Why does the rest of the country dislike Dublin so much?

Listen, if you're going to start breaking down what stays in each county the country would be bereft without Dublin. Not only is it the economic powerhouse supplementing the rest of the country but almost 50% of the countries veg is grown in county Dublin. There's plenty of farming & food production you're unaware of around the county. Dublin would be a huge huge winner with your scenario.

Right now there's a protest over the Shannon flooding but when there was a proposal to pump flood water from the Shannon during flooding to a reservoir to supply water to Wicklow, Kildare & Dublin there were protests!

You couldn't actually make it up. Morons.

Cork (next in size) is a bit small. Belfast is a city in scale, but is in another country even if people don't like that being pointed out!

I think it is inarguable there has been much too much of that kind of development allowed. Not enough effort made to control it because doing so is politically unpopular. (Also, and related) there has been no effort by the govt. to just bite the bullet and pick 1-2 alternative urban centres to focus urban investments/infrastructure on that they can control. As per my last post on this thread - we have a rural govt. for a rural people so why invest heavily in (non Dublin) urban areas?

When the govt. is directing funds for investment, everyone in the audience has to have a little bit or it is not fair (edit: and maybe political death!). So you get stuff like a "decentralisation" project picking loads of different locations for moving the civil servants out of Dublin based on political patronage, shoring up Dáil seats and a so called "spatial strategy" again with a load of crucial "hubs" (edit: and "gateways") or whatever it was (instead of picking 1-2 other small "cities" to try and divert development towards, and away from Dublin to bulk them up).

It's not that we have a problem with it being pointed out. It is a problem when people point it out just to try to irritate Irish nationalists which is what most people do from my experience. Let's face it, island nationalists are some of the most disliked people in your strange modern Ireland.

@fly_agaric "As per my last post on this thread - we have a rural govt. for a rural people"

That was incorrect the first time you said it, and it's still incorrect now. The rural population of Ireland doesn't even make up majority of the non-Dublin population, never mind a majority of the overall electorate. Only 31% of the population is classified as rural by the CSO, and even that is generous, as it includes people living in housing estates in places like Claregalway, only 6km from the main Galway city employers.

Sorry, but I have no idea why you've addressed that comment at me, and even less clue what it might have to do with your previous post where you laughably implied that "people insist on building one off houses in the middle of nowhere on their parents land" was somehow representative of how the average person outside Dublin lives, which was the comment of yours I took issue with.

Id like to recommend Nealons in Caple Street for the open fire , may be a bit lively in the evenings but on a winter evening with that fire .

@Unrealistic Interesting, thought it would be higher. Was trying to come up with a concise way to express something about people + politics in Ireland (that I still think I am right about) but not the best wording given your statistic.

@saabsaab there's always one...a "country" in everyday English is a nation state. I think "country" as one of 3 political/admin. subdivisions/regions in the UK (edit: formerly including entirety of this island as 4th) is the more obscure meaning, certainly for people not from the UK. I was not referring to that, and I wasn't writing some legal document just a throwaway post.

Its easier for young couples to win the Lotto than get PP to build on parents land these days thanks to Ryan and those fooking Greens.

Whats reges?

It's the other way around. Dublin subsidises most of the country. Anything build in the city is paid for by the city, the rest of the money flows out. It's the same everywhere, Paris, London etc... large cities always have done so, it's basic national economics. Your hatred of Dublin is all based on a falsity.

I could turn around and say "enjoy my taxes" but it's an obnoxious thing to say.

It is absolute nonsense. The cost of delivering services in rural areas is much higher. If you want to have a train service, you might want to live close to other people. We have had Dublin property taxes being sent to rural areas, maybe you should be paying a proper amount of property tax that reflects the cost of delivering services? Is it efficient to have schools with 50 pupils? How much is it costing per house for regional broadband? I think we would be quite happy to pay for our services if you pay for yours.

More crude reductionism. The cost of delivering services in rural areas can indeed be higher but that is irrelevant if the services aren't actually being delivered. My own aunt is a good example, she lives in house with water accessed from a group water supply, and operates her own waste filtration system, she has no refuse collection and doesn't even have street lighting, broadband is still a couple of years away based on the most recent info. She pays more for the group water supply and waste filtration system then many urban householders pay for property tax. Yet urban households get both these services for free and also get street lighting, varying levels of subsidised public transport, libraries, sporting facilities, museums, theatres, etc.

My aunt effectively gets zero local services but still has to pay for local property tax.

Anyone who makes absolutist claims about Dublin subsidising the the rest of the country, or vice versa, clearly hasn't spent much time thinking about it. It is a much more nuanced situation than that. As has been pointed out above, the concentration of state sector jobs in Dublin is itself a massive subsidy. Then, when you look at something like Croke Park, which was subsidised by the state in excess of €100m, how do you count the benefit of that to Dublin and to the rest of the country? Do Dublin residents make up a greater proportion of visitors than their proportion of the population? Even if the don't, do they derive a greater benefit from it, by virtue of being able to access it quickly and easily on subsidised public transport, in comparison to their fellow tax payers from other parts of the country who have to drive long distances and pay a fortune for petrol and parking?

The reason property tax rates are higher, on average, in Dublin is because property values are higher, on average, in Dublin. The reason property values are higher in Dublin is because of more desirable facilities available locally and because of more attractive economic opportunities (significantly from public funding). It's not a perfect distribution. It certainly doesn't work out well for my aunt, nor for a teacher living in Dublin on the same pay as a teacher living in north Mayo with a fraction of the outgoings. But anyone making over simplified claims about one part of the country subsidising another, without stopping to consider these obvious factors, is talking rubbish.