Our economy being too centered around Dublin.

Nikki Sixx

(iii) If the cost of restaurants/ pubs/ rent transport is hammering people in Dublin - then why are restaurants jammed and queues out the door for apartments. Clearly enough plenty of people can afford it. If they couldnt, then rents would fall and restaurants would close.[/quote]

Will somebody in an ordinary job, let’s say a nurse in her 20’s from Dublin, be priced out of the market? She won’t be able to rent or buy her own place. Are we turning Dublin into San Francisco, where only the top techie people can afford to buy or rent?

gozunda

Tell me how wrote: »

We have enough evidence to show that companies will locate outside Dublin.
Cork has long been a strong location for pharma companies.
At least 3 of the top producers of replacement hip and knee joints have plants in the south west.
Galway has many med-tech multinationals, Sligo has a few.
Apple in Cork and formerly Dell in Limerick.

I have long felt that we are creating a bigger and bigger problem by allowing to grow dis-proportionally. We are heading for 35% of the population living within 1.3% of the land-space and many of these are living a poorer quality of life due to commuting times and housing prices.

Yes, companies will have a preference where they want to locate but they have only followed the narrative which we have created around Dublin being the only place to be in this country. We have been so busy trying to equate Dublin to London/Paris/New York that we are now caught in this circumstance.

Building a 2nd runway at Dublin while Cork and Shannon are vastly underutilised and people having to drive from beside these airports to get many flights is one thing the government could have but a stop to for the betterment of the wider country.
Every 'National' facility having to be located within eyesight of the spire is another.
The speed at which any discussion which thinks national policy should be in the interest of the wider country is called Dublin-bashing is a sign of how big a mess we are in as now, the number living in and very close by to Dublin is more than it can handle.

Small point. Dell is still on Limerick and employs well over a 1000 people there and in Cork.

Tombo2001

RayCun wrote: »

The model of rural population we had in Ireland was based on farm labour.

If you had a town of 1000 people, and 200 worked on farms, that was a base on which other local employment rested - shops and other local services. Plus people were less mobile, doing their weekly shopping in the village and going to bigger towns for special occasions.

If you want Ireland to go back to a larger proportion living in small towns, you have to reckon with the shrinking of the sector that provided most rural employment, and the fact that people will hop in a car to go to a supermarket in the next town for the weekly shop or to the medical centre so local shops and services are going to shrink too.

Thats exactly it.

Everyone would like thriving rural towns. Thats not in debate - no one is saying they want decrepit shell towns full of old people and boarded up shops.

Historically - the thriving rural town was based on a hinterland of hundreds of farmers, that created secondary employment through retail, dairies, other services.

That model is firmly broken now, has been in decline for a long time but it is most definitely broken now.

So the question is - what replaces it. Not 'the government must to something' - but what replaces it.......what is the economic model that allows rural towns to thrive?

And really - the fact is, that nobody has cracked this. Rural areas are in decline all over the world. Why did Trump get elected? Why did Brexit succeed....

Yurt2

Tombo2001 wrote: »

(i) Everyone knows that Belfast is propped up by government spending from the UK. Civil service is a massive employer there.
(ii) French unemployment is nearly double that of ireland, and wages are lower. With that in mind - why exactly should Paris not be cheaper than Dublin.
(iii) If the cost of restaurants/ pubs/ rent transport is hammering people in Dublin - then why are restaurants jammed and queues out the door for apartments. Clearly plenty of people can afford it. If they couldnt, then rents would fall and restaurants would close.

Paris is a major global city in the heart of Europe, and one of the most visited cities in the world. French unemployment is more of a regional problem, Paris is a core city of the EU with the commensurate concentration of extremely high wage occupations. I'm not arguing Belfast isn't a comparative backwater, I'm asking to question why despite that fact, Belfast residents enjoy superior purchasing power.


