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Has Irish Independence Been A Success?

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    #62
    anonymous_joe
    Registered Users Posts: 9,255 ✭✭✭anonymous_joe


    Bock the Robber wrote: »
    Is Ireland a better place thanks to independence?

    Look at Scotland. Look at the North of England.

    That's what we'd have been without independance. So yes. It's been fcuking fantastic.


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    #63
    Pride Fighter
    Registered Users Posts: 5,729 ✭✭✭Pride Fighter


    Independence has been a huge success. We have punched above our weight with excellent international diplomats like Frank Aiken in the UN. Had British rule continued the only thing better we would have under them is a health service. We beat them everywhere else.


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    #64
    Bock the Robber
    Registered Users Posts: 304 ✭✭Bock the Robber


    Shell are permitted to write off all their exploration costs, past and future, against tax.

    And they pay no royalties whatever for taking the gas.

    We receive no percentage for our own resources. Not a penny.


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    #65
    anonymous_joe
    Registered Users Posts: 9,255 ✭✭✭anonymous_joe


    Bock the Robber wrote: »
    Shell are permitted to write off all their exploration costs, past and future, against tax.

    And they pay no royalties whatever for taking the gas.

    We receive no percentage for our own resources. Not a penny.

    And that's not their fault. I'm totally against Shell being told to fcuk off. The people to blame are the government, and even more so, the public, for voting 'em in.


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    #66
    Bock the Robber
    Registered Users Posts: 304 ✭✭Bock the Robber


    anonymous_joe wrote: »
    And that's not their fault. I'm totally against Shell being told to fcuk off. The people to blame are the government, and even more so, the public, for voting 'em in.


    Of course it's not their fault. They're a business and they'll make the biggest profit they can.

    This is about our government, or lack of it.


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    #67
    ballsymchugh
    Registered Users Posts: 7,937 ✭✭✭ballsymchugh


    Pride Fighter wrote: »
    Independence has been a huge success. We have punched above our weight with excellent international diplomats like Frank Aiken in the UN. Had British rule continued the only thing better we would have under them is a health service. We beat them everywhere else.


    it has been a huge success, but don't bring the health service into it, cos the nhs is way better than the hse could ever be.
    i agree, we have punched way above our weight. take third world aid, go from giving more per capita for live aid, to mary robinson going to rwanda when no one else would touch it with a barge pole. and on that line, countess markiewiz (ah bollox i knew i'd screw that up) was the first female elected to a national parliament in the world. in a time when women had feck all real rights in britland. (cue 'women, know your place'!)


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    #68
    Bock the Robber
    Registered Users Posts: 304 ✭✭Bock the Robber


    The question was, Is Ireland a better place following independence?

    Not Was Ireland...

    Constance Markiewicz contributes nothing to present-day Ireland and neither does Frank Aiken.

    So is the Ireland of today better? Are we better off now than we would otherwise be?


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    #69
    ballsymchugh
    Registered Users Posts: 7,937 ✭✭✭ballsymchugh


    no, she doesn't, but the question is has irish independence been a success, so this can go back to when the treaty was signed. and having a female elected to national parliament before the empire is a step forward that they didn't take.


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    #70
    Pride Fighter
    Registered Users Posts: 5,729 ✭✭✭Pride Fighter


    Bock the Robber wrote: »
    The question was, Is Ireland a better place following independence?

    Not Was Ireland...

    Constance Markiewicz contributes nothing to present-day Ireland and neither does Frank Aiken.

    So is the Ireland of today better? Are we better off now than we would otherwise be?

    Yes they do, you are asking a question has Ireland been better off since independence? Ireland has been independent since 1921, those figures have played a huge role since our independence.


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    #71
    Eutow
    Registered Users Posts: 1,197 ✭✭✭Eutow


    Bond-007 wrote: »
    I will say no.

    What have we to show for it? A bunch of self serving policitians with no sense of right or wrong who have run the country into the ground.


