Should unfinished Anglo Building be turned into a museum?

feicim

Should unfinished Anglo Building be turned into a museum/tomb for the "Celtic Tiger"?

It could be made into a permanent reminder of how this mess happened. Complete with statues and biographies of Bertie, Seanie Fitz, Cowen and Co.

A specialist library could be collected on the most grevious mistakes that were made, thus providing a quick reference guide for future generations.

Photos and audio visual displays could be used to tell the story of boom to bust.

Tales could be told of how natural resource giveaways, ridiculous tax breaks and economic mismanagement of epic unprecedented proportion turned a once flourishing country into an impoverished ruin.

Visitors could giggle at how a government espouses creating a knowledge economy whilst simultaneously having one of the lowest education spends in the OECD.

Artists could depict imagery of dole queues and scenes of the private vs public sector debate turniong nasty as everyone splinters and fights their own corner in isolation - while letting the government continue to do what they feel like, safe in the knowledge that there is no election til 2012 and the opposition is too cowardly to make an honest push to get them out. (This last bit might be good expressed through the medium of dance)

It could serve as a deterrent to future generations of politicians not to let it happen again, also voters could visit it before election time and get a reminder of the consequences of voting in a government who gives them everything they ask for...

It could attract tourists from around the world and create a few jobs.;)

RichardAnd

Well they say that those who forget are doomed to repeat. However, the Great Depression is still within living memory and it has (kind of) repeated itself.

No, the Anglo building should either be knocked or left as it is. A huge shell of a structure surrounded by idle cranes is potent enough symbol of the crash already.

oppenheimer1

What natural resources were given away?

feicim

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

What natural resources were given away?

This stuff...

http://www.corribsos.com/

+ fishing rights.

ressem

No, country is looking for money...
[AfterHours]
so a multistory paintball arena would work better. You can keep the AV projections of Fitz et al. At 5-10 cent per paintball it'd do more to balance the budget than most of the Budget 2010 measures.

oppenheimer1

feicim wrote: »

This stuff...

http://www.corribsos.com/

+ fishing rights.

The Corrib field wasn't given away. There was zero interest in looking in Irish waters for hydrocarbons because the risk of failure was originally to great versus the potential return. In order to drum up some interest the terms had to be favourable. There were many dry wells bored at a cost of €100m each in the Corrib basin until the consortium struck lucky. The gas is worthless in the ground, and this red herring of it being given away is nonsense.

The fishing rights issue is different though and more should have been done to protect Irish waters from being hoovered clean by Spanish trawlers. This was unfortunately a precondition of joining the EEC. We have however gotten more out of the Union than the cost to our fishing industry, which was never really that large (though did have potential to be developed, granted).

feicim

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

...The gas is worthless in the ground, and this red herring of it being given away is nonsense.

I agree. But why not just leave it in the ground then? It has been discovered so why not change legislation and tax it?? The fact is it IS being given away. Its not a red herring.

Re dry wells being bored, this only happened until tax was virtually reduced to zero percent. Could be coincidence, might not be. (Lets face it multinational energy companies are hardly ethical.)

Technology and expertise in finding resourses has surely evolved in the last 30 years why does the government not update their tax policy to take this into account?

astrofool

feicim wrote: »

I agree. But why not just leave it in the ground then? It has been discovered so why not change legislation and tax it?? The fact is it IS being given away. Its not a red herring.

Re dry wells being bored, this only happened until tax was virtually reduced to zero percent. Could be coincidence, might not be. (Lets face it multinational energy companies are hardly ethical.)

Technology and expertise in finding resourses has surely evolved in the last 30 years why does the government not update their tax policy to take this into account?

I think the issue is that there could be a lot more gas out there. If we leave it in the ground at Corrib (a relatively small find), and rip up the contracts we made to get people to drill for gas, then no company will be around to find new gas deposits, which inevitably exist off our coasts.

feicim

astrofool wrote: »

I think the issue is that there could be a lot more gas out there. If we leave it in the ground at Corrib (a relatively small find), and rip up the contracts we made to get people to drill for gas, then no company will be around to find new gas deposits, which inevitably exist off our coasts.

Interesting point but if Ireland doesn't profit from deposits what is the point of us giving them away?

If there is a resource to be tapped and a profit to be made by a resource company it stands to reason that they would be prepared to pay a fair price for said resource. (but not if they can get it for free).

If there is an energy crisis in the next 20-30 years resource companies will be falling over themselves at the thought of the profits to be made from Irish waters.

I feel that the current situation with the government going cap in hand to these corporations to plead/bargain with them to take our resources is absolutely ludicrous.

I just think that is the current economic mess we are in this should be at least looked at and debated.

thebman

Well we are pretty much in an energy crisis or on the brink of one.

We can't do it with Corrib as there is an existing contract, we can apply new terms to new explorations though presumably.