Things aren't all rosy in the restaurant game in Dublin- ask anyone who works in one about the overheads.


https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/food-and-drink/why-have-so-many-of-ireland-s-restaurants-been-closing-1.3168538?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Flife-and-style%2Ffood-and-drink%2Fwhy-have-so-many-of-ireland-s-restaurants-been-closing-1.3168538

Tombo2001

Yurt! wrote: »

Paris is a major global city in the heart of Europe, and one of the most visited cities in the world. French unemployment is more of a regional problem, Paris is a core city of the EU with the commensurate concentration of extremely high wage occupations. I'm not arguing Belfast isn't a comparative backwater, I'm asking to question why despite that fact, Belfast residents enjoy superior purchasing power.


Things aren't all rosy in the restaurant game in Dublin- ask anyone who works in one about the overheads.


https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/food-and-drink/why-have-so-many-of-ireland-s-restaurants-been-closing-1.3168538?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Flife-and-style%2Ffood-and-drink%2Fwhy-have-so-many-of-ireland-s-restaurants-been-closing-1.3168538

Rome also is a major Global city, and one of the most visited cities in the world, and not far from the heart of Europe....wherever that is.....but its prices are much lower than Paris or Dublin......its about economics.

To your point: with the commensurate concentration of extremely high wage occupations

Paris does not nearly have this to the same degree as Dublin.

But I would agree with your wider point. Dublin is overheating, Paris is not. Paris can absorb high paid jobs, and it doesnt move the dial to the same degree as Dublin because (i) it is bigger and (ii) it has a much deeper infrastructure of decent housing.

Harry Palmr

suicide_circus wrote: »

are there any international examples we could look at? any small countries which were centred around one city that successfully managed to reverse it or at least go some way to balancing it?

Finland - Helsinki 1.2m greater urban area 33% of GDP (Espoo 281k)
New Zealand - Auckland population 1.6m and 37% of GDP (Wellington 418k)
Denmark - Copenhagen about 2m in greater metropolitan area (Aarhus the second city has 200k)

All small developed countries (regardless of geographic size) seem to have the same problem but the above do have larger regional cities and consequently a small number of "towns" with a reasonable population. Ireland has a lot of towns which are in the 10k+ for it's size.

devlinio

Other counties always moan about all the jobs being up in Dublin, yet they're happy to spend the tax revenue that is generated in Dublin?

Can Dublin declare independence yet? I'm sick of having these money suckers being a drain on this great county*.

*Soon to be it's own sovereign country.

Yurt2

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Rome also is a major Global city, and one of the most visited cities in the world, and not far from the heart of Europe....wherever that is.....but its prices are much lower than Paris or Dublin......its about economics.

To your point: with the commensurate concentration of extremely high wage occupations

Paris does not nearly have this to the same degree as Dublin.

But I would agree with your wider point. Dublin is overheating, Paris is not. Paris can absorb high paid jobs, and it doesnt move the dial to the same degree as Dublin because (i) it is bigger and (ii) it has a much deeper infrastructure of decent housing.

Paris is ranked as an Alpha + global city, that being a city extremely important to the global economy, in the heart of Europe. Some of the world's biggest corporations are headquartered there.



Rome and Dublin are both two grades below that (in the same category as the likes of Bogota and Lisbon).

Ush1

Tell me how wrote: »

I think it is more to do with the societal implications rather than the simple mechanics of providing services.

There will always be some people living in areas other than Dublin, do we want sustainable vibrant communities here or decrepit towns and villages where people only come back to at the weekend if at all.

Because, if these communities, continue to dwindle then we will see less and less investment in them meaning they will continue on a downward spiral. So, do we just abandon large swathes of the country as being not worth maintaining?

Again, you might say so be it if everyone living or working in Dublin was enjoying a satisfactory standard of living but the evidence does not support this with many feeling that they have neither a quality of life or opportunity to change it.

That is because of slow and under-investment in Dublin, not in places outside Dublin.

Cina

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Rome also is a major Global city, and one of the most visited cities in the world, and not far from the heart of Europe....wherever that is.....but its prices are much lower than Paris or Dublin......its about economics.

To your point: with the commensurate concentration of extremely high wage occupations

Paris does not nearly have this to the same degree as Dublin.

But I would agree with your wider point. Dublin is overheating, Paris is not. Paris can absorb high paid jobs, and it doesnt move the dial to the same degree as Dublin because (i) it is bigger and (ii) it has a much deeper infrastructure of decent housing.