    I have to agree with you there. The Republic of Ireland is a failed nation, with gombeen men and women holding all the power. Our so-called Celtic Tiger was nothing more than a lot of hot air, built on an unsustainable property bubble and borrowed credit. Our health service is a joke, criminals don’t get punished and politicians are never held to account. At least in Britain, MP's tend to resign when they are found to be corrupt, or if they are found to be doing something wrong, but in our so-called democracy, they never resign, and they never seem to lose their seat. A good deal of our laws are copied from Britain anyway, our justice system for example is still heavily reliant on old British laws. I do think we are still suffering the effects of colonial rule in that some Irish people still like the person that can pull a few strokes, explaining why the same corrupt politicians keep on getting elected. Under colonial rule, it was probably the only way Irish people felt that they could get one over on the British. This mindset has to change if we ever want our country to be a success. Since our independence, I can't think of anything we have done successfully. We have wasted whatever success or wealth we did create during the celtic tiger years.


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    #72
    Kalashnikov_Kid
    Closed Accounts Posts: 642 ✭✭✭Kalashnikov_Kid


    Eutow wrote: »
    I have to agree with you there. The Republic of Ireland is a failed nation, with gombeen men and women holding all the power. Our so-called Celtic Tiger was nothing more than a lot of hot air, built on an unsustainable property bubble and borrowed credit. Our health service is a joke, criminals don’t get punished and politicians are never held to account. At least in Britain, MP's tend to resign when they are found to be corrupt, or if they are found to be doing something wrong, but in our so-called democracy, they never resign, and they never seem to lose their seat. A good deal of our laws are copied from Britain anyway, our justice system for example is still heavily reliant on old British laws. I do think we are still suffering the effects of colonial rule in that some Irish people still like the person that can pull a few strokes, explaining why the same corrupt politicians keep on getting elected. Under colonial rule, it was probably the only way Irish people felt that they could get one over on the British. This mindset has to change if we ever want our country to be a success. Since our independence, I can't think of anything we have done successfully. We have wasted whatever success or wealth we did create during the celtic tiger years.

    Yeah we havent done anything successfully. Like free secondary education, developing our own education system while we're at it, free university education, attracting a huge amount of FDI outside of the UK, upgrading large amounts of infrastructure to 21st Century standards...

    The worst thing about the sick Celtic Tiger and our incompetent politicians was that we believed in it all and voted them in accordingly.

    I can't believe people here think the NHS is miles better than the HSE here. The NHS is full of flaws of endemic proportions. Hop over the border next time you need urgent health care then if you really think that its the bees knees.


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    #73
    gizmo555
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,948 ✭✭✭gizmo555


    Bock the Robber wrote: »
    So is the Ireland of today better? Are we better off now than we would otherwise be?

    Yes. Look at all the wars we avoided participating in as a result. For example, if we were still part of the United Kingdom, our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters would have been off in Iraq fighting and dying in an illegal war to help Tony Blair maintain the illusion that the UK is still a world power.

    Going back a bit further in history, while there's a lot Eamon de Valera can be criticised for, he did this country an enormous service in keeping us out of WW II.


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    #74
    blinding
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 7,466 ✭✭✭blinding


    anonymous_joe wrote: »
    Look at Scotland. Look at the North of England.

    That's what we'd have been without independance. So yes. It's been fcuking fantastic.
    Historically the Irish were treated less favourably than other parts of the UK so we may even be worse off than Scotland and parts of the North of England or Wales.
    ballsymchugh wrote: »
    it has been a huge success, but don't bring the health service into it, cos the nhs is way better than the hse could ever be.
    i agree, we have punched way above our weight. take third world aid, go from giving more per capita for live aid, to mary robinson going to rwanda when no one else would touch it with a barge pole. and on that line, countess markiewiz (ah bollox i knew i'd screw that up) was the first female elected to a national parliament in the world. in a time when women had feck all real rights in britland. (cue 'women, know your place'!)
    In the past myself and members of my family have been patients and the belief that the NHS is some sort of a medical utopia is a misguided one. Yes you will be seen wihout payment (except you are paying through taxation) but as to whether you are getting good treatment or not may be anothjer question. You may be seen by a doctor or specialist but I am not convinced from my own dealings(and family) with the NHS that you are getting the best treatment. There are different treatments available for medical conditions and I would say that the NHS often uses cheaper and probably less effective ones.
    The myth that the NHS is free is good one. Its like the British goverment has some magic money that pays for free health care. I am sure in Utopia goverments are good at collecting money and paying effeciently for health care. I do not believe that the british goverment are quite so good.

