Clare Election Candidates Ignore Vocabulory Of National Emergency

I listened to the Clare FM final election debate this morning. The debate consisted of 15 of the 16 candidates (Ferrigan not present) in a round table format  moderated by John Cooke of Clare FM.

The format was ;

• One minute individual introduction and outline of credentials
• Individual candidates' views on job creation and economy with some follow up discussions
• Individual candidates' views on health and some follow up discussions
• Individual candidates' views on polital reform and follow up discussion
• Brief summary by each candidate

Clare Candidates Don't Mention The National  Emergency

 As previously noted in my blog all candidates;

• Support Shannon
• Support Ennis General Hospital and or support 'review of HSE's Reconfiguration

Given the format and numbers involved in the debate I thought it would be a useful exercise to do an an analysis of the words used by the candidates. Before the debate I selected words that may come up from a national and local local perspective. The analysis should give us a sense of what the total list of candidates see as the issues.

 The words I chose were


Ireland, Health, Unemployment, HSE, Emigration, Banks (or banking), Clare, National debt, deficit, IMF, Bailout, Shannon (or 'airport'), Ennis General Hospital (or 'hospital') , Jobs, Fianna Fáíl, Political Reform, Tourism, Doorstep, Small Business

My assistant then  recorded the occurences of the  above words over the two hours.

 Remember, the candidates had the opportunity to speak uninterrrupted without specific questions on; jobs & economy, health, politiacl reform and on their own philosophy. So the words they used collectively should represent their thoughts on the topics. It would be wrong to say they were asked the 'wrong questions' as the topics were general and they also has plenty of time to mention anything they wished.

Here is the result;

The words 'Clare' & 'Health' (HSE, Hospital & Health) overwhelmingly dominated the debate. Followed by Jobs  &  Shannon
Some of the keywords that are surely  essential to grapple with the country's economic emergency barely recorded;
                   Mentions

IMF ignored by Clare Candidates

Emigration     1
Ireland           2
IMF               1
Bailout           1
Banks            6
Deficit            0

My conclusion is; the Clare candidates lack the vocabularly to deal with the country's economic problems or feel it is not necessary to address these matters to get elected.

Either way it is distressing to see the result.



 

All to play for in Clare

With just 3 days to go till election day its all to play for in the Clare election. The allocation of the seats is wide open  and it is a brave man that would predict the outcome. The Clare People today published an opinion poll that didn't really shed any new light on the what might happen. The poll is based on a survey of 500 people. It predicts Pat Breen & Joe Carey will secure a seat. That is probably a safe assumption.


After this it will be a dogfight amongst 5 candidates for the remaining  2 seats;

The poll suggests that Fianna Fail's two candidates, Timmy Dooley and Dr John Hillery  are running neck and neck.  Also  is the mix are Tony Mulcahy of Fine Gael, Labour's Michael MacNamara and Independent James Breen. There are a large number of other independents in the field but they are not expected to feature at the business end of the count.

 A number of scenarios are possible that are not mutually exclusive;

Labour's MacNamara chasing party's first seat since 1992

•  The home county of the party's spiritual leader, Eamon De Valera may not deliver a seat for Fianna Fáil. This is an unlikely though certainly not inconceivable  scenario.
• Fine Gael may take 3 seats, something that would be hugely significant   towards an overall majority for the party.
• The Banner may vote in Independent candidate James Breen. Breen is arguably Fianna Fáil's gene pool, he denies this though it is a widely held belief.  He is a renowned vote getter who just failed to retain his seat in 2007. In the recent local elections he polled over 2,000 votes.  Breen stands very much on local issues and inparticular champions the local Ennis General Hospital. During the campaign he vowed to bring down the government in support of the hospital.
• If Fianna Fáil secure one seat it is difficult to predict the winner. Outgoing and poll topperTimmy Dooley  is under pressure from Hillery. Hillery's family connections will go down well in the west of the county  and he is making a good impression. A difficulty for the Soldier's of Destiny is a split vote and the probable lack  of transfers could see them both stranded



Independent James Breen in the hunt.

• Clare may elect a labour candidate for the first time since 1992. Michael MacNamara, a veteran of the last european election, is from the east of the county.