Milan would be a much better comparison to Dublin than Rome as it's the financial and commercial heart of Italy and contributes far more to their GDP. And it's just as expensive as Dublin is. Rome outside of tourism has very little going for it.

wakka12

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

A Midlands city was once touted to incorporate Mullingar, Tullamore and Athlone. I haven't heard it mentioned since the crash but would seem like a good idea. Benefits would be a huge amount of space meaning cheap housing etc. Also since the sea is not an issue there would be more scope for circular development.

How would that work? They are over 30km away from one another, Dublin for instance despite its massive sprawl/population ratio is only 15km from airport to dun laoghaire and 15km from the new docklands area to lucan

Tombo2001

Yurt! wrote: »

Paris is ranked as an Alpha + global city, that being a city extremely important to the global economy, in the heart of Europe. Some of the world's biggest corporations are headquartered there.



Rome and Dublin are both two grades below that (in the same category as the likes of Bogota and Lisbon).

I dont know where you get this grading stuff from, or why it matters.....

No city has a preordained right to be wealthy.

Paris is not in the top 20 cities in the world. It is roughly the same size has Bangalore and Bogota.

To your point on 'some of the world's biggest corporations'......what you mean is some of France's biggest corporations.......again, same can be said for Rome or Madrid.

I think you are talking about perception more than reality.

Again, its about economics.

Tell me how

Tombo2001 wrote: »

As I said, fantasy objectives - "there needs to be a long term strategy".....really, genius idea.

You obviously missed this for one.

Tell me how wrote: »

How about subsidising flights in to Shannon and Cork to create greater access or rebranding them/marketing them differently rather than spending 900M on a second runway in Dublin (a moot point now as they are separate entities).

How about tax breaks for companies to locate in a particular region.

How about locating national facilities, whether medical, or administration, or research in places other than Dublin.

How about investing in non-active public transport infrastructure (cycling lanes/bus lanes) to increase attractiveness of such modes of transport in large cities.

How about creating cultural grants for venues to entice more people to either visit the region or to stay there instead of having to travel there.

I'm not suggesting any of this is easy, sure fire or cheap but that it should be considered for areas other than just Dublin as currently seems to be dis proportionally the case.

Tombo2001

Cina wrote: »

Milan would be a much better comparison to Dublin than Rome as it's the financial and commercial heart of Italy and contributes far more to their GDP. And it's just as expensive as Dublin is. Rome outside of tourism has very little going for it.

Thats true, and its a good shout.

I was responding to the point - somewhat abstract in my view - that because Paris is a great global city at the heart of Europe with many visitors - therefore it should be more expensive than Dublin.

My point being that you can say the same about Rome as you can about Paris.

Tombo2001

Tell me how wrote: »

You obviously missed this for one.

Most if not all of that is in place already.

Plus - an awful lot of that is paying people to be somewhere.....thats not really sustainable. Cultural grants, tax breaks, subsidised flights!!? etc etc etc .....its like a kid that says if I give you all my sweets, will you play with me.......

The question should be - how does a rural economy become self funding - not, how much do we need to pump in from the outside to keep the rural economy alive.

Shefwedfan

IAMAMORON wrote: »

Did they specify how many cranes were on the northside and how many were on the southside ?

I bet ya anything there are more on the southside, they always get more than the northside. Bastards.

They can’t keep cranes on north side, the locals keep robbing bits off them

Yurt2

Tombo2001 wrote: »

I dont know where you get this grading stuff from, or why it matters.....

No city has a preordained right to be wealthy.

Paris is not in the top 20 cities in the world. It is roughly the same size has Bangalore and Bogota.

I think you are talking about perception more than reality.

Again, its about economics.

The Globalization an World Cities Research Network publishes a well known set of criteria each year. It's frequently referenced in the media. Paris is most certainly in the top 20 cities in the world in terms of economic importance.

To argue that Dublin is a city even approaching the economic importance of Paris is well... I'll leave it there

And I'm aware there are larger cities than Paris.

