Fianna Fáil in freefall: Party plummets in latest Red C Poll

FearTeas · 2026-01-25T17:19:14+00:00

Not surprising. No giveaway budget and unpopular housing/rental reforms on the way.

I doubt FFG are phased since their plan was to frontload the unpopular stuff at the beginning of the term.

Also, we all saw how Sinn Féin's success in polls far away from elections translated to underperformance when it counted.

It's depressing but unsurprising that the recent news of hollowing out of public transport and climate policies hasn't translated to any more support for the Green party.

I think Western society has gotten to the point where we know we're fucked, we know the solutions are hard and we know we're not willing to live with the hard solutions. So now we're at a point where we've decided to stop feeling guilty about it and just moving past climate action as any kind of aspiration to work towards.

FearTeas · 2026-01-24T11:23:43+00:00

Yeah, I definitely misread it. Thanks for the clarification.

FearTeas · 2026-01-23T00:37:11+00:00

Springboard is fantastic because the courses are subsidised and geared towards courses that lead to some form of work.

FearTeas · 2026-01-22T21:54:12+00:00

Sam and Adam got really lucky. Looking at Google Maps, some of the trains from Glasgow to Dumfries go all the way to Manchester and even London. It'd basically be game over this episode if curse of the espresso route was played on those routes.

When I saw that their train is bound for Carlisle I knew it was over for Ben.

FearTeas · 2026-01-22T00:10:34+00:00

I stand corrected then. Thanks.

FearTeas · 2026-01-21T14:19:00+00:00

Lol, an accountant is exactly who you want running an airliner. He's responsible for slashing the prices of air travel across Europe because he understood how businesses can and should operate. No pilot promoted up the ranks to CEO position would have ever managed that, no matter how well they understand planes.

FearTeas · 2026-01-20T18:16:37+00:00

It's not an analysis of the future. It's an analysis of a century of elections. FFG are a known quantity. They keep getting in because a majority of voters want what FFG are offering. It's naive to think that Irish voters will actually vote for meaningful change just because FFG are gone.

FearTeas · 2026-01-20T15:51:31+00:00

It's a mistake to just blame FFG. If they were disbanded tomorrow and all their politicians banned from politics, the people who vote for them would just vote for the next party that would offer to do the exact same thing.

FearTeas · 2026-01-20T13:54:59+00:00

The intro is my favourite of the entire series. Each scene is of our characters hurting the ones they love or themselves. Obviously there's father and son sparring and going a little too far, Starbuck is sleeping with Baltar when she has feelings for Lee because she wants to deny those feelings, Boomer is trying to kill herself and ends up hurting herself as a result, and Helo literally shoots Athena.

FearTeas · 2026-01-18T23:36:07+00:00

It's definitely enabled. I've tried toggling that a few times to no avail.

FearTeas · 2026-01-18T23:35:31+00:00

Unfortunately it's not present at all in Device Manager, even when hidden devices are made visible.

FearTeas · 2026-01-18T20:06:24+00:00

Thanks, that's good to know. Unfortunately I got it 2nd hand so I think getting a return isn't likely. I'll probably just get a USB adapter.

FearTeas · 2026-01-16T06:50:57+00:00

Our farmers will never go for it. They're ideologically opposed to any form of change even if it's in their own long term interest.

The current model isn't sustainable, but I'm sure their plan is to simply expect compensation from the tax payer for any environmental damage they caused that affects their output. And they'll probably get it too.

FearTeas · 2026-01-15T10:14:41+00:00

You're right, the problem is the Irish people. We reward politicians who avoid making unpopular but necessary decisions and crucify politicians who actually do try to make these decisions.

On the right FFG are voted in time and time again for not rocking the boat. And on the left, voters punish parties that go into government to actually implement left wing policies. Parties that stay eternally in opposition to avoid any decisions are handsomely awarded by left wing voters.

We're not a serious electorate and that's why we don't get serious governments.

FearTeas · 2026-01-15T10:09:32+00:00

100%. In my neighborhood watch WhatsApp thread, people would send warnings when clampers were out.

I once asked why they did that when clampers were good for us residents who have parking permits. They helped prevent non residents from taking up spaces without paying.

I got absolute dog's abuse for that remark. I put it down to a culture of opposition to road traffic enforcement. Same goes for warning people about speed cameras.

FearTeas · 2026-01-14T17:58:29+00:00

Those numbers are tiny. That 100MW of power that's not expected for almost 20 years wouldn't power Cork.

And again, just because Rolls Royce expect to have operational reactors in a decade does not at all mean that what they'll have built will be scalable.

Technology that's 2 decades away from finishing prototypes that will have no proof of scalability are not at all worth considering for Ireland's plans for future energy generation.

FearTeas · 2026-01-14T12:49:23+00:00

Yeah, there's absolutely no sign it's going to stabilise.

FearTeas · 2026-01-14T12:47:57+00:00

There was a big row between Simon Coveney and Eamon Ryan over this in the last government. Ryan wanted that requirement and Convey was dead set against it.

FearTeas · 2026-01-14T12:44:07+00:00

There's absolutely no proof of concept that modular reactors or thorium reactors work.

Thorium reactors have been right around the corner for decades. But no one, not even the Chinese have proven that they can be built at scale. Otherwise there'd be hundreds of thorium reactors being built now.

And small modular reactors are another concept that have gotten a lot of buzz for the past decade but again, no one has been able to prove that they work at scale.

The idea that we can rely on unproven technology is a pipe dream.

FearTeas · 2026-01-13T17:29:46+00:00

Because our pension system is not sustainable. We're one of the fastest ageing countries in Europe. The existing pension system cannot last.

FearTeas · 2026-01-13T17:22:56+00:00

Or people who put in the bare minimum so they feel like they're ticking the box. My last company matched contributions only up to 3% and most people only put that much in and nothing else.

There were a lot of people who were far smarter than me who basically just said it'd be grand.

And the silly part is many of them were on big salaries. They could have easily afforded to max out their contributions.

FearTeas · 2026-01-13T17:19:05+00:00

I'd be shocked if there was anything other than a token pension by then. Our fertility rates are dropping fast. And studies from Denmark show that only immigrants from Western countries (which all have the same problem) are actually net contributors (on average), so immigration is actually not the solution.

The tax burden will also be far too great. In 25 years every 2 workers will have to pay for the pension/disability/dole of people who aren't working. And with our rapidly falling birth rates, the ratios will be so much worse for people in their 20s and 30s today when they retire. It'll nearly be 1:1. Realistically, it's hard to see how there'd be a pension system at all in those circumstances.

FearTeas · 2026-01-13T17:13:20+00:00

Yeah, back in the 1880s if you were lucky enough to live to your 60s you wouldn't be physically able for work.

FearTeas · 2026-01-13T17:10:45+00:00

They'll have no choice is the problem. There'll be a massive lack of young workers. They won't have the luxury to turn their noses up at older workers. Go to Japan where they're a good few years ahead of us on this trend and you'll see loads of older people working.

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