Bertie Ahern to announce his departure date!

leninbenjamin

IRLConor wrote: »

but who would replace him in Dublin Central?

Mr. Tayto obviously.

Crash

Hrmm, i still have one of those signs in my bedroom - think i should put it up?

rmacm

oscarBravo wrote: »

I noted something Charlie Bird said: while all Bertie's cabinet colleagues were vocally supportive of him in public, many of them had privately voiced their concerns off the record.

Not exactly a model of integrity, that.

I've noticed that as well...trenchant support for him in the public eye (or a least not saying anything that may damage him) while cabinet colleagues have expressed concerns quietly and off the record.

As an aside I have a proposal as to who our new leader should be: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055267394

Liam Byrne

cm2000 wrote: »

Inflation has hardly been "ridiculous now lets be fair. when a government loses control of interest rates its ability to control inflation becomes more limited because the monetary policy isn't tailored to our specific needs.

Most of the inflation has been caused by house prices, transport costs, stealth taxes and utility bills, all of which WERE, in some form or other, within the control of the Government. The Government has almost DOUBLED its tax take on the price of petrol since it went up from 70-odd cent to 1.30, they rake even more cash in for no effort it in, and we get screwed.

well we have had the same position on the global competitiveness index for the last few years. 22nd in the world

.

If that's true, then it's pretty amazing, especially since the cost of living here is so high compared to other countries, and the pay to staff has to increase accordingly. We're even pricing ourselves out of the tourism market at this stage, and while there are greedy sods out there overcharging, a lot of it is down to the cost of doing business (transport, broadband, premises, etc) which were all under the first point.

Fair enough house prices haven't been controled properly

Understatement of the century. We won't read into the fact that the Mahon tribunal is looking into planning, but the Government is definitely guilty of letting the country get screwed......

but infrastructure is improving. transport 21 is the single most ambitious infrastructure scheme in the history of the state.

Where, exactly, is infrastructure improving IN REAL TERMS ? We might have brought some roads around Dublin (and if you're lucky, some few bits near other cities) up to what's required, but back roads are in ****, bus services are non-existent, train services are overly expensive.

In addition, because of the requirement for commuting long distances (so you can live somewhere even half-affordable) Ireland's family, community and social life has gone to crap, and the road and rail "improvements" that have taken place have been negated as a result, in real terms.

Then, if you want to go to from Cork to Galway, you have to go through Dublin, paying double the amount for the privilege of double the distance for no reason other than the fact that this Government has neglected the west.

Our cash goes towards an unnecessary extension at Dublin Airport while letting a perfectly good airport go to pot; one which should be less than an hour away from half of the country - assuming there's good national roads, of course, which there isn't)

not true crime has been down

Petty crime might be, but serious crime (drugs, murder, gang activities, anti-social behaviour, etc) are all up....and this from a Government that promised us "zero tolerance" not so long ago, only to completely renege on that. It's also now viewed as "acceptable" for the middle-class to use drugs in social surroundings....no-ones arrested and it doesn't make headlines until a model dies, but that's all adding up to A LOT more crime than previously.

In 1998, would you have even CONTEMPLATED the possibility of a guy getting his hand chopped off in a busy Dublin pub ?

In the 80s, if someone was murdered in Ireland, it was a major news story for the week; now it barely raises an eyebrow, because there are 2 or 3 per year in most cities, and was it 66 in Dublin last year ?

Can you SERIOUSLY stand over the statement that "crime is down" ???

El Stuntman

Liam Byrne wrote: »

In the 80s, if someone was murdered in Southern Ireland, it was a major news story for the week; now it barely raises an eyebrow, because there are 2 or 3 per year in most cities, and was it 66 in Dublin last year ?

Can you SERIOUSLY stand over the statement that "crime is down" ???

FYP, the murder rate of the entire island has be seriously down from the those dark days

CptSternn

El Stuntman wrote: »

FYP, the murder rate of the entire island has be seriously down from the those dark days

You can't compare those dates in that manner. The deaths during the Troubles have nothing to do with scumbags in Dublin hacking each other up over drug money.

oscarBravo

Read the topic before posting, y'all.

gandalf

http://www.recruitireland.com/job/?jobID=10012942

Anyone applying, gwan Oscar you know you want to

mike65

A hat trick!

Mike.

Liam Byrne

El Stuntman wrote: »

Originally Posted by Liam Byrne
In the 80s, if someone was murdered in Southern Ireland, it was a major news story for the week; now it barely raises an eyebrow, because there are 2 or 3 per year in most cities, and was it 66 in Dublin last year ?

