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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNBfWFLzo70
A LABOUR MINISTER has said his party will “walk out of government” if it feels its influence in the coalition is not strong enough – but insisted his party remains influential in the running of the country.
Brendan Howlin told TheJournal.ie he was not concerned about any public anger at Labour over its actions in government, dismissing opinion polls in which his party’s share of the vote has halved since the 2011 election.
“A lot of people will criticise Labour anyway,” the minister said, “but I think there is a robust base for understanding that Labour’s role in this government is to make the difficult economic adjustments in as fair a way as possible.”
Howlin said some would only ever treat a policy as ‘fair’ if it did not personally effect them – but that “in the cold light of day, when people examine it, the very real input of the Labour Party in ensuring that our economic recovery is constructed in a fair way to those who have a fair mind to look at it.”
Asked if he felt Labour was acting as a strong enough brake on Fine Gael’s power, Howlin said Labour only accounted for a third of ministers and a third of the government’s Dáil representation, “so I don’t want to say we dominate economic policy”.
He added:
But we have a very strong influence in it. The day we come to the conclusion that our influence is not strong enough is the day we walk out of government.
Howlin also commented that while it was rare in modern history for a government to win a by-election, the current government had won both by-elections held during its term – Labour’s Patrick Nulty winning in Dublin West, and Fine Gael’s Helen McEntee in Meath East.
“Anybody who looks at the performance in by-elections understands that they bear no relationship to the general election,” Howlin said, claiming that most by-elections were contested by “a favoured candidate of government and a favoured candidate of opposition”.
“Just as Fine Gael were fourth in the Dublin West by-election, I don’t think anybody wrote them off immediately at that stage,” he said.
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The sooner these bottom feeders are brought to justice the better.
Just seems like a no brainer that if you want to tackle crime at a high level you just target the proceeds of crime. I can’t fart without the taxman knowing and yet these lads can build empires by laundering money … less detectives and more accountants should sort it out.
I suspect that more people are driven into poverty and maintained there by loopholes to protect the wealthy than are affected by the targets of this.
Yes, the drug culture and those who profit from it and the crime generated by their greed needs to be sorted but the consumers in a lot of cases are so called respectable members of society who don’t seem to see the link between recreational use of white powder and murder on the streets – usually on streets that are seldom visited by such people.
Drug dealing is a crime against society but so is creating loopholes to allow wealthy people to avoid their proper contribution to society from which they get a lot more benefit.
I opened a credit union account for my daughter a couple of months ago, the length of the form to fill out was unbelievable. My daughter said she never signed her signature as many times. Yet these people are able to acquire money from crime and very few questions asked.
have your say