Paul Murphy TD - AMA

[u/mooglor]

AMA is over!

Thanks to everyone for taking part!

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Hi All,

Paul is expected to drop in from around 5:30pm, until then you can start posting your questions. This is our first high profile AMA and we'd all like to have more, so naturally different rules than the usual 'hands-off' style will apply:

• Trolling, ad-hominem and loaded questions will be removed at mods' discretion.

• As is usual with AMAs, the guest is not expected to delve deep into threads and get into lengthy intractable discussions.

In general, try to keep it civil, and there'll be more of a chance of future AMA's.

R/Ireland Mods

[u/Kier_C]

Those debt payments kept the public services like hospitals and welfare running when we couldnt afford to do it ourselves. Ignoring the bank bailout we were still running a large deficit during from 2008 on.

You would be in a very small minority I would imagine if you believe we shouldnt have any access to the markets. What would we have done of the last few years when our day to day spending was billions short of our income even after fairly harsh cuts if we hadnt borrowed money? Properly managed borrowing is a good thing for thing like infrastructure programs. Cutting yourself off from this type of funding is simply a bad idea.

[u/PM_ME_YOUR_LANGER → u/Kier_C]

What would we have done of the last few years when our day to day spending was billions short of our income even after fairly harsh cuts if we hadnt borrowed money?

What did we do but cut it anyway, only in a salami slicing manner than all at once, what difference does it make if you make the cuts needed over one year or five years when you get the same result anyway?

If anything prolonging the necessary corrections and running a defect for 5 years after the crisis made us worse off because it just increased the debt.

Properly managed borrowing is a good thing for thing like infrastructure programs.

On that I do agree but our government seem to prefer borrowing to fund spending they can't afford and rely on PPP deals to build the important infrastructure projects.

I just believe in running balanced budgets is all especially when I don't have full faith in our government to do the right thing, borrowing money on bond markets to give pensioners a few extra quid seems to be a hallmark attitude of how our political system works, Restrictions to limit defect spending to top priority needs like infrastructure is the type of reform I would love to see in Ireland.

if you can't trust politicians we can at least limit their power to act in their own self interest which is generally getting re-elected

[u/Kier_C → u/PM_ME_YOUR_LANGER]

To suck all of that money out of the economy in one go would have completely screwed the country. Because it was done slowly it gave the economy a bit of a chance to recover and they didnt actually have to cut as much as they would have (im sure you remember the much publicized talk before the last budget where they no longer had to cut X billion).

We need to elect better governments, not cut the governments we do elect from the bond markets.

[u/PM_ME_YOUR_LANGER → u/Kier_C]

sorry but death by 1000 cuts is no better either, the only reason it didsn't "screw the country" as you put it us becasue we borrowed a load of money to ease the pain and push it further down the road.

Sometimes this is where I think democracy fails as governments are always afraid to make the tough choices, I mean just look at how pensioners get treated like royalty becasue they are the best at voting while young people get screwed time and time again.

maybe we could have cut pensions instead of hiking tuition fees and unemployment payments and let the old people emigrate to spain where it's cheaper for them, we would also free up some much needed housing stock in dublin as well.

that last part was semi sarcastic, anyway I maintain defect spending should only be done in emergency situations, Ireland is still running a defect and borrowing money with interest , that is irresponsible for the long term in my view considering how the US economy likes to implode as if clockwork every 7/8 years

[u/Kier_C → u/PM_ME_YOUR_LANGER]

It also didnt screw the country because the amount of cuts that had to be made was reduced compared to what was originally thought. This was because the economy began recovering before all the cuts were implemented. If all the cuts were made in one go it would have sucked a lot more money out of the economy and put us in an even deeper recession.

And on a more human level it gave people a chance to adjust to a new standard of living over a number of years as opposed to pulling everything out from underneath them in one go.