Ireland 2040 plan "will kill rural Ireland"

cgcsb

Idbatterim wrote: »

I was reading earlier about the government lropoding changes to planning. To stop big projects being held up in the courts for years. I agree with this for the vast majority of things like housing, infrastructure etc. But data centres are one , where I'm not actually sure if we should be building them. Ireland for a start is exceeding our pollution limits and will be open to large fines in the not too distant future. Massive power usage. Virtually no jobs after construction...

I could see an argument for them if they
a) provided a % of their own electricity onsite, e.g. via roof solar panels and
b) contributed their waste heat to a secondary use e.g. district heating for the nearest village or say a greenhouse for exotic plants and veg as a sort of local amenity. They do this in their Danish and Swedish centres as part of their planning requirements so they should be required to do likewise here.

zetalambda

The Data Center being built in Cork will be built in 3 phases so it will support a couple of hundred construction jobs for several years. Power supply isn't an issue in Cork at the moment and probably won't be for many decades to come as currently, there is around 1.6 GW of dispatchable power from stations in Cork (the whole of Connacht generates about 0.4 GW). Cork is directly linked to the Hibernia Express (lowest latency between EU and US), Hibernia Atlantic and AquaComs transatlantic cables and will shortly be connected to the Ireland France Subsea Cable (first cable to directly link Ireland to mainland Europe).

cgcsb

zetalambda wrote: »

The Data Center being built in Cork will be built in 3 phases so it will support a couple of hundred construction jobs for several years. Power supply isn't an issue in Cork at the moment and probably won't be for many decades to come as currently, there is around 1.6 GW of dispatchable power from stations in Cork (the whole of Connacht generates about 0.4 GW). Cork is directly linked to the Hibernia Express (lowest latency between EU and US), Hibernia Atlantic and AquaComs transatlantic cables and will shortly be connected to the Ireland France Subsea Cable (first cable to directly link Ireland to mainland Europe).

We have a national grid though and we don't know where we're getting the electricity to supply normal demand 15 years from now.

nuac

Malayalam wrote: »

Go anywhere in rural Ireland and you will find the old stones of cottages that littered the landscape, one off dwellings outside of villages. In my area there would be multiples of these old places compared to the amount of houses here now, the place used to thrive. With one off housing!! It's not like we have not been doing that for millenia - we have. Sure, there were also villages and big towns, but people have also always liked to live in isolated landscapes. I sure do. Cities and towns give me feelings of distress, I could not bear to return. If me and my neighbours did not live here, no one would ever cast an eye on these beautiful hills and lakes and fields - no tour buses would fit up the roads for people to gawk at the empty landscape - and the land would truly wither, unseen. Now at least there are still voices carried on the wind, children playing, people calling for lost animals. The vitriol here is kind of surprising against country dwellers. I don't want your lights, libraries, amenities, trains. Never asked for them, though my tax is the same. I look after my own water and sewage and travel a couple of miles to meet the rubbish collection system. I don't care. It is more than made up for with the peace. I do loads of business in the local villages, buy fuel there, coal, sticks, use the post office regularly, buy milk and bread and whatever. As for the talk of the petrol we bumpkins use, for goodness sake, it's microscopic compared to the fuel being burned morning, noon and night on the main arteries (congested and awful) heading inexorably towards Dublin, squeezing in the hassled hoards who have to waste hours every day in their cars.
I may however be among the last generation to be able to live in the country side, by the looks of things. By the sound of people on here. It's as if we are outcasts, renegades, the blight on yer immaculate plan.
Feck yiz, I'm holing up here!!

Agree with most of that. Have lived, worked and helped to rear family in a small town, spent summer holidays near mountains and beaches. In West Mayo there was always scattered rural housing. People lived on their small holdings to look after their stock and crops. Most were raised to be industrious and self sufficient. Not the sort to march for free water. Many of the "one-offs" are owned by descendants of those smallholders.

