Anyone see Primetime special on Portlaoise/ recession etc last night?

jack of all

I didn't think the show was great to be honest; the panel was poor (what was Clement Herron doing on the show at all? His brand of optimism is not based in reality). Also I don't think Mark Martley, Jack Nolan (all self employed, and I certainly imagine that locksmithing and cobbling are pretty immune from recession or at least cushioned to some degree) etc represent the average Joe who is really going to be hit by this recession. DISEnbi has had a yo-yo existence as long as I remember- although I suppose as one of the very few industries left in town they weren't exactly spoilt for choice when it came to selecting one as an example. They should have spoken to a retailer, perhaps the Chamber of Commerce (maybe they tried to?) and maybe the County Manager. Again I thought John Whelan was a poor choice of candidate as an example of someone caught out by the downturn. Ok, tough John, you backed the wrong horse (it was very unfortunate) but hardly a typical example of the average Joe? Just my own thoughts....

As someone who had to leave the town myself last year to find employment elsewhere I took very little comfort from the programme. The recovery will be long and slow.

steve927

OP, i agree with most of your post except i actually thought that the choice of John Whelan was a good one. Fair enough he did back the wrong horse but i think the point was how far he fell, from the big gig and big money he had to being on the dole. So i think it showed that it doesn't matter what level of the workforce you're at, no one is safe from losing their job. He was pretty pragmatic and humble and didnt do any whinging so i think he came across well.
I think the most informative part of the whole programme though was the statistics at the start, terrifying stuff:eek:.

jack of all

steve927 wrote: »

....the choice of John Whelan was a good one..... He was pretty pragmatic and humble and didnt do any whinging so i think he came across well.

Fair enough Steve; later today I read one of the pieces he wrote for the Sunday Independent, so I do agree he was humble in his presentation. A far cry from surfing and swanning round with Tom Keane and the rest I suppose.

Zuisse

What bothered me about the Primetime program was that they were making out that Portlaoise was a desolate wasteland with no prospect of jobs - they continually showed shops that have closed, people losing their jobs etc.
I've no problem with showing negatives as long as its balanced - the majority of people still have jobs, many new shops have opened in the last few months etc

rosepetal

Zuisse wrote: »

What bothered me about the Primetime program was that they were making out that Portlaoise was a desolate wasteland with no prospect of jobs - they continually showed shops that have closed, people losing their jobs etc.

i completely agree, it made the town look much worse than it really is, they should have maybe done items on a few different towns around country to show those problems are country wide not just in portlaoise.

jack of all

I think Portlaoise was a good example for the Primetime show- typical large Irish town, heavily reliant on housing and commercial development, with properties marketed at Dublin based commuters (completely unsustainable of course), most employment based in service industries, retail and construction, no industry to speak of. The perfect storm......