Can you SERIOUSLY stand over the statement that "crime is down" ???

FYP, the murder rate of the entire island has be seriously down from the those dark days

I want to acknowledge (out of respect to oscarBravo's perfectly reasonable request above) that this straying off-topic, so if we want to debate this we should probably start a new thread.

But I have to object to El Stuntman editing my quote to add in a word that I never said. :mad:

The thread is about Bertie Ahern and his legacy, and he was Taoiseach of The Republic of Ireland. I do not know of any state or country called "Southern Ireland", and would never have used that phrase.

In addition, because (a) Bertie was Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland and (b) people were being murdered 28 at a time in the North, those are not valid for inclusion in the comparison; in fact, there are probably people on the boards who still refuse to view them as "crime".

While I wouldn't agree (they were, in my view, SERIOUS crime) THEY WERE NOT WITHIN THIS STATE and have no relevance to what was being discussed.

Like I said, if you want to start a new thread to debate this, fire away; my original comment was just that crime has increased under Bertie's watch, so good riddance [which was relevant to the thread] but discussing it in detail isn't....

And DO NOT edit my posts again when quoting them; if you want to quote them and debate them, fire away, but stop putting words in my mouth.

mike65

Did you report that? El Stuntman was not clever.

Mike.

Our man in Havana

gandalf wrote: »

http://www.recruitireland.com/job/?jobID=10012942

Anyone applying, gwan Oscar you know you want to

They are awful slow at removing fake ads.

oscarBravo

El Stuntman, don't misquote people. I'm aware that you brought attention to it with highlighting and the acronym "FYP", but it's an annoying thing to do.

For the record, I'd prefer to deal with this through the reported post mechanism than cluttering threads.

El Stuntman

oscarBravo wrote: »

El Stuntman, don't misquote people. I'm aware that you brought attention to it with highlighting and the acronym "FYP", but it's an annoying thing to do.

For the record, I'd prefer to deal with this through the reported post mechanism than cluttering threads.

I used FYP; so people should be fully aware that this was not a direct quote (especially as I highlighted the bit I FYP'd). It's just to save myself typing it out again, pretty common I would have thought?

sorry about that, we do it all the time on the poker forum but if it's frowned upon around here, I promise to be a good boy and never do it again. mea culpa and all that

cm2000

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Most of the inflation has been caused by house prices, transport costs, stealth taxes and utility bills, all of which WERE, in some form or other, within the control of the Government. The Government has almost DOUBLED its tax take on the price of petrol since it went up from 70-odd cent to 1.30, they rake even more cash in for no effort it in, and we get screwed.

.

If that's true, then it's pretty amazing, especially since the cost of living here is so high compared to other countries, and the pay to staff has to increase accordingly. We're even pricing ourselves out of the tourism market at this stage, and while there are greedy sods out there overcharging, a lot of it is down to the cost of doing business (transport, broadband, premises, etc) which were all under the first point.

Understatement of the century. We won't read into the fact that the Mahon tribunal is looking into planning, but the Government is definitely guilty of letting the country get screwed......


Where, exactly, is infrastructure improving IN REAL TERMS ? We might have brought some roads around Dublin (and if you're lucky, some few bits near other cities) up to what's required, but back roads are in ****, bus services are non-existent, train services are overly expensive.

In addition, because of the requirement for commuting long distances (so you can live somewhere even half-affordable) Ireland's family, community and social life has gone to crap, and the road and rail "improvements" that have taken place have been negated as a result, in real terms.

Then, if you want to go to from Cork to Galway, you have to go through Dublin, paying double the amount for the privilege of double the distance for no reason other than the fact that this Government has neglected the west.

Our cash goes towards an unnecessary extension at Dublin Airport while letting a perfectly good airport go to pot; one which should be less than an hour away from half of the country - assuming there's good national roads, of course, which there isn't)

Petty crime might be, but serious crime (drugs, murder, gang activities, anti-social behaviour, etc) are all up....and this from a Government that promised us "zero tolerance" not so long ago, only to completely renege on that. It's also now viewed as "acceptable" for the middle-class to use drugs in social surroundings....no-ones arrested and it doesn't make headlines until a model dies, but that's all adding up to A LOT more crime than previously.

In 1998, would you have even CONTEMPLATED the possibility of a guy getting his hand chopped off in a busy Dublin pub ?

In the 80s, if someone was murdered in Ireland, it was a major news story for the week; now it barely raises an eyebrow, because there are 2 or 3 per year in most cities, and was it 66 in Dublin last year ?

Can you SERIOUSLY stand over the statement that "crime is down" ???