Shefwedfan

gozunda wrote: »

Small point. Dell is still on Limerick and employs well over a 1000 people there and in Cork.

The 1000 people in Cork and Limerick are high educated workers

The issue when they closed the pc making part was the majority of people you would hardly classify as high educated .

Rhys Essien

Netherlands is a great example of a well balanced country. Just take a look at the population of their top 7 cities.

Functional urban areas[189] Population
(2011)
Amsterdam 2,500,000
Rotterdam 1,419,000
The Hague 850,000
Utrecht 770,000
Eindhoven 695,000
Groningen 482,000
Enschede 402,000

Kermit.de.frog

Yurt! wrote: »

Rome and Dublin are both two grades below that (in the same category as the likes of Bogota and Lisbon).

Yes, but the reality is Dublin is an Alpha city (a fine achievement in itself) a good bit above Lisbon and Bogota in the Alpha - group and above the likes of San Francisco, Munich, Montreal and Stockholm in the same group.


Plenty of bigger cities below Dublin.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization_and_World_Cities_Research_Network

Tombo2001

Yurt! wrote: »

The Globalization an World Cities Research Network publishes a well known set of criteria each year. It's frequently referenced in the media. Paris is most certainly in the top 20 cities in the world in terms of economic importance.

To argue that Dublin is a city even approaching the economic importance of Paris is well... I'll leave it there

And I'm aware there are larger cities than Paris.

Strawman - I never said that.

I said that if wages are higher in Dublin, and unemployment is lower.....then prices will be higher.

Why is Oslo more expensive than Dublin? Even though its population is well smaller....

Because wages are higher there. Thats why.

And yes, Oslo is also more expensive than Paris and has been for a long time. And, no it is not a globally important city that achieves Grade A status on the referenced index.

saabsaab

Independent Dublin might be a great idea. The other regions could get EU support grants as areas of disadvantage and these could be distributed by regional government. Dublin is running out of water this could be supplied at a cost to Dublin, also power supply and food.

Yurt2

Tombo2001 wrote: »

I dont know where you get this grading stuff from, or why it matters.....



To your point on 'some of the world's biggest corporations'......what you mean is some of France's biggest corporations.......again, same can be said for Rome or Madrid.


Again, its about economics.

Forbes 500 largest corporations.

Paris: 26
Madrid: 6
Rome: 3
Dublin: 3 (2 of which are brass plate jobbies for tax purposes)

Right, like you said, economics.

http://fortune.com/global500/visualizations/?iid=recirc_g500landing-zone1

Yurt2

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Strawman - I never said that.

I said that if wages are higher in Dublin, and unemployment is lower.....then prices will be higher.

Why is Oslo more expensive than Dublin? Even though its population is well smaller....

Because wages are higher there. Thats why.

And yes, Oslo is also more expensive than Paris and has been for a long time. And, no it is not a globally important city that achieves Grade A status on the referenced index.

Sui generis example - Oil wealth.

gozunda

Shefwedfan wrote: »

The 1000 people in Cork and Limerick are high educated workers. The issue when they closed the pc making part was the majority of people you would hardly classify as high educated .

As a multinational like Apple - It was more that Dell is very much still in limerick and now also in Cork. For some reason the press seem to have the idea that they completely closed shop.

Afaik Dell also had an upskilling programme that brought employees from the factory floor into the business end. They still employ a wide variety of people with different skill bases as well plus employing people with qualifications.

Shefwedfan

Rhys Essien wrote: »

Netherlands is a great example of a well balanced country. Just take a look at the population of their top 7 cities.

Functional urban areas[189] Population
(2011)
Amsterdam 2,500,000
Rotterdam 1,419,000
The Hague 850,000
Utrecht 770,000
Eindhoven 695,000
Groningen 482,000
Enschede 402,000

They also have an incredible transport system around the whole country

Tombo2001

Yurt! wrote: »

Su generis example - Oil wealth.

Caracas/ Venezuela has more oil wealth than Norway.

Oslo is more expensive because wages are higher. Where those wages came from is incidental. With the same oil wealth and lower wages, Oslo would not be an expensive city.