At this late stage  it's going to be a fascinating to see how the people vote. The count in the West County will be the place to be on Saturday when history will be made one way or the other.

 My call; Breen FG, Carey FG, Hillery FF and McNamara Lab though not putting any money on it. Anything can happen!

The words you never hear in the Clare debates

The country is on to hook to the IMF / ECB with  with a  national debt soon to be over €100,000,000,000. The country has a balance of payments defecit that the current budget is striving to get towards €15,000,000,000 pa. Any government elected will need to grapple with these realities immediately upon assuming office. This involves spending cuts and new taxes.
I have not heard any debates or any candidate in Clare really engaging with these realities. Rather, we get soundbites about politcians' pay and expenses. We get soundbites about the HSE, Shannon, doorstep conversations  hospital reconfiguration. All these are are very important but I think we need to expand the vocabulary to engage with the looming problem.

I think the electorate deserve a a more grown up conversation and we should be told how we can achieve economic growth, create jobs and simultaneously tax more and reduce government spending.
 I don't see any Clare candidate demonstrating they have a sense of the crisis the country is in and how they will personally help the National Emergency

Ireland's National Debt its a no-go area in Clare Election

These are some of the topics we need to hear about; bailout, GNP target, ECB, spending limits, what will be done in the first 3 months? commercial rate cuts, tackling local government waste.
Looking for the candidate to do this.

Clare Result in 2007

19% of the Poll in 2007

In 2007 Fianna Fail received just over 44% of the vote in Clare. This was approximately 2% higher than the national Fianna Fail vote. Timmy Dooley topped the poll with 19.14%. Independent James Breen got 9.25% of the vote.

Full details here Clare Election 2007

How to get elected in Clare

In order to get elected in Clare you must;

1.  Support the retention of services in Ennis General  Hospital  and or say the restructuring of services to Limerick hospital should be reviewed
   
   
2. Advocate that Shannon must be become a driver of development. You must observe that we have a great hinterland ideal for tourists and we need more flights. As part of this strategy you you can demonise the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA). It is perfectly ok to highlight the salary of Mr Declan Collier the CEO of DAA and say they (in Dublin) are not interested in us down in Clare.
   
   
3. You must oppose any attempt by the neighbouring county Limerick, to take any part of Clare as part of its plans for orderly planning and regional development. A 'not an inch' slogan will go down well.
   
   All candidates will unanimously endorse and advocate the above. Failure to support any of the above or any deviation will be seized upon by your opponents and media and your campaign will fail.

Dr John Hillery scaremongering without national answers

Dr John Hillery has released two specific press releases that will cause alarm amongst locals. In the first he noted that Fás cutbacks would cause concern for Clare constituents and in another yesterday, he followed up with a projected public sector job reduction here of 187 in the county. Hillery Press Release

 I challenged him via Twitter to say

1. What are his views on the discredited entity Fás and it's €1 billion budget, given the nations's budget deficit

2.  What 'waste' he can identify in the county that should be cut, given the budgetary problems

He has not responded to these questions.

I believe that given the parlous state of our finances politicians of Dr Hillery's standing need to start by telling precisely how they will cut waste nationally or generically before using anectodal or quasi projections of local impact.

Clare Election candidates - The Twitter Warriors

Ann Cronin

Tony Mulcahy

There are four Banner candidates engaging in Twitter as a campaign tool. They are; Dr John Hillery FF, Joe Carey FG, Tony Mulcahy FG and Ann Cronin Ind.
All have enthusiastically engaged and here are some of my observations;

• Their characters come across well
• They all responded to queries and tough questions quickly and honestly
• Most of them have used it to distribute information
• John Hillery has issued a couple of press releases that were noteworthy
• John Hillery has a big bias towards health matters in his tweets.
• A good deal of humour from Tony Mulcahy
•  One candidate tweeted during the radio debate

Dr John Hillery

 Bravo to you all!

Joe Carey

 Twitter has not reached a tipping point  and Clare is definitely behind other constituencies but it is  here to stay and is hugely beneficial to those that engage

 What is Twitter? It is a method of communicating with a large number of people publicly. It si limited to 140 characters but you can add attachments. It is totally free. It is a great way to get your message across or share your views with one person or many.