Spent some time in Dublin as a student. Could walk or cycle thru' every part of it. Nowadays unsafe to go into many areas.

I know many who have come back to the West from Dublin.
I hope that trend will continue

nuac

nuac wrote: »

Spent some time in Dublin as a student. Could walk or cycle thru' every part of it. Nowadays unsafe to go into many areas.

Which areas exactly?

bk

nuac wrote: »

Dublin Port is also improving berthage to cater for cruise liners. These prefer to berth near major shopping areas

Actually that is a great point. You could certainly keep the cruise ships in Dublin Port and integrate them into an overall redevelopment of the port.

In most recent cases where ports were moved out of European cities, they have kept the cruise ships in the city as part of the regeneration. Build nice big hotels right next to the cruise and ferry port.

Makes loads of sense, where would you think tourists would like to arrive in. An ugly industrial port like they do now. Or a lovely modern redeveloped area, with attractive riverside walks and big hotels, offices and apartment buildings behind them, etc.

The cruise/ferry ships aren't the issue in Dublin Port. It is the massive amounts of space that is wasted simply storing cars and other merchandise that has come off ships. It is a very inefficient use of valuable land close to the city.

CHealy wrote: »

This is far from the truth, Cork has top tier employers all over the city and county, both Pharmaceutical (Phizers, Johnson Johnson, GSK etc) and tech (Apple, Amazon, Facebook, VMware, Dell EMC, etc). Im not sure about Limerick but Cork as a region can more than hold its own without Dublin.

Ah yes, I've talked about this before in other posts. I've previously talked about how the other cities of Ireland need to find a niche for themselves away from what Dublin does, rather then trying to compete directly with Dublin for the same jobs.

Cork doing Pharma is a brilliant example of this and very much well done to them for it. We need more of that type of thinking and the other cities need to find their own niches.

BTW the Pharma industry down in Cork is a great example of the network effect. They all bunch down their together because the whole area attracts people with pharma degrees (plus UCC pushes it big time) and that makes it easier to attract talent between companies.

Dublin has the same network effect for IT and Business Services.

Apple and Dell started out in Cork/Limerick for historic reasons. They made computers at the time and Ireland was seen as a very low cost location in the 70's/80's. These companies didn't require skilled workers, they just needed someone to stand at a factory line all day screwing a motherboard into a case every 30 seconds.

Of course that is all gone now. We are no longer a low cost manufacturing location and all that sort of manufacturing is now done much cheaper in Asia.

Luckily the management at Apple in Cork were pretty great people and as the company grew and became rich, they cleverly moved away from manufacturing and into admin and support tasks. Well done to them.

Same with Dell and EMC (VMware is just an off shot of them), they all started out as manufacturers, who fortunately have now stayed their and transformed as their companies have.

markodaly wrote: »

Facebook is employing people in Cork now.

Facebook opening up in Cork is a great example of Cork benefiting from Facebooks massive presence in Dublin. Cork/Limerick, etc. are gaining from Dublin being such an IT power house and these companies looking to expand as a result.

If Facebook wasn't in Dublin, with local Irish management looking to push for expansion, then it would have been much harder for Cork to attract these offices.

This is another example of a network effect and how a rising tide can raise all boats.

Idbatterim wrote: »

What about 5g that is launching in 2020. Could that not be used in rural areas instead of fixed line broadband?

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/vodafone-ireland-promises-5g-rollout-within-24-months-1.3383332?mode=amp

NO wireless is never a replacement for a good quality wired connection. Actually 5G is more about improving capacity in highly urban areas then anything else. The main attraction of 5G is being able to use high radio frequencies, which offer more bandwidth. Unfortunately higher frequencies travel very short distances, so you need a lot more masts.

If anything this is another example of why we need urban areas with higher population densities.

bk

Topgear on Dave wrote: »

Which areas exactly?

What a load of rubbish!!!

