Sick of this country

Whatever about anything else, Boston roads were designed by someone having a nervous breakdown who wanted to watch the world burn.

It’s a poor country. Look at the decades it takes to build and implement capital projects… Metro, Children’s hospital, roads and other transport infrastructure…

eventually when they are built, they will have to serve a population way over the predicted population that they were ever designed and planned for.

But I'm not talking about specific policies.

I'm talking about now people perceive those policies, and what people complain about.

You go to Australia and you will find plenty of the population complaining about how much the government spend on indigenous people and indigenous communities and how all they do is sit around drinking all day and never working a day in their lives.

Sound familiar?

And plenty here who think the grass is always greener would not be long joining them in their complaining.

It's far from third world.

But it's also been going backwards over the last ten years or so from the eyes of this long term emigrant returnee.

Most services I have experienced or encountered since coming back have gotten worse, health, policing and schooling in particular. Significantly worse, in your face worse. I saw both my parents and my SO struggling very badly to get timely medical treatment. That's hard to see. And it was never that bad before. At least you could see a GP when you wanted. Finding school places is a nightmare. Thinking of paying the money and going private just because it's so difficult. Don't need childcare but I heard it's brutal aswell.

Public transport, trains the same, buses much better, luas ok. But otherwise decades behind in terms of things like metros , fast intercity trains etc.

A lot of the capital looks grotty, the train stations, the main thoroughfares and much of the suburbs. Should be much better given the amount of money being spun out of the place. It's an absolute disgrace how our capital city is treated by the national government.

What has improved immensely are many of the country towns, which have improved road networks, repainted houses, and fully populated. The countryside dotted with rich dairy farmers, second homes and retirees from the cities. But now stretched again by the wave of refugees.

The cost of living is insanely high in Ireland if you come back from anywhere 'reasonable'. I mean easily 2x many other developed countries.

Taxes are through the roof in Ireland as well with the government eating more than 50% of every Euro circulating in taxes and fees . Most of the cost of living is actually due to high government taxes (hence the 2x cost of living mentioned above), but ask Joe Soap and they don't seem to know/care and mutter something about 'taking care of the homeless'. Guess what, they are taking 50% of your take home of middle earners and up but they ain't taking care of much.

It's likely we will be leaving again, facing big challenges with housing and schooling and the health service here, hope to keep a holiday/retirement home here or strike it rich, keep dreaming (that is if the government doesn't take that out of existence also). For one year overseas on the same salary I can save 2-3x compared to what I save in Ireland, plus very low capital gains tax so maybe that's the wisest choice. Retire at 57 rather than 67 sort of deal.

P.S. For all the foks talking about Australia try coming back to Ireland from the large parts of the world that aren't California, NYC or Sydney etc i.e. you are used to just living in an average cost of living place. Jeez it's fecking hard to adjust.

P.P.S Those who claim Ireland is a 'rich' country. The government pulls in a shedload of taxes. They spend billions on foreign aid programmes and housing and giving welfare to refugees. But we don't have any decent trains or metro. It's hard to describe how outdated, shoddy and **** looking the DART and the diesel commuter trains in Ireland are compared to many countries, Creaking, polluting, noisy, Breakdown often.

I lived in a country that many Irish would think is developing yet it has high speed trains, metros in many cities, unbelievable fast internet and mobile across the whole country, shopping malls that make Dundrum look like your local 7-11, well funded national parks, excellent health service. Also the disposable income of many Irish doesn't seem that high. Not so many luxury cars or nice new cars about.

But yeah you will get Irish thinking Ireland is somehow more advanced and richer than countries that can design and make nuclear power plants or semiconductors or high speed trains or their own jets and ships . Ireland is not richer. It doesn't even have jet fighters for **** sake. It barely keeps a few navy boats in operation. It doesn't feel richer. Irish people worry a lot about their daily and monthly spending on things like heating and fuel, which isn't so much of a concern in a lot of the world (this is an issue across Europe in particular of course). If it's so rich they would driving or heating their houses with little concern. The amount of debt per person is actually very high in Ireland and that is obviously constraining or at least worrying the finance mandarins in government so they seem reluctant or unable to invest in big ticket infrastructure projects over the long-term.

Would it be the case that you were highly paid relative to locals wherever you were living? How would it be to live there on an average of below average salary? It might also be the case that in Ireland you are paid in and around average. I find in a lot of these comparisons, you have someone say working as an English teacher in China (before Xi kicked them out) making a decent wage relative to the locals, when they come back home they aren't highly paid anymore. It is always easy to get along in a country if you are in the upper tier of earners. Of course this might not apply to you, but if you are talking about a country that we would consider "poor", then I am assuming you weren't paid normal unskilled local wages.

There are very few TDs or pol parties that want to reduce taxes in Ireland.

Lobby groups want ever more regulation, more taxes, more State interventions.

More State intervention is seen as the solution, not the problem.

I dont ascribe to everywhere is the same it's just a different bag of shite. Some simply have more shite than others.

That said I agree there are some aspects in Ireland that are very good such as acceptance of immigrants. General warnth of people. Too good in a way as the place is absolutely jammed now :).

The towns and smaller cities are more charming and have improved over last 15 years.

What's most disappointing is how they , the gubberment, made of gombeen political parties , waste the vast tax revenue they collect and how workers get screwed with almost nothing back in return. And it doesn't seem to ever change.

Ireland has many advantages in terms of its climate, the geopolitical location, the fertile land and the GDP and foreign investment it should be doing better these days. It's disapponting more than anything when you look at the state of Dublin. It really pisses me off how badly it is managed in particular. The transport network often depending on 150 year old rail lines and stations....since the British left over a 100 years ago they did a very shoddy job.

Well I wasn't talking about necessarily poor people as such. My point was that if you find yourself in the higher end of the income bracket, it is easy to live anywhere. That is why I was suggesting that when you moved back to Ireland the salary you were earning was just normal, so you were dealing with the problems that the average person has and you didn't have to deal with that in the Asian country. In Ireland, I wouldn't really have to think about the cost of things, housing etc and certainly not something that is such a small cost as petrol or diesel. In Singapore (not sure if were living there), you have to pay a big chunk (80k) to get a "Certificate of Entitlement" to buy a car.

Have a look at this table and graph from Social Justice Ireland and see how the effective tax rates have plummeted since the turn of the century.

And if you don't want to believe them, do your own calculations.

To be fair you are correct.

There were cuts in effective income tax rates during the Celtic Tiger, yes.

However, I tend to focus on the entry point to the 48.5% rate being crazy low.

In 1996 the tax rates were 27% and 48% for the standard and higher rates respectively.

The standard rate for a single person was up to IR£9,400.

That IR£9,400 converts to €11,844 which adjusted for inflation is €20,152.

Currently the tax rates are 20% and 40% and the standard rate is up to €40,000.

So not only are the rates 17% to 25% or so lower than they were, the point where one enters the higher rate is almost double.

But government, NGOs etc etc.

Sources

Inflation calculator

1996 tax rates

I'll check the PRSI rates later.

I left Ireland in 1996 because like the OP I was "sick of this country"

But when I returned 6 years later I was happy to see the changes.