What is the biggest issues/concerns facing Ireland today?

Business corporations/Banks/Vulture funds thinking and also doing what they want and literally laughing at the Irish People while they do it.

RTE did it today at the PAC but some greasy international corporation is doing it every day of the week anyways, so why not?

Who is going to sort it out?

Nobody

<snip> - do not comment about moderation in thread

Anyway on the topic; I'm gonna have to go with Housing/Homelessness: for me if someone has a place to call home they can fix all of their other problems a hell of a lot easier. So, yeah I'd say that's the main issue in the country at the moment.

With that out of the way we could focus heavily on more pressing issues such as inflation and healthcare. I do think all three of these are close in importance so there wouldn't be much between them but Housing/Homelessness just about pips the other two.

Healthcare

I saw a photo/scan this evening of a young girls spine with scoliosis. It realy should have been treated 5 years ago but here we are now and the young girl is in pain.

The staff are there, the facilites are there and I know this as some medical professionals work extra shifts to do these procedures if public can fund it. I believe they do the procedure at night or during their free time anyway and also a lower cost to the State. But with the billions the HSE have this cannot be done it seems.

The biggest issues facing this country is housing and healthcare.

That's because it impacts all citizens of the state in their day to day life.

Of course on a forum like this "immigration" is the issue, driven by media and poor politicians who scapegoat immigrants for the country' s other problems when the reality is that immigration is required, enriches a country's cultural fabric and has very little impact on current Irish people's s day to day life.

Other. The main issues facing us are ones we can't address as an individual nation: climate change and global capitalism.

Sure, we can implement laws and modify our taxation system in order to properly fund public services but doing so risks killing the golden goose of FDI.

Most of the western world needs a socialist overhaul to undo the increasing centralisation of wealth we've been seeing since the 80's. It won't be universally popular and with most of the media being owned by those the status quo benefits will be very difficult to change without going down the road of revolution but when Forbes estimates that there are 2,640 billionaires in a world where the World Bank estimates over 9% of the global population lives in poverty, it's going to happen one way or the other.

Perhaps Climate Change will force the issue. As more of the world becomes uninhabitable and climate disasters increase, we'll see increased migration, lots of unrest and the sight of cretins like the Kardashians, the Trumps or the Russian Oligarchs swanning around in their private jets may eventually start to foment the anger it deserves rather than the delusional aspiration so many of the population currently seem to feel towards them.

Immigration in my opinion, especially at the level its risen to in the past decade or so.

I read earlier that Muhammed was the most popular boys baby name in Galway last year. Bit mental that.

A thread like this with Immigration as one of the voting options but not Climate Change says it all really.

I would say healthcare

But when two of our richest men are preparing for a cage fight against each other, you'd wonder where the money is being focused.

Ahh it doesn’t, that’s what the ‘Other’ option is for, so anyone who wishes to can offer an opinion from their own perspective. Climate change wouldn’t be on my radar either at all, Education and Employment should be top of the agenda IMO, but in national exit polls in 2020, climate change, education and employment just weren’t top priorities for most people in the way they voted -

https://www.rte.ie/news/election-2020/2020/0209/1114111-election-exit-poll/

Lets say tomorrow the entire world buys into this climate nonsense.

China/Russia/Brazil/USA all decide to go zero emissions. How much can we expect the climate to change in 5/10/15/20/50 years? What will the earth cool by?

#1 issue must be sustainability. Whether you actually believe that the climate is affected by mankind or otherwise, there are clear socioeconomic and political reasons beyond just 'saving the planet' as to why clean renewable energy (and an element of national self-sufficiency in generating it) should be at the top of all agendas. The war in Ukraine and Russia's energy leverage over Europe is one recent lesson on the importance of this, but we are facing into decades now where it is likely that changing climate conditions will either prompt people to up sticks or indeed forcibly displace them. So even if you are someone who thinks immigration is the #1 issue, this is a root issue which will cause emigration from increasingly dry or increasingly flooded areas etc.

I think the #2 issue is late stage capitalism. While capitalism has had its successes in both the cultivation of better living standards and social progress, it has created its own cycles that are hard to break from. Those who have done well from it have pulled ladders up from all but their own families, leaving others locked out. The capitalist narrative of "I worked for everything I have" has blurred the acknowledgement of privilege and has fed a view that those who are not well-off are simply lazy ne'er-do-wells. The fact that immigrants are often slotting into the "lower" position of the economic pyramid has also blurred the fact that this is an issue of class, not race or culture. Left unchecked and unaddressed, this will fester into hatred.

Since you didn't even pretend to ask that question in good faith I'm not going to give you the courtesy of a response.

Good one. No one knows. You want trillions spent on some pie in the sky fantasy, that you have no idea will work or not. Same as the scientists who were asked the same in the US Senate by Ted Cruz as far as I can remember. They also refused to answer, as they also had no idea and no answers either.

The degeneration of society. Lower social standards. People cry about social conservatism but a bit of structure keeps society together. I'm not saying bring back Archbishop McQuaid but if it continues to diminish we'll end up with a failed society like San Francisco or LA.

Last week had the 7 hottest recorded days on the planet.

New York, Netherlands, Mexico, India, Spain, England all had massively impactful events because of the changing climate in the last week.

It's playing out pretty much exactly as the scientists have said it would.

And all the people who complain about immigrants taking over while simultaneously saying there's a disproportionally high number of mixed couples on TV, are going to spend the rest of their lives watching refugee crises after refugee crises as people in poorer countries suffer first the consequences of the changing climate. These clowns literally undermine the presence of what will be the biggest driver of human movement in our lifetimes.

And Seattle.

There's a Facebook page

" Seattle looks like $hit "

Global warming is an absolute non issue because the much bigger issue of depopulation (population of Europe and much of Asia are below replacement levels). The next generation will pollute less because for the most part they will be much smaller.

Immigration is the serious issue. It tears apart a society. It causes devisions and stokes resentment.We have seen it in France and elsewhere.

Immigration for me. The more people that come here puts more pressure on housing and a healthcare system that's already ticking over. Not really fair on our own people but the government don't care were an E.U. state now.

A Transgender Equality study in 2017 estimated the number of trans people in Ireland as between 3,500 and 4000. I'm sure the lack of gender reassignment facilities is distressing for those affected but it's hardly one of the biggest issues in the country which was the OP's question.

Housing, without any shadow of a doubt, in terms of the widescale nature of and immediacy of impact.