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EVERY SATURDAY MORNING we take a look at all the best comments left on the site by our readers over the past seven days.
This week there was a lot of talk about forming a government, JobBridge and water charges.
The 5 most popular comments this week
1. The top comment of the week goes to Jayo Breathneach, who had this to say about the Dáil travel expenses scheme:
These expenses need to be scrapped. Ridiculous that someone on a salary that high gets to claim for driving to work when many folk on much lower salaries and longer travel distances have to pay their own commuting costs. Expense culture needs to end in our government, they get paid enough.
That one got 1,684 likes.
2. The same story saw independent TD Katherine Zappone defend her travel and accommodation expenses. Emachine got 1,364 green thumbs for this comment:
The question is not what route she takes but instead, why are we paying for it. I travel 35km to work and 35km home every day which I have to fund from my after tax income, which is a fraction of what she and her ilk earn. Why are we funding their travel as well as our own.
3. Under a poll about who should pay for water charges, Honeybae got 1,294 likes for this input:
Question ignores the fact we already pay for water but why let the truth get in the way of a survey.
4. In another poll we asked readers whether or not they said they had a religion when filling in the census. David Garland got 1,235 thumbs up for this comment:
I had to laugh at some friends on Facebook sharing photos of themselves putting “Jedi” as their religion but only last week they had photos plastered all over Facebook of their child’s confirmation..
5. McNulty Jimmy was unhappy with the wording of the water charges poll, noting:
Very disingenuous question
That comment got 1,187 likes.
The top 5 articles which received the most comments this week
1. Poll: Do you think we should pay for our water? (395 comments)
2. Alan Kelly says future generations will “rue” the proposed Irish Water deal (392 comments)
3. Poll: If water charges are scrapped, should those who paid be refunded? (283 comments)
4. Comments by Leo about FF’s “surreal” focus on water have kicked off a row (248 comments)
5. Water charges might be scrapped – so should we pay our bills? (247 comments)
Standout comments
The Department of Social Protection defended the JobBridge scheme from calls for it to be scrapped following a series of critical newspaper articles.
An article in The Sunday Business Post described the scheme as being “unmanageable” and “out of control” as well as describing how some companies became “hooked” on the scheme.
However, the department rejected this, describing the assertions as “unbalanced”.
The debate prompted Grainne Boyle to share her own experience:
I was an older divorced parent who initially thought Jobbridge was a good idea to help me get back into full time employment. I had years of experience but had been out of the workforce for a few years. After three months on the scheme,I pushed my employer to give me a job as I was helping to win contracts by telesales and creating solid leads for the Sales Rep. I was given a full time job as a Sales Support Administrator on 10 euros per hour. I was hoping for more because I had childcare costs and travel expenses but my employer had the advantage, I was coming off social welfare.
I was however delighted to get the job and for the next year, I was totally devoted to it. I worked long hours (lots unpaid) and continued to win contracts. I was given a handsome bonus at Christmas. However, the good days didn’t last A new person was taken on through Jobbridge after Christmas. After that, the attitude of the Office Manager and employer completely changed towards me. I experienced bullying, hostility, humilation and constant criticism. By August, the situation had become so unbearable, I was forced to quit.
The whole situation left me shell shocked, I had never experienced anything like this in my life. I made so many sacrifices, including the unpaid overtime I choose to do instead of spending time with my kids. I took out a credit union loan to buy a decent car so I could get to work and I still had most of the loan to pay back after I quit.
I am ashamed of the fact that I was totally exploited and I’m not a young person. Jobbridge needs to be totally scrapped.
Brian Houlihan made this point after a toddler accidentally shot his mother in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
So in America kids with guns are more likely to shoot you than ISIS or other terrorists. Forget the war on terror we need billions for the war on toddlers
The death of Patrice Price is the 77th such shooting incident involving a child in the US this year.
A powerful video of men reading threatening tweets sent to female sports reporters went viral during the week.
Larry O’Doherty commented:
That has just sickened me! You could see the lads were disgusted reading them! I’d say if you met these so called men tweeting this they would be the biggest cowards on this planet! Very powerful clip.