I can make the equivalent case for Zurich or Geneva or Monaco, all of which are smaller than Dublin, more expensive than Dublin.

Everywhere is unique.

Tombo2001

Yurt! wrote: »

Forbes 500 largest corporations.

Paris: 26
Madrid: 6
Rome: 3
Dublin: 3 (2 of which are brass plate jobbies for tax purposes)

Right, like you said, economics.

http://fortune.com/global500/visualizations/?iid=recirc_g500landing-zone1

Point well made.

Tombo2001

Shefwedfan wrote: »

They also have an incredible transport system around the whole country

And
(i) they have a geography that allows that infrastructure to be linked.
(i) they have connectivity to Europe that allows economy of scale in building out that infrastructure
(ii) they have the largest port in the world, a heritage of industry that has facilitated build out of infrastructure over a long long period.

Bear in mind that railways were indeed built all over Ireland, but nobody was travelling on them. We have a massive legacy infrastructure of railway that nobody was using.

techdiver

rgodard80a wrote: »

There are an increasing number of companies setting up beyond the M50 but if they don't pay "Dublin wages" people will still commute past them to the centre.

This is a big one for me actually. As a commuter from the midlands I will commute to Dublin as the pay is far superior. What annoys me is IT companies in other regional cities/towns that don't/won't compete on wages with Dublin. I could shorten my commute by working in Athlone, but the pay is crap compared to Dublin.

Another thing is remote working/working from home. This should be an incentivised policy of government to ease congestion. There are countless people commuting into Dublin that do not need to be physically in the office 5 days a week. If more people were able to work from home, it could help the problem of congestion in a major way and have a trickle down effect to housing pressure as people might chose to live outside of Dublin as a lengthy commute might be more tolerable if it's only a couple of days a week as opposed to 5.

Cina

Shefwedfan wrote: »

They also have an incredible transport system around the whole country

Because they have 18m people in one of the world's most densely populated countries. The Netherlands is about the same size as Munster! It's much easier to build good transport infrastructure when you have such a big population in a small density. Same for countries like the UK, France, Italy, Germany etc.

It's a lot harder in Ireland. Tiny population and very sparsely populated. €3bn for a metro line is nothing to those countries, here it's a massive amount of money.

Tombo2001

techdiver wrote: »

This is a big one for me actually. As a commuter from the midlands I will commute to Dublin as the pay is far superior. What annoys me is IT companies in other regional cities/towns that don't/won't compete on wages with Dublin. I could shorten my commute by working in Athlone, but the pay is crap compared to Dublin.

Another thing is remote working/working from home. This should be an incentivised policy of government to ease congestion. There are countless people commuting into Dublin that do not need to be physically in the office 5 days a week. If more people were able to work from home, it could help the problem of congestion in a major way and have a trickle down effect to housing pressure as people might chose to live outside of Dublin as a lengthy commute might be more tolerable if it's only a couple of days a week as opposed to 5.

Thats trying to have your cake and eat it. You want the Dublin wages, and the country commute and lifestyle.

The primary reason for a company to create jobs in the country over Dublin is that the costs are lower. The biggest cost for a service company is salary.

You mightnt take a pay cut, but plenty of other people will.

Ultimately this comes down to the same thing. What do businesses want, when deciding where to locate. Its not what you want, or what the government wants. Because business pay wages.

For example - does a business in the midlands want to pay you a Dublin salary, or does it want to pay an equally skilled and experienced person to yourself at a wage that is 30% lower......if thats the choice, then what would you do as a business owner.

And I dont see anyone discussing that here.

When you start to look at it from that perspective, then it will be a lot clearer as to what is reasonable and what is not reasonable in terms of expectations.

John_Rambo

Unfortunately a lot of people refuse to live in cities, rural towns and villages. They all want their one off house turning the countryside in to some sort of monster housing estate that’s almost impossible to police and service. The result is swathes of people that have no connection with the actual land locked in to carbon and car dependent lifestyles and bypass the towns, villages and cities to drive to out of town shops.

Then they’re amazed when the Garda station closes down, shocked when the village post office and local butcher shuts. The towns and villages are dying, nobody wants to live or invest in them so people are going to Dublin to find work and the work goes to Dublin to find people.