My OH use to walk home after work at 3am in the morning through Parnell Street area every night!! A girl on her own. Not a problem :rolleyes:

osarusan

bk wrote: »

What a load of rubbish!!!

My OH use to walk home after work at 3am in the morning through Parnell Street area every night!! A girl on her own. Not a problem :rolleyes:

Well if that's the case for her, it must be the case for everybody, sure.

bk

osarusan wrote: »

Well if that's the case for her, it must be the case for everybody, sure.

Dublin has internationally very low crime stats.

Just avoid the pubs at closing time in Ireland and you will be fine.

wakka12

Topgear on Dave wrote: »

Which areas exactly?

If they think most of dublin is unsafe to walk through I assume they have never left the country before

zetalambda

bk wrote: »

Facebook opening up in Cork is a great example of Cork benefiting from Facebooks massive presence in Dublin. Cork/Limerick, etc. are gaining from Dublin being such an IT power house and these companies looking to expand as a result.

If Facebook wasn't in Dublin, with local Irish management looking to push for expansion, then it would have been much harder for Cork to attract these offices.

This is another example of a network effect and how a rising tide can raise all boats.

That's not exactly what happened. Facebook made an acquisition of a Cork company called InfiniLED which develops LED technology for VR devices (Facebook also owns Oculus VR). For obvious reasons they opened the new office in Cork as opposed to anywhere else and they're currently expanding and it's all high spec jobs in research, development and engineering.

bk wrote: »

Dublin has internationally very low crime stats.

Just avoid the pubs at closing time in Ireland and you will be fine.

That's very true. I lived in two Canadian cities with the same population as Dublin and the murder rate was three times higher and that's even taking into consideration the Hutch and Kinahan body count!

questionmark?

Idbatterim wrote: »

Apple and dell are very long in the game. Not one big company of note to the best of my knowledge, has a centre in cork opened within recent years ...

Eli Lilly are investing €200 million in their Kinsale site plus they are building a second office at a cost of €10 million in Little island beside their current office with room for another circa 500 employees. They already employ nearly a 1000 people in their current sites. Quick Google gave that info! Plenty of more job announcements to be found online.

marno21

questionmark? wrote: »

Eli Lilly are investing €200 million in their Kinsale site plus they are building a second office at a cost of €10 million in Little island beside their current office with room for another circa 500 employees. They already employ nearly a 1000 people in their current sites. Quick Google gave that info! Plenty of more job announcements to be found online.

Spot on, ties in with bk's point above about the success of the pharmaceutical industry in Cork. A region can become a massive base for a certain type of industry if it can achieve a critical mass of employees. Dublin may have tech/software/financial services but other regions can become successful with different types of industry.

zetalambda

markodaly wrote: »

Yes and No. Dublin has many of the new tech companies, the Googles and Facebook. It seems for IT startups and the like Dublin is the place to be for the majority of them

Along with Apple you have EMC, VMware, Dell in Cork, and they have a massive foot print down there. Facebook is employing people in Cork now.

Also, you are forgetting about pharma. Cork is the capital of Irish pharma.
It is not as black and white as you make it out.

Cork is emerging as an international tech hub and experiencing a surge in the number of foreign professionals moving to the city. That's according to the below study carried out by IDA Ireland, Collins McNicholas, Cork city council and Cork chamber anyway!

https://www.collinsmcnicholas.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Collins-Cork-Tech-Talent-Relocation-Survey-FINAL.pdf

"Cork currently has the highest level of job creation
in the country."

"The city and surrounding area has a strong cluster
of over 150 international companies employing
close to 34,000 people with impressive clusters in
life sciences, technology, global business services
and emerging areas such as international financial
services and cybersecurity"

"Over the last seven years, Cork has seen consistent
growth in the numbers gaining employment across
international companies – an increase of 11,500
people since 2009."