The family of Ava Barry – a six-year-old girl with an extremely rare, drug-resistant form of epilepsy – called for cannabidiol (CBD) oil, a form of medicinal marijuana, to be legalised in Ireland.
Ava’s father Paul Barry had this to say about accessing the medicine in Ireland:
It may seem as easy as that but you’re still breaking the law, why should you have to break the law in this country when kids in the US and Australia are being treated legally with the very same medicine?
After members of the public were warned about a motor tax scam email, sparky wrote:
I’ll put that email address in the same box as my Nigerian prince…
Once again, the weather was all over the place – we had a good mix of sun, rain and snow.
There was a debate over whether summer starts in May or June, leading Boganity to write:
So typically Irish we can’t even agree when the seasons start
To be fair, we often have four in one day.
While Joe Murphy noted the sad but true reality of life in Ireland in springtime:
Puffa jackets and woolen hats won’t be put away yet
Meanwhile, after issues about airport security in Russia were raised when a 10-year old girl flew from Moscow to St Petersburg without identification or a ticket, Steve McMahon commented:
I couldn’t even get on a bus at 10
Kids today, eh?
Finally, a DailyEdge article about batch bread prompted Peter Quincy Taggart to comment:
The fights at home over the heeler of the batch!
Heels: yay or nay?
See any good comments? Send them to orla@thejournal.ie.
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We do lead the world in politicians talking crap.
@Enda Ireland: The problem here with us is that our history was ruined by informers, we do breed a lot of people who enjoy serving others behind backs and that is what ruins us as a people and nation. We can still see that in how the Dail works and how this country is run, we do not do a thing without running to Merkel, IMF or ECB behind the peoples backs?
@Alois Irimaier
I think we have career advisors in gray suits running the country, Kenny and his kind are just the face of government these people behind closed doors walk away with big pensions never taking any flack for the decisions and cuts they implement.
What is your source for this “fact”?
@Enda Ireland:
Who checks FactCheck and who cheques FactCheck?
The source is quite clear. … i heard a man with two pints say exactly the same thing.
@Enda Ireland: Skilled my arse. TALENTED
@Enda Ireland: You should travel more.
We lead the world in overpaying politicians
On a completely unrelated story. Where is the section that reviews the comments of the week highlighting the story that got the most green thumbs????? The story about denis O’Brien being called out by Donald trump got nearly 2000 green thumbs the biggest response I’ve every seen. Yet no comment from the journal. ie. WTF…
@Seymour business: Can’t be annoying poor DOB.
Or as he’s known to his friends O Bribe.
In fairness there’s not many people who believe Enda transparent government anymore.
We lead the world in corrupt politicians
Of course it’s false. Most of the comments made by fine gael are false.
It amazes me that we should try and debunk any such claim , rather instead , we have a queue of people who are more interested in getting in their FG are liars jibes. Who gives a shite if it FG/FF/ SF or the man in the moon , Isn’t that what a government should do . Ie promote us ?? Should they say we are ok , kinda of alright . To hell with that , we have a small population with little or no natural resources , we need to take any advantage or leg up we can get
@Tensing Norgay: OK…let them away with lies and corruption….wouldn’t want to upset any pocket stuffers or their supporters.
Ha ha… very good…so they’re not flat out lying to us.. they’re promoting us.. “best little country to do business “, “most talented people ” etc. while the country’s colleges have fallen off the academic scale under their watch. Sure they only have our best interests at heart…
Tensing. Maybe it’s just me but I’d like to think that the members of the dail would only speak facts and not just make stuff up. What if a foreign company decided to invest here after listening to enda speak only to find out what he said wasn’t true, it’s important that people know that td’s only speak facts and I think that’s more important than waffling out any old rubbish. I know you disagree but it seems to me you’ve excepted a low threshold for accountability in governance.
@Aoife: Tensing needs to come down off his mountain and see the breakdown of our society that FG caused by playing people off against each other just so they could stay stuffing their pockets.
FG are parasites and nothing more.
al…as parasites go, they are fairly awful yokes..but to compare them to any FG Td is insulting to any parasite. have we a word for lower than parasite?