1. house prices are NOT a cause for a rise in inflation figures. they aren't even included
2. inflation is NOT mainly caused by taxes. its caused by a widepread availability of cheap credit. that's why when countries want to curb inflation they raise interest rates.
3. yes in global terms we are equally as competitive as we have been for the last few years.
4. remember the bus and rail services in the early 90's??? i certainly don't because there was none. i now rarely have to wait for more than 10 minutes for a bus and i get them ALOT.
5. Dublin airport very much needs an extention. it will pay for itself long term
6. gangland crime is a fact of developed cities everywhere. but yes i can stand by my statement that crime is down. in 1996 there were 552,052 recorded offences. in 2007 with a much bigger population as well there were 406,163 recorded offences. improvment?? yes. as for in 1998 could i imagine a guy getting his hand chopped off blah blah yeah pretty much. remember john gilligan, martin cahill?? lovely blokes they were.

SeanW

Liam Byrne wrote: »

As for the "imby" rubbish - I would LOVE to be in the parallel universe where the slot was taken from Dublin....just to see the reaction of people who say that - despite the fact that Belfast is only an hour or so up one of the best served corridors in the country via road or rail......

If the slot was taken from Dublin, it would have been replaced by another company in 5 seconds flat. Dublin actually provides something of a market, Shannon is a pointless humungous International Airport built on a riverside out in the middle of nowhere that has only ever survived because of massive subsidies, a trainload of red tape and preferential treatment.

Methinks you don't know that much about the history of Shannon and Dublin airports.

Liam Byrne

SeanW wrote: »

Shannon is a pointless humungous International Airport built on a riverside out in the middle of nowhere.....

Methinks you don't know that much about the history of Shannon and Dublin airports.

Probably yet another candidate for a separate thread, but briefly:

Shannon Airport started in Foynes, when there were flying boats; when those stopped being used, there wasn't room in Foynes due to the hillside location, so they moved it across the estuary. That enough history.

And 8 or 9 miles from Ireland's third city is not "in the middle of nowhere", by any stretch of the imagination!! :rolleyes: How far was Dublin Airport from Dublin City before all the more recent ring roads and development up there ?

Whether or not Shannon is or isn't a good idea is a separate debate; the relevant-to-this-thread issue/fact is that Bertie & FF didn't do what they promised.....they promised to support it and then backed down, and it was supposedly part of FFs regional development strategy under Bertie; it's relatively close to half the country, IF there were proper roads and a rail link, and it's FAR less congested than Dublin Airport; instead of providing extra facilities in Dublin, they should develop infrastructure to make Shannon more accessible; that would free up the congestion in Dublin, provide an accessible, viable airport in Shannon for half of the country, PLUS improve the broader picture as those roads/rail links would have other benefits for the region.

But Shannon isn't in Drumcondra, so there'd be no "howya"s or buying-a-round benefits for Bertie if he'd done that......

The main relevant point, though, isn't what could or should be done; while the above makes sense to me, opinions, priorities and policies can vary. The Judas factor is the fact that Bertie & FF sold Aer Lingus but kept some shares so that they could protect this country's slots, and then proceeded to ignore that fact and wash their hands of it - despite being shareholders with an influence - when those slots were moved outside of the state........ :mad:

Now, back on topic...if you want to discuss the airports we'll start another thread to do so, maybe under transport.

leninbenjamin

SeanW wrote: »

Dublin actually provides something of a market, Shannon is a pointless humungous International Airport built on a riverside out in the middle of nowhere that has only ever survived because of massive subsidies, a trainload of red tape and preferential treatment.

Shannon has a wealth of unused potential. both Limerick and Galway short little journey away? it certainly has a market to sell itself to. considering as well how much of a nightmare Dublin is (and always will be, expansion will just create more traffic not ease it), the underusage of Shannon is mindboggling. It's easily accessed, it's easy to get parking, it's easy to check in. Ireland doesn't need an expansion of Dublin, get people in the west to use Shannon and you'll have the same reults, not to mention you'll probably see a small reduction in traffic to Dublin. What it needs is promotion, lots of it. people simply aren't aware of it. you go into a travel agent in Galway ask to go to America or whatever they almost automatically just book you into Dublin, flying from Shannon doesn't occur to them. It's a real failure of the govt. that we have this great resource down there that nobody bloody uses.

ednwireland

cm2000 wrote: »

1. house prices are NOT a cause for a rise in inflation figures. they aren't even included

no - house prices go up people want higher wages to pay for houses rents go up shops have to put up prices to pay higher wages no house prices have no effect on inflation my arse