Subsidised Drinking - hurrah????

nesf

miju wrote:

my point still stands why should country people have buses paid for them but people in Dublin must pay , obviously the same applies is reverse

I'm sure if bus networks existed in rural areas the locals would happily pay for them. Unfortunately due to the economic situation created by having most of the infrastructure in the country being placed around Dublin for the past 30 years, there are very few people left in rural areas to justify such a service being in place.

And the counter point of, why should I be taxed at 42% yet have to pay for my healthcare but that person over there only be taxed at 20% and have a medical card? My income being redistributed unevenly is no different to income being redistributed out of Dublin occasionally. Demand one and you have to accept the other tbh.

Time Magazine

miju wrote:

the amount of blink and you miss it villages i've been to where theres about 10 pubs in it is ridiculous and my point still stands why should country people have buses paid for them but people in Dublin must pay , obviously the same applies is reverse

In fairness people in Dublin do have buses paid for them. Sure, they have to contribute to the cost, but the subsidy was well over €1m a week last time I checked.

Judt

plonk wrote:

Your not getting it 13 pubs in 2006 closed in east galway. Rural pubs now only make money on weekend trade and even thats quiet of late. They charge less than pubs in the cities have less custom and are gettingshafted over it. The goverment have to do something or else every pub will be closed in 10 years. My village used to have 5 pubs and now has 3 and will be down to 2 fairly soon i think.

Maybe what there doing isnt the best idea but something has to be done IMO

Supply and demand. If there's only demand for two pubs nowadays then give two pubs. Sheesh, it's not like you can't find anywhere to have a pint with only two pubs in the village... Where does it say in the constitution that we all have a right to a pub within a specified distance of our homes?

Gurgle

Ibid wrote:

In fairness people in Dublin do have buses paid for them. Sure, they have to contribute to the cost, but the subsidy was well over €1m a week last time I checked.

Annual report 2005
65 million 'subvention' in 2005 + 10.6 million in capital grants.

So 75.6 million out of taxpayers pockets (3/4 of whom don't live or work in the Dublin area) to keep the worst public transport service on earth running.

And if we're wondering why:

Payroll costs 2005: 146,317,000
Number of staff: 3,407

So the average salary for this company staffed by low-skilled workers (drivers) and incompetant paper-pushers (everyone else) is 43k, compared to a national industrial average of 31k.

Sangre

Deleted User wrote:

Next we'll be giving out about leisure centres that make a few euros when a subsidised bus brings a load of special needs kids to their facility...

Is your arguement really so weak that you have to compare driving people to get pissed in the pub to helping out the handicapped.

Are you for real?

MontgomeryClift

The increasingly dire Irish Times tried to make this into an urban/rural thing with a story on the front page of their vacuous Weekend Review section yesterday.

Obviously it is not to do with the fictitious urban/rural battle. You can live in a rural area (a small town or a village) and still be in walking distance of a pub. If you're not in walking distance of a pub then you're probably not in walking distance of anything, and if that's the case then your house is in the wrong place. (Or you're a farmer, which is some excuse at least.)

Gurgle

MontgomeryClift wrote:

If you're not in walking distance of a pub then you're probably not in walking distance of anything, and if that's the case then your house is in the wrong place.

Oh good god thats just priceless.

Sangre

Sangre wrote:

Is your arguement really so weak that you have to compare driving people to get pissed in the pub to helping out the handicapped.

Are you for real?

And is your argument so weak that any 60 year old having a couple of pints and getting out of his house for one night every now and again is classified as someone who 'wants to get pissed' just for asking for some semblance of a social life?

Are you for real?

InFront

Nobody cares whether he goes to the pub or not, I don't care if he goes off drinking, or goes swing dancing or stands on his head in the street for an hour. All anybody is saying here is do not drink and drive. No excuses.

ballooba

Deleted User wrote:

And is your argument so weak that any 60 year old having a couple of pints and getting out of his house for one night every now and again is classified as someone who 'wants to get pissed' just for asking for some semblance of a social life?

Are you for real?

You keep making out that this is for OAPs. The service is not restricted to OAPs.

Non OAPs have to pay to use it, but presumably their fares are heavily subsidised.

MontgomeryClift

Gurgle wrote:

Oh good god thats just priceless.

Eh... thanks.

Victor

Gurgle wrote:

Ibid wrote:

In fairness people in Dublin do have buses paid for them. Sure, they have to contribute to the cost, but the subsidy was well over €1m a week last time I checked.

Annual report 2005
65 million 'subvention' in 2005 + 10.6 million in capital grants.

So 75.6 million out of taxpayers pockets (3/4 of whom don't live or work in the Dublin area) to keep the worst public transport service on earth running.

And if we're wondering why:

Payroll costs 2005: 146,317,000
Number of staff: 3,407

So the average salary for this company staffed by low-skilled workers (drivers) and incompetant paper-pushers (everyone else) is 43k, compared to a national industrial average of 31k.

Nitelink services (together with Airlink and private hires) are billed separately and are profitable, thereby reducing the subsidy to daytime services. Much of the subsidy is for people who the government gives free travel passes to.

professore

Victor wrote:

Nitelink services (together with Airlinka nd private hires) are billed separately and are profitable, thereby reducing the subsidy to daytime services. Much of the subsidy is for people who the government gives free travel passes to.