    There are good sides to the NHS but it is a long long long way from being as good as some of the myths about it suggest.


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    #75
    Kalashnikov_Kid
    Closed Accounts Posts: 642 ✭✭✭Kalashnikov_Kid


    In summation, the NHS are good at keeping you alive. If you are looking for effective aftercare off them, forget it. That's why one of my family members left London to undergo a cancer operation, treatment and after care in Ireland. Nothing to do with family or friends etc. - it was down to the fact that the Irish system caters for its aftercare patients far better than the NHS.

    Their mental health services are still at stone-age levels. The yanks are objecting to the concept of free healthcare for valid reasons, you know (I wouldnt agree to all that they say, but you get what Im saying).


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    #76
    RiverWilde
    Closed Accounts Posts: 419 ✭✭RiverWilde


    No, it hasn't. The only good thing an Irish govt. did was get us into the EEC/EC/EU. European law is the only thing that keeps our wonderful ruling class (shower of self-serving eejits) in line. Even when we've been prosecuted for breaches of EC law 'we' -shower of idiots in office - would rather pay the daily fines than amend our practices to bring us into line with law.

    Post-independence we went backwards socially and it's only now that the truth about the RC churches/state actions are coming out. We had the hypocritical situation when the govt. tried to introduce the 'mother and child' scheme the RC church vetoed it as an 'attack on the family.' What a load of bollox - considering what the church was doing to families up and down the country.

    We went from being part of a much wider 'empire' to being a paranoid, insular, backward little place where anyone with half a brain left as soon as they could.

    The past 15-20 years has seen a sea-change socially and the ruling/economic classes don't like it very much and are desperately trying to hold back the tide.

    Ah, no we are definitely not better off since independence.

    Riv


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    #77
    Kalashnikov_Kid
    Closed Accounts Posts: 642 ✭✭✭Kalashnikov_Kid


    RiverWilde wrote: »
    No, it hasn't. The only good thing an Irish govt. did was get us into the EEC/EC/EU. European law is the only thing that keeps our wonderful ruling class (shower of self-serving eejits) in line. Even when we've been prosecuted for breaches of EC law 'we' -shower of idiots in office - would rather pay the daily fines than amend our practices to bring us into line with law.

    Post-independence we went backwards socially and it's only now that the truth about the RC churches/state actions are coming out. We had the hypocritical situation when the govt. tried to introduce the 'mother and child' scheme the RC church vetoed it as an 'attack on the family.' What a load of bollox - considering what the church was doing to families up and down the country.

    We went from being part of a much wider 'empire' to being a paranoid, insular, backward little place where anyone with half a brain left as soon as they could.

    The past 15-20 years has seen a sea-change socially and the ruling/economic classes don't like it very much and are desperately trying to hold back the tide.

    Ah, no we are definitely not better off since independence.

    Riv

    So we would have been much better if we kept ourselves as an economic UK backwater ala North Wales then? Ehm, I dont think so...

    Dublin ceased to be the Second City of the Empire many many moons ago Im afraid...


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    #78
    Kev_ps3
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,604 ✭✭✭Kev_ps3


    Bond-007 wrote: »
    I will say no.

    What have we to show for it? A bunch of self serving policitians with no sense of right or wrong who have run the country into the ground.

    Typical boards.ie mod, thinks Ireland is better off under foreign rule.. No surprise

    Anyone who says no to the question is an enemy of Ireland imo..


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    #79
    mike65
    Closed Accounts Posts: 88,978 ✭✭✭✭mike65


    I could be wrong but I thought the question was

    Has Irish Independence Been A Success?

    Not is Ireland beter off outside the UK.


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    #80
    RiverWilde
    Closed Accounts Posts: 419 ✭✭RiverWilde


    Backward economically? Mmmmm we have an economy run by a small business class that in tandem with the political classes screws the living daylights out of everyone else.

    Wow, what a wonderful situation to be in.

