I wouldn't vote for Aontú either because of their anti abortion stance. I have never voted FF but I actually do like MM and if I was in his constituency I might throw him a vote. I feel the element of the FF party I most dislike would actually love to be rid of him.
I don't believe in the self ID, transitioning children, gender on a spectrum nonsense. I voted no/no in the referendum too, for the same reason as MintLion, ambiguous wording. Didn't seem to make any sense as a replacement for what was there already, and seemed to be a big waste of time and money and cheap effort to appeal to some kind of progressive thought or something. I'm not sure what the point of it was.
I'm economically left of centre and housing in this country is a fucking disgrace and I blame FF for that mostly, things got out of control during the Celtic Tiger years, an enormous mess was made and the solution was build more fucking roads for people to commute on. I am no fan of how anything has been handled since either.
There seems to be a laziness in this country of copying what the UK have done/are doing rather than looking further afield. Germany cannot be classed as left wing like say the Scandi countries, but somehow in Germany there is decent housing and health care. The Sláintecare model seems to be just to copy the NHS and that's in shit.
We all want to own our own homes here as renting is so precarious. The solution isn't shit homes to rent, it's decent homes to rent on a long term basis. Nor is the solution massive housing estates with no facilties and no public transport. I live in one with a tiny shop that nobody could afford to do their weekly shop in, or even buy butter or dog food if you have forgotten that, but the walk to a bigger shop is too far for anyone not fit, and if you don't drive the only solution is a taxi.
Keeping a house going requires two salaries/wages but then you need child care which is also very expensive and I wonder about the quality, seeing as it's not a well paid job.
The gap between rich and poor is getting wider too and despite a fairly progressive tax system I feel like there is a wider issue where people at the lower end and lower middle will never be able to buy a home, and there we go back to the precarious renting.
GPs surgeries are expected to take on ever increasing numbers of patients that are paid for by the state, but I dont know if they are actually getting the resources they need. There seems to be vasts amount of money spent on websites and advertising regarding mental health but very few actual services if you do have a problem.
There is a HSE community healthcare facility near me, but it has no staff and is serviced by visiting staff a couple of days a week. Meanwhile I know two newly qualified doctors who headed off to Australia as soon as they qualified, after getting their expensive medical degrees here.
There is just so much stuff being done wrong. The pouches for the mobile phones is just a very good example of the kind of thing, millions being spent in something that in itself isn't a bad idea, but should be so low down on the list of priorities as a luxury item rather than a necessity when there are other cheaper solutions for the problem.
As somebody said on the radio or somewhere recently, all the houses are full of people on holiday using airbnb because they can't get a hotel, and all the hotels are full of people who need to live in houses. That's a huge problem right there.
The children's hospital is another one, the price of it and a doc in Crumlin told me recently they forgot they would need offices for doctors, doctors don't just endlessly walk around the hospital on their rounds, and they haven't built enough office space. That doc can't wait to move though as what's there now is shocking in places.
It's hard to know who to vote for to be honest. I have only spoken about local issues at the door as I honestly don't think any of the parties are really doing any deep long term thinking or planning about anything.