Of course, the perception amongst this cohort is that this is all Dublin’s fault for some reason.

Poulgorm

Cina wrote: »

Because they have 18m people in one of the world's most densely populated countries. The Netherlands is about the same size as Munster! It's much easier to build good transport infrastructure when you have such a big population in a small density. Same for countries like the UK, France, Italy, Germany etc.

It's a lot harder in Ireland. Tiny population and very sparsely populated. €3bn for a metro line is nothing to those countries, here it's a massive amount of money.

It also helps that the Netherlands is flat and compact. No mountains to traverse.

techdiver

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Thats trying to have your cake and eat it. You want the Dublin wages, and the country commute and lifestyle.

The primary reason for a company to create jobs in the country over Dublin is that the costs are lower. The biggest cost for a service company is salary.

You mightnt take a pay cut, but plenty of other people will.

Ultimately this comes down to the same thing. What do businesses want, when deciding where to locate. Its not what you want, or what the government wants. Because business pay wages.

For example - does a business in the midlands want to pay you a Dublin salary, or does it want to pay an equally skilled and experienced person to yourself at a wage that is 30% lower......if thats the choice, then what would you do as a business owner.

And I dont see anyone discussing that here.

When you start to look at it from that perspective, then it will be a lot clearer as to what is reasonable and what is not reasonable in terms of expectations.

I think you are missing part of my point, or in fairness I may not have communicated it properly, but my point is that we have a situation whereby people are saying we need to "decentralize" away from Dublin. The counter to this argument is that companies will only setup where they can get the skilled staff they need, i.e. Dublin. So the catch 22 is that there "appears" to be a mismatch between the demand for staff and the availability in those areas to meet demand. My point (badly made as it was), is that I am actually quite sure that many of the people like myself that bypass those areas for Dublin due to salary, would in fact consider areas outside of Dublin is the salaries weren't so out of kilter with Dublin. I'm not saying parity, but at the moment is just too far a disparity.

Tombo2001

techdiver wrote: »

I think you are missing part of my point, or in fairness I may not have communicated it properly, but my point is that we have a situation whereby people are saying we need to "decentralize" away from Dublin. The counter to this argument is that companies will only setup where they can get the skilled staff they need, i.e. Dublin. So the catch 22 is that there "appears" to be a mismatch between the demand for staff and the availability in those areas to meet demand. My point (badly made as it was), is that I am actually quite sure that many of the people like myself that bypass those areas for Dublin due to salary, would in fact consider areas outside of Dublin is the salaries weren't so out of kilter with Dublin. I'm not saying parity, but at the moment is just too far a disparity.

If I could put this way.....

As things stand, with a wage disparity that is in your opinion 'out of kilter' in the Midlands.....i.e. far too low in the Midlands compared to Dublin...even knowing that wages are far lower in the midlands, we have have very few companies relocating from Dublin the midlands.....

How exactly would that situation improve if one increased wages in the Midlands.

Obviously for you it would be better. But you arent the one creating the job.

blanch152

Cina wrote: »

Because they have 18m people in one of the world's most densely populated countries. The Netherlands is about the same size as Munster! It's much easier to build good transport infrastructure when you have such a big population in a small density. Same for countries like the UK, France, Italy, Germany etc.

It's a lot harder in Ireland. Tiny population and very sparsely populated. €3bn for a metro line is nothing to those countries, here it's a massive amount of money.

We also waste our money.

The Rural Broadband Scheme is one example. Invest that €3 bn in Cork, Limerick and Galway rather than putting fibre into the ground up and down every hill in the country.

techdiver

Tombo2001 wrote: »

If I could put this way.....

As things stand, with a wage disparity that is in your opinion 'out of kilter' in the Midlands.....i.e. far too low in the Midlands compared to Dublin...even knowing that wages are far lower in the midlands, we have have very few companies relocating from Dublin the midlands.....

How exactly would that situation improve if one increased wages in the Midlands.

Obviously for you it would be better. But you arent the one creating the job.

