4%.
Another of the leaders, Stephen Donnelly, has been widely praised for his performance in last night’s RTÉ leaders’ debate, with his Twitter following increasing far more than any of the other leaders following the debate, according to UCD’s Insight4Elections.
Speaking in Dublin today, Murphy said: “We’re almost working a miracle on what we have.
People are bankrupting themselves, getting personal loans and in actual fact our head office is functioning on very, very little money.
“We’re relying very heavily on volunteers and we could probably write a very decent paper at the end of this that will show what the practical difficulties are.”
The Social Democrats are running 14 candidates in the general election and hope to win at least seven Dáil seats in order to gain regular speaking rights.
Murphy said she could not tell the media the amount of money the party has spent on the election campaign so far but said it is “very little”.
She also suggested that the co-leadership arrangement, where she, Donnelly, and Róisín Shortall share the position, could be maintained after the election.
“We’re going to review the co-leadership. It doesn’t mean we will change it, but we will review it and it may well be that it’s changed, it may well be that we leave it the same,” she said.
She insisted it was not something that “really exercises” the electorate.
On entering government and red line issues, Murphy said the SocDems are not ruling any other party in or out but could not outline specific non-negotiable issues in any post-election talks.
What we’re saying very clearly is we have to have a different type of politics. It has to be honest, politics, a strong economy, a fair society.
She was speaking at the launch of the Social Democrats’ plans to tackle corruption and reform politics.
Among the proposals are to establish an Independent Anti-Corruption Agency that would assume the responsibilities of several existing bodies and tackle white collar crime.
The party also wants to establish an electoral commission, make the Oireachtas and not the government the primary initiator of legislation, reform the whip system, and strengthen Oireachtas committees.
It also wants to reform state funding of political parties so that they receive an amount of money proportionate to the share of the vote achieved in a general election.
Currently parties must reach a minimum of 2% share of the vote in order to qualify for taxpayer funding.
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If the cost of gas and oil goes up, the cost of generating electricity via those goes up but profits shouldn’t so why are the energy companies making huge profits?
@Jim Buckley Barrett: all end user prices are based on gas unit which has rocketed.
Most energy is generated from Coal, nuclear and renewable now.
Those are making massive profit. All based on gas unit as they are tied together for market reasons but are looking moving to new pricing system.
@Jim Buckley Barrett: Consumer prices are based on spot price on markets, which is a result of speculation. Energy companies probably hedged prices anyway. They aren’t actually paying the spot price.
@Jim Buckley Barrett: As a result of hedging as someone above pointed out…… Electric Ireland as a ringed fence business made a 44 million loss on their interim report….. Oil doesnt generate much electricity for us. It is around the same wholesale price as it was before the war. Its still expensive now because its traded in dollars and the euro is weak vs the dollar.
@Jim Buckley Barrett: Well Leo doesn’t envisage a mini-budget but won’t rule it out, more double speak so that he can lie and hold a mini-budget if FFG are still struggling in the opinion polls next year. They will probably have a mini-budget for popularity reasons before they hit total rock bottom in the hope that they can fool the electorate once again.
They are not energy credits for households, they are energy credits for price gouging power companies
Why don’t they drop the commercial model of the ESB and only charge the consumers what they have to? We do still own it.
Everyone can move back to Electric Ireland and let the price gougers match the price or sink.
We shouldn’t be using our taxes to feed their profits.
@John Smith: That’s anti competitive. We have to create an artificial energy market so that speculators and investors can profit from it.
@Gerard Carthy: We set a new market price, if they fail to adapt, then their business can go the way of the Kodak. Let the market decide. ;)
@John Smith: Every supplier bar Electric Ireland (under ESB) goes bust in that case. Then the other suppliers take multi million/billion lawsuits against the government for illegally subsidising Electric Ireland/fixing prices……… Electric Ireland as a ringed fence business has made a loss of 44 million so far this year, despite the increase in prices for their customers. This article explains a bit of it https://m.independent.ie/business/irish/how-esb-can-make-obscene-357m-profit-in-six-months-as-families-hit-by-sky-rocketing-energy-bills-41993649.html
More money from public finances transferred to corporations. Nationalise energy. They won’t as they are wedded to their failed ideologies.
@Shukran Don Dada: other countries have nationalised their energy production and it’s been a disaster. It’s a good sound bite but doesn’t work.
@Paul Clancy: it does!
@Shukran Don Dada: you say that like it’s an easy task and a guarantee!
@SPQH: It may not be easy, is that an excuse to not do something? What we have now isn’t working. Although unwilling to make any hard decisions is the FF &FG way though and the “band-aid” solutions are keeping prices high.
So what happens next year & the year after & the year after that ? We still won’t be able to heat our homes or will the government keep giving out money!
Oh look at me how fiscally responsible I am. Um no – our debt has more than doubled from €110bn to €250bn under your watch!
I won’t be listening to a word he says. He is our version of lizz Truss. But wearing and recording his fondess for nolvety socks. Which I believe are synonymous with narcissists.
@Brian Lee: 100% spot on Brian
Can’t believe this “got into a seat by the skin of his teeth” man is going to be in charge again!
@Patricia O’Brien: I know its a fekn joke, hopefully this will be his last time come election in 2025 if not sooner. A narcissist who is so out of touch with reality its scary.
Totally detached from reality. If we could flash those muppets down the toilet at once, not to hear them or see them would be a great.
@Pavel Shipilov: how did anyone vote for him, he doesn’t live in the real world
Just put a cap on it, seems like throwing money away at this stage when most other countries have capped the price per unit. No one wants these piece meal handouts, means constant worry.
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