    Riv


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    #81
    Bock the Robber
    Registered Users Posts: 304 ✭✭Bock the Robber


    Kev_ps3 wrote: »
    Anyone who says no to the question is an enemy of Ireland imo..

    Interesting. Why do you say that?


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    #82
    Kalashnikov_Kid
    Closed Accounts Posts: 642 ✭✭✭Kalashnikov_Kid


    RiverWilde wrote: »
    Backward economically? Mmmmm we have an economy run by a small business class that in tandem with the political classes screws the living daylights out of everyone else.

    Wow, what a wonderful situation to be in.

    Riv

    Still better than one run from Westminster. If that's what you're suggesting?Ever wonder why the road suddenly gets sh1t on the way to Belfast in certain *cough* nationalist areas?

    Youre description above is basically a liberal Marxist interpretation of society that could be commonly applied to any Western economy.

    Anyway I wont derail things any further...


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    #83
    RiverWilde
    Closed Accounts Posts: 419 ✭✭RiverWilde


    So you like being screwed over by a small 'Irish' political/business/religious clique? The difference is 'we're Irish.' Is that it?

    We went through a war of independence which did nothing but divide the island, resulted in countless deaths and huge damage to property and has left us with a country that has what I'd call development apartheid.

    The east of the country gets all the development cash and is overpopulated in the extreme and the west/south west/north west gets ignored.

    Wow, what a vision

    Riv


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    #84
    Kalashnikov_Kid
    Closed Accounts Posts: 642 ✭✭✭Kalashnikov_Kid


    RiverWilde wrote: »
    So you like being screwed over by a small 'Irish' political/business/religious clique? The difference is 'we're Irish.' Is that it?

    We went through a war of independence which did nothing but divide the island, resulted in countless deaths and huge damage to property and has left us with a country that has what I'd call development apartheid.

    The east of the country gets all the development cash and is overpopulated in the extreme and the west/south west/north west gets ignored.

    Wow, what a vision

    Riv

    No, what I'm saying is that we would have fared worse under UK rule. Could you please answer my question again - are you suggesting that the opposite to this would be the case?

    Please answer honestly as it could save me a lot of time and effort.

    Development apartheid...that's a new one to me. Could you please elaborate on what you mean by that?


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    #85
    RiverWilde
    Closed Accounts Posts: 419 ✭✭RiverWilde


    No I do not need to further elaborate, what I said was very clear.

    Riv


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    #86
    Bock the Robber
    Registered Users Posts: 304 ✭✭Bock the Robber


    Kalashnikov_Kid wrote: »
    No, what I'm saying is that we would have fared worse under UK rule. Could you please answer my question again - are you suggesting that the opposite to this would be the case?

    The question doesn't imply that we'd be better off under British rule. It asks if we've made a success of our independence.


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    #87
    ChocolateSauce
    Registered Users Posts: 2,892 ✭✭✭ChocolateSauce


    It depends entirely on how you measure success.


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    #88
    Johnny Utah
    Registered Users Posts: 2,157 ✭✭✭Johnny Utah


    We're far better off being independent. Under British rule, Irish Catholics were treated as second class citizens in their own country. The British raped and pillaged this country for all it's worth. If we were still part of the UK today, we would probably be worse off than the North.

    Quite frankly, some of the responses on this thread are somewhat alarming to say the least.


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    #89
    mega man
    Closed Accounts Posts: 370 ✭✭mega man


    Yes it has been a success because our political voice in the UK never meant anything, we were treated like scum and we had to fight for everything we got!


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    #90
    Kalashnikov_Kid
    Closed Accounts Posts: 642 ✭✭✭Kalashnikov_Kid


    RiverWilde wrote: »
    No I do not need to further elaborate, what I said was very clear.

    Riv

    Ah so you're saying that development in Ireland was segregated between Dublin/the rest of the country in the same way that blacks and whites were segregated in apartheid South Africa.

    Thats, um, interesting....about as much of a myth as DeV's vision of green pastures I'm afraid


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    #91
    bleg
    Registered Users Posts: 5,848 ✭✭✭bleg


    UKIP and Sinn Fein in bed together.


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