But we are constantly told they won't locate due to lack of staff not cost. They can still save money by re-locating whilst still offering more attractive terms to potential employees.

Anyway, I don't see anything like this happening, which is why my second point from my original post (working from home etc) is the one which is easily implementable. For example, a company I used to work for had a decent sized 4 floor building in the city center. They changed policy at some time to embrace "remote" working. They implemented a hot desk system, whereby anyone who was not in the office more than 3 days per week was not assigned a physical desk, rather they needed to reserve a desk for the days they would be coming into the office. In essence there were less desks than staff members. The net result was they were able to let out 2 floors of the building at a saving of 5 million over 5 years.

GreeBo

Tell me how wrote: »

But, why couldn't people from Portlaoise or Mullingar be travelling 90 minutes to the West to work in the morning instead of 90 minutes to the east as they are doing now?

Because they wouldnt get very far in 90 minutes going West.

Tombo2001

techdiver wrote: »

But we are constantly told they won't locate due to lack of staff not cost. They can still save money by re-locating whilst still offering more attractive terms to potential employees.

Anyway, I don't see anything like this happening, which is why my second point from my original post (working from home etc) is the one which is easily implementable. For example, a company I used to work for had a decent sized 4 floor building in the city center. They changed policy at some time to embrace "remote" working. They implemented a hot desk system, whereby anyone who was not in the office more than 3 days per week was not assigned a physical desk, rather they needed to reserve a desk for the days they would be coming into the office. In essence there were less desks than staff members. The net result was they were able to let out 2 floors of the building at a saving of 5 million over 5 years.

Well then why arent they doing it?

Bearing in mind the principal of capitalism being thatbusinesses act in their own best interest.

OneEightSeven

blanch152 wrote: »

We also waste our money.

The Rural Broadband Scheme is one example. Invest that €3 bn in Cork, Limerick and Galway rather than putting fibre into the ground up and down every hill in the country.

Agreed. There's absolutely no economic benefit to rolling out fibre optic broadband to one-off houses in the countryside, the government is only doing it because they are a powerful voting bloc as they are older than urban dwellers and there's a lot of them, they make up about 36% to 42% of our population.

The thing is, Eir rolled out broadband to 350k rural homes and only 17% of the homes passed took up the offer. If we spend €3 billion on this and only 17% of homes passed took it up, it would be a catastrophe. The residents of Dublin and Cork should be protesting about this because it's their tax money the government are using to buy these votes from rural dwellers.

The lack of broadband in rural areas should be used as an incentive to encourage urbanisation and undo 40 years of poor settlement and housing planning under Finna Fail.

It would honestly be cheaper, in the long run, to use that €3 billion to CPO their bungalows and McMansions and build them new homes in nearby settlements because another technology will come along and one-off houses won't be able to receive it. We have this problem due to a lack of foresight and we refuse to learn from our mistakes.

Wanderer78

OneEightSeven wrote:

The lack of broadband in rural areas should be used as an incentive to encourage urbanisation and undo 40 years of poor settlement and housing planning under Finna Fail.

Hardly cause social issues, would it?

OEP

It is selfishness on their part to insist on living in the middle of nowhere, not close to anyone or anything, and then expect the government to fork out a load of money to supply them with infrastructure. Houses on the continent are clustered around towns and villages, with very little one off houses in the middle of nowhere.

hurler32

Fine Gael are only interested in Dublin , what did people expect?

James Brown

Fann Linn wrote: »

Leo is from Dublin

To be fair Leo doesn't like anything built near him. And Enda was from Mayo so....

hurler32 wrote: »

Fine Gael are only interested in Dublin , what did people expect?

I disagree. Dublin is where most things are. Unless we start relocating things for the sake of it. Didn't work out well last time.

Mind if everywhere had access to Broadband we could make serious efforts cheaply.

Del2005

OneEightSeven wrote: »

Agreed. There's absolutely no economic benefit to rolling out fibre optic broadband to one-off houses in the countryside, the government is only doing it because they are a powerful voting bloc as they are older than urban dwellers and there's a lot of them, they make up about 36% to 42% of our population.