"There is a total of 61 overseas tech companies
based in Cork and the numbers are continuing
to grow. There are currently 7 of the world’s
top 10 biopharma companies with operations
in the county"

"In the ICT sector, large multinationals such
as Apple, Dell EMC, and VMware have growing
operations and the fast-moving cybersecurity
cluster is also growing with the likes of AlienVault,
FireEye, and Trend Micro. "

markodaly

Idbatterim wrote: »

Apple and dell are very long in the game. Not one big company of note to the best of my knowledge, has a centre in cork opened within recent years ...

You would be wrong there. This year will see the biggest inward investment for Pharma construction projects on record.

markodaly

bk wrote: »

Same with Dell and EMC (VMware is just an off shot of them), they all started out as manufacturers

VMware based themselves in Cork as a start up, long before EMC bought them up. Now of course they are all part of Dell Inc.

There were IT startups in Cork, even now they are attracting them. Dublin does not get 100% of this market. Limerick is doing well with this market lately.

snotboogie

markodaly wrote: »

You would be wrong there. This year will see the biggest inward investment for Pharma construction projects on record.

Apart from the Eli Lilly expansion, what other pharma construction is there this year?

marno21

snotboogie wrote: »

Apart from the Eli Lilly expansion, what other pharma construction is there this year?

Someone local can possibly update on the status of this: https://www.rte.ie/news/2016/0919/817474-ge-healthcare-cork/

Janssen have also applied for permission for an expansion.

The main route to Ringaskiddy, the N28, which is a glorified track, is a major stumbling block to further expansion in the area.

snotboogie

snotboogie wrote: »

Apart from the Eli Lilly expansion, what other pharma construction is there this year?

Alexion in Athlone have been constructing a new building and expanding an existing one over the past 12 months.

rustynutz

snotboogie wrote: »

Apart from the Eli Lilly expansion, what other pharma construction is there this year?

I work for a construction company and we have multimillion euro projects in Lilly, Janssen, MSD Brinny and Dupui either started, or starting this year. And they are just the projects we won.

Cork has a thriving pharma manufacturing industry.

hans aus dtschl

Right, so now maybe we've cleared up the argument that "Multinationals only want to be in Dublin" can we also begin to agree that the other cities desperately need some very basic infrastructure?

There's no question that Dublin suffers congestion and needs better public transport infrastructure, but the idea that there's only one show in town is not correct.

There's a need for more than one airport, port, and population centre in the country to try to counterbalance Dublin. Reports have told us that the Galway-Limerick-Cork axis is the best hope.

This isn't a "one for everyone in the audience" approach, more a case of "learn from the mistakes made in the UK", who are currently fighting a long-term battle to build a "northern powerhouse".

zetalambda

bk wrote: »

Ah yes, I've talked about this before in other posts. I've previously talked about how the other cities of Ireland need to find a niche for themselves away from what Dublin does, rather then trying to compete directly with Dublin for the same jobs.

Cork doing Pharma is a brilliant example of this and very much well done to them for it. We need more of that type of thinking and the other cities need to find their own niches.

I'm not sure i'd call the Pharmaceutical industry in Cork niche. More like a monopoly!
Currently, 7 of the 10 largest Biopharma companies are located there and 8 of the global top 10 blockbuster drugs (drugs that sell over $1 billion each year) are made in Cork.

bk

zetalambda wrote: »

I'm not sure i'd call the Pharmaceutical industry in Cork niche. More like a monopoly!
Currently, 7 of the 10 largest Biopharma companies are located there and 8 of the global top 10 blockbuster drugs (drugs that sell over $1 billion each year) are made in Cork.

"Niche" is probably the wrong word for it. Perhaps a better description is each city needs to find it's own area of "expertise" and focus on this industry and create a network effect around that industry.

Pharma for Cork, IT and Business Services for Dublin, etc.

Getting a critical mass of similar and related industries in one city and then other companies from the same industry follow. This is not at all unique to Ireland, watch the youtube video posted earlier that explains it very well.