Jesus, can Fine Tory even open their mouths without lying anymore?
Same type of spin as their British counterparts who can rob you blind while telling you you’re getting a good deal.
Cmon people, get them out of Dail Eireann before it’s too late.
In fairness, we were number one last year. Not so much blatant lies as bigging us up a tad.
We pay these guys way too much. All elected politicians should have use the Public Health Service by law and their salaries should be limited to 10 times the minimum wage……
We’d have some world class health system then… And on minimum wage wouldn’t be a bad place to be!!!
@john doe: Don’t forget the €4,000 a month in expenses that can be claimed by all TD’s…..and now we can’t know what those expenses are anymore, because Howlin pushed through a motion last year on the QT under the guise of privacy.
Let’s hear again, that great word they said would be their mantra……’Transparency!’
Bitch moan all you want, elect fecktards or children of fecktards expect fecktards or just blame the British. In all honesty do you actually give a shit or just wannabe rebels.
Skilled Labour, the party fails as well.
Irelands main attraction at the moment are the tremendous tax breaks on offer for multinationals. Sadly not available for SMEs….
Where’s my tax cut. I remained in Ireland helping to keep this raft afloat and was the meat in the sandwich between the handouts and the corrupt ones who escaped paying their fair share
I see the ghost of Blue Hugh no longer haunts The Journal office.. you wouldn’t have gotten that verdict two years ago if circumstances were the same.
Enda’s biggest problem is that he’s been caught lying so many times that nobody believes a word that he says.
World leaders in useless politicians that take the county for a ride without fear of chastisement.
Two years is normal for enda to twig what’s going on
Do we need any more proof,this clown must go.
We were once a nation of skilled tradesmen back in the so called days of the Boom. When the building trade fell apart it sent the country into a whirlwind of huge unemployment & another era of Doom & Gloom. In my home town our young 20 something’s left for foreign shores just like other towns in Ireland. Older people like myself were told to retrain in the computer workforce & some did, with a result we have an overload of people retrained in this employment & most of our young & up & coming tradesmen have gone to other shores. I was taught years ago, when the building trade was up & going the country feeds of that & a lot of people gain employment from it. Will we have the workforce to regain those years again, I don’t think so.
Liam I did a course on computers a while back and a man on it, an unemployed builder in his late fifties with hands like shovels had been told to do it or else. He was trying to learn to type but was having zero success, it was a total mismatch of skills.
@Aoife: My exact point, I’ve met some of these people over the years. Some were good at it others on an older age found it harder to cope. Back about 25 years when the training centres were called ‘Anco’ it was similar. We all gathered in a room & spent our days with a copy of the Irish Times & were told to apply for all the jobs from a MD’s job to a dog walkers job even doe some of the jobs would neither suit our experience or training, we were given a banana to train in mock phone interviews. Can you believe in that. Mr Kenny & a lot of his colleagues were in Leinster House back then.
Skilled labour…..is that labours way or Frankfurts way!!
Delighted Mayo lost Kenny Ye big Bollox Ye.
Yes, of course we do. It’s one of our main exports.
So he is still telling lies
Cmon Journal, let’s have a fact check on the classic Thomas Byrne tale earlier today
This is the second Fact check that’s sought to undermine, albeit with facts, our marketing platitudes for FDI.
Not cool, beginning to think this is a UK site in disguise
@clad: The markets are influenced by Mary and her ability to be lie with impunity?!
Well, you learn something every day.
My God! We are only 5th in the World. Awful news!
Maybe but definitely not in Politicans all we have are clowns
Shows how FoS Enda is on many levels! If we have the most skilled and educated labor force as he proclaims, then surely thats good enough reason for multinationals to be setting up and employing here and paying the proper rate of tax for availing of our highly skilled workforce?!!??!
Free the Journal 50
@Powerabbey: Is that all you got left, since FG went nosediving?…..it’s pitiful.
and “availability of skilled labour” mean?
What colour is the sky in Enda’s world?
We are years behind.
Our true experts emigrate and the ones I know have no intention of returning.
have your say