The thing is, Eir rolled out broadband to 350k rural homes and only 17% of the homes passed took up the offer. If we spend €3 billion on this and only 17% of homes passed took it up, it would be a catastrophe. The residents of Dublin and Cork should be protesting about this because it's their tax money the government are using to buy these votes from rural dwellers.

The lack of broadband in rural areas should be used as an incentive to encourage urbanisation and undo 40 years of poor settlement and housing planning under Finna Fail.

It would honestly be cheaper, in the long run, to use that €3 billion to CPO their bungalows and McMansions and build them new homes in nearby settlements because another technology will come along and one-off houses won't be able to receive it. We have this problem due to a lack of foresight and we refuse to learn from our mistakes.

The UK was laughed at for giving a contract for 13 million for ferries to a company with no ships and we are about to hand over more than 1.3 billion to a company that never built anything after the companies that actually supply us with the fibre Internet pulled out.

The only way to save rural towns is for people to move into them, but instead rural residents want to live in a one off house outside the town. Yet they think that someone else will safe the town they abandoned.

There's zero tax breaks for a company to set up in the greater Dublin region while there are massive EU grants and tax breaks for companies to set up in nearly every other region. Yet companies are still picking Dublin. What Dublin needs is to be able to expand on the international scale, which means more investment in public transport and building higher density within the M50, and let the rest of Ireland spend the money that Dublin makes.

By not investing in Dublin the country is shooting itself in the foot.

Tell me how

GreeBo wrote: »

Because they wouldnt get very far in 90 minutes going West.

They'd get as far as Limerick (from Portlaoise) and Galway (from Mullingar), or how much further should they have to go?

mariaalice

Shefwedfan wrote: »

The 1000 people in Cork and Limerick are high educated workers

The issue when they closed the pc making part was the majority of people you would hardly classify as high educated .

I know the employees are highly educated but how many of the movers and shakers are located in Limerick, the globas strategists or the hight end legal and investment firms they use, how many of the real power brokers are long term living in Limerick.

road_high

techdiver wrote: »

This is a big one for me actually. As a commuter from the midlands I will commute to Dublin as the pay is far superior. What annoys me is IT companies in other regional cities/towns that don't/won't compete on wages with Dublin. I could shorten my commute by working in Athlone, but the pay is crap compared to Dublin.

Another thing is remote working/working from home. This should be an incentivised policy of government to ease congestion. There are countless people commuting into Dublin that do not need to be physically in the office 5 days a week. If more people were able to work from home, it could help the problem of congestion in a major way and have a trickle down effect to housing pressure as people might chose to live outside of Dublin as a lengthy commute might be more tolerable if it's only a couple of days a week as opposed to 5.

That is very true,. I know people around Kilkenny, Carlow and Wexford that commute to dublin for this very reason- the salaries and oppurtunities don't compare- the attidude in the Dublin satellites is "sure aren't ya so lucky to have a job locally..."
They actually could easily get a job locally but would be more at entry level rather any seniority etc.

OneEightSeven

OneEightSeven wrote: »

Agreed. There's absolutely no economic benefit to rolling out fibre optic broadband to one-off houses in the countryside, the government is only doing it because they are a powerful voting bloc as they are older than urban dwellers and there's a lot of them, they make up about 36% to 42% of our population.

The thing is, Eir rolled out broadband to 350k rural homes and only 17% of the homes passed took up the offer. If we spend €3 billion on this and only 17% of homes passed took it up, it would be a catastrophe. The residents of Dublin and Cork should be protesting about this because it's their tax money the government are using to buy these votes from rural dwellers.

The lack of broadband in rural areas should be used as an incentive to encourage urbanisation and undo 40 years of poor settlement and housing planning under Finna Fail.

It would honestly be cheaper, in the long run, to use that €3 billion to CPO their bungalows and McMansions and build them new homes in nearby settlements because another technology will come along and one-off houses won't be able to receive it. We have this problem due to a lack of foresight and we refuse to learn from our mistakes.

I think it was Norway who found that connecting rural areas with high speed internet actually increased urban migration. When young people were exposed to the more glamorous city lifestyle and the education opportunities, they wanted to move to the bright lights.