Entertainment industry in LA, IT in SF/Silicon Valley, financial and media in New York, Bio Sciences in Boston, etc., etc.

Sam Russell

Mod: This thread is about the 2040 plan for capital spending on infrastructure - and how it will disadvantage rural Ireland. Off topic posts will be deleted.

bk

bk wrote: »

"Niche" is probably the wrong word for it. Perhaps a better description is each city needs to find it's own area of "expertise" and focus on this industry and create a network effect around that industry.

Pharma for Cork, IT and Business Services for Dublin, etc.

Getting a critical mass of similar and related industries in one city and then other companies from the same industry follow. This is not at all unique to Ireland, watch the youtube video posted earlier that explains it very well.

Entertainment industry in LA, IT in SF/Silicon Valley, financial and media in New York, Bio Sciences in Boston, etc., etc.

Clusters is the term used I believe.

Galway, for its part, holds the med device cluster with eight of the world's 10 largest medical device companies employing around 10k people. These have resulted in 50 or more local startups.

Most of the mnc's are in the process of, or have recently expanded operations. One example, Boston Scientific just bought the old APC plant which nearly doubles the size of their footprint and will lead to many more jobs

John_Rambo

Sam Russell wrote: »

Mod: This thread is about the 2040 plan for capital spending on infrastructure - and how it will disadvantage rural Ireland. Off topic posts will be deleted.

`
Thanks Sam, far to much petty hate on the thread.

Limerick's the obvious counter balance to Dublin. Room to expand North, South, East and West both sides of the river. It's got the river, It's an attractive city, buckets of potential and room with significant hard working townlands around it in Tip, Clare, North Kerry and North Cork. If a significant amount of Dublin's subsidies were to go straight to Dublin and Limerick instead of elsewhere to build up (and out in Limerick's case), develop infrastructure and good public transport we'd have a better working capital and a super attractive second city that would enrich the West and ease pressure in the East.

With the current political structure it won't happen though. Unfortunately the Healy Rae charecters of every other county will put a determined effort to stop the countries improvement (rural and urban) for their own selfish needs.

marno21

RTE Radio 1 discussion on this plan, 6th of February. Discussion is in the 2nd half of the file.

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/the-late-debate/podcasts/

Sam Russell

John_Rambo wrote: »

`

Limerick's the obvious counter balance to Dublin. Room to expand North, South, East and West both sides of the river. It's got the river, It's an attractive city, buckets of potential and room with significant hard working townlands around it in Tip, Clare, North Kerry and North Cork. If a significant amount of Dublin's subsidies were to go straight to Dublin and Limerick instead of elsewhere to build up (and out in Limerick's case), develop infrastructure and good public transport we'd have a better working capital and a super attractive second city that would enrich the West and ease pressure in the East.

With the current political structure it won't happen though. Unfortunately the Healy Rae charecters of every other county will put a determined effort to stop the countries improvement (rural and urban) for their own selfish needs.

I would have thought that Cork - Limerick axis would be the counter balance. There are two international airports, a soon to be built motorway, plenty of space, two universities plus other further education facilities.

But do not forget the motorway - that is needed now!

Del.Monte

Sam Russell wrote: »

I would have thought that Cork - Limerick axis would be the counter balance. There are two international airports, a soon to be built motorway, plenty of space, two universities plus other further education facilities.

But do not forget the motorway - that is needed now!

The reopening of the Cork/Limerick direct rail route would be more worthwhile in the light of Ireland's struggle to meet its emission targets.

bk

Del.Monte wrote: »

The reopening of the Cork/Limerick direct rail route would be more worthwhile in the light of Ireland's struggle to meet its emission targets.

Such a route would do nothing to remove the majority of motorists who are commuting into Cork City from North Cork. It would just be another idiotic WRC.

We need the M20 and we need it now.

If you care about the environment, then there are much more impaction things you can do right now, for instance immediately shut down the idiotic peat burning stations. Their power isn't needed, they are only kept open for political reasons.