My parents live in a rural area (2 miles from the nearest village on the main Dublin - Limerick road - not up some remote mountain). They both have free travel passes and would gladly use public transport. Guess how many times they have used them? Zero. There IS no public transport; the only thing is a bingo bus once a week. My dad drives his car but is not the most steady anymore -but he has no choice. What should he do - sell the family home and go and live in a village, away from his gardening, the only thing that keeps him sane? They are not village people (pardon the pun). I think a subsidisded bus service once a day or maybe even once a week in areas like this would be a good thing. It symbolises this pathetic country that it has to be in the context of alcohol consumption that things get done.

My dad paid taxes all his life; he gets no public transport or refuse collection services of any description. How can you say that people like him are not entitled to a bus service?

Victor

professore wrote:

They are not village people (pardon the pun).

What is wrong with living in a village?

Gardening wise, he could easily keep a plot nearby, although I would like to see councils participate more in providing allotments.

Judt

I don't think that we can demand that people uproot themselves simply to go down the pub or to bingo; but I do believe that in a country where we have concerns about health, education and law enforcement that paying for busses to go everywhere in Ireland might not be the best use of resources. I do, however, believe that the government should help organise people to provide their own shuttle busses - subsidise them from the logisitical end of things.

spurious

Anyone experience of what they do in, say, rural England or Scotland?

Gurgle

Victor wrote:

Much of the subsidy is for people who the government gives free travel passes to.

I believe the subsidies I linked to above are independent of travel passes. This is money handed to Dublin Bus which allows them to keep their fares 'competitive' while still maintaining artificially high salaries for semi-skilled workers.

Macy

Deleted User wrote:

And is your argument so weak that any 60 year old having a couple of pints and getting out of his house for one night every now and again is classified as someone who 'wants to get pissed' just for asking for some semblance of a social life?

But if it's the implementation of drink driving laws that's stopping them, then they can still get out and have the social life, indeed still have a pint, they just can't have enough to send them over the limit.

If it's for the the 60 year old who doesn't have a car, then this isn't a new problem, is one that this Government has had 10 years to tackle, and shouldn't be tied into this debate and shouldn't revolve around the pub.

Gurgle

The whole idea is stupid tbh, if a pub is suffering financially due to decreased drink driving then any publican with an iota of business sense will have a mini bus doing runs from 10:30 until closing time. Buy your ticket at the bar for the price of a pint.

Even if the publican runs the busses at a loss the increased revenue at the bar would easily cover it.

professore wrote:

My dad paid taxes all his life; he gets no public transport or refuse collection services of any description. How can you say that people like him are not entitled to a bus service?

Lets be honest: Taxes are collected in the country for use in Dublin. Ireland is effectively the Dublin empire.

markpb

Gurgle wrote:

Lets be honest: Taxes are collected in the country for use in Dublin. Ireland is effectively the Dublin empire.

Dublin, per-head, generates more taxes than it spends which means that at least some counties outside Dublin spend more taxes than they make. There's nothing wrong with that per-se, it's the way most countries work.

For what its worth, I do believe there should be more work done on public transport in rural areas, but during the day, not (just) for people drinking at night. Minibuses linking villages and towns, even just at commuting times would be a step forward and I'll be all for subsidies for that with passengers making up the rest.

It might be a necessity to have pubs located in the (apparent) middle of nowhere but it was always true that the majority of people frequenting them were driving home illegally and there's no way we should be supporting a business which causes people to openly break the law.

professore wrote:

What should he do - sell the family home and go and live in a village, away from his gardening, the only thing that keeps him sane? My dad paid taxes all his life; he gets no public transport or refuse collection services of any description. How can you say that people like him are not entitled to a bus service?

I'm not sure what sort of village your parents were from but mine manage to live in a small town and have quite a large garden. They're about a 2 minute walk from the main street.

Also, I'm sure there is public transport available to him in the form of Bus Eireann. It might not stop right outside his door but that's one of the things you accept when you live outside a city - it just isn't viable to provide the same level of service. And lets not go down the road of 'I pay my taxes, I should get...' because you do, you get roads, water, lighting, public services, ambulances (which are more expensive to provide outside a city), gardai and a whole host of other services.

Plissken1

So what if pubs are struggling, there are far too many in the country to begin with. And the unfortunate thing about this "concern for our culture", is that, I think it has more to do with the fact that a lot of these publicans are Fianna Failers. I think its about time Alcohol and the Irish, were not thought of in the same sentence, maybe we will be better off for it, if our whole culture did not revolve around the Pub and Drinking. No one seemed to care when all the local Butchers and Grocery shops went out of business during the 90's. Why should we give a damn about the pubs ?.

RedPlanet

Plissken1 wrote:

Why should we give a damn about the pubs ?.

It's just like the farmers really.
If their livelihood is threatened they expect the government to prop them up.
I work in IT, when "my" job or industry goes off to India, i don't expect the government to subsidize it for me.

MontgomeryClift

professore wrote:

My parents live in a rural area (2 miles from the nearest village on the main Dublin - Limerick road - not up some remote mountain).

Two miles from the nearest village might as well be up some remote mountain. It's probably too far to walk to the village, is it? And there are not footpaths anyway, right, so it's not safe to walk? This, believe it or not, is remote living.