No wonder web summit moved to Portugal

thomasj

I know not all of this was transport related but it was factored in and says it all
http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/1015/735042-web-summit/

:mad:

Macy0161

Isn't it normally event organisers that propose a Traffic Management plan? They seem to very keen to pin the decision on someone else. It isn't the Governments role to interfere in hotel bookings, wifi issues, the venue - the RDS is a commercial operation.

MrMorooka

Macy0161 wrote: »

Isn't it normally event organisers that propose a Traffic Management plan? They seem to very keen to pin the decision on someone else. It isn't the Governments role to interfere in hotel bookings, wifi issues, the venue - the RDS is a commercial operation.

Well, from Appendix 2 it seems that other cities were willing to pay for the venue and traffic management plans, and wifi. Assuming those bids were accurate, Ireland made basically no attempt to match them. Instead our government just sent some 'Received, will reply | Sent from my iPhone' emails and a completely substance-less 'plan for a plan' .

The wifi issues, well, that seems to be the purview of the RDS so I'm not sure why WS mention it, but when you look at Appendix 2 it seems the competing cities were willing to resolve the issue somehow. Maybe it wouldn't have worked, but they at least had a 'can-do' attitude, our government had a 'not my department/job mate' attitude.

Definitely worth reading this https://static.rasset.ie/documents/news/web-summit-correspondence.pdf

thomasj

Macy0161 wrote: »

Isn't it normally event organisers that propose a Traffic Management plan? They seem to very keen to pin the decision on someone else. It isn't the Governments role to interfere in hotel bookings, wifi issues, the venue - the RDS is a commercial operation.

irrespective of whether or not it was their area, they should have lead the way to try and resolve the issues, maybe host meetings with the parties involved. It was in their interest, to resolve this.

no interest despite the organisers constantly stating that they wanted to remain in ireland.

Crocked

Sounds more like the organiser didn't get the money he wanted and has now thrown the toys out of the pram by running to the press with his sob story.

He's moved it to Portugal, time to get over himself.

hardCopy

The wifi issue is a very strange one, surely it was in the RDS' interest to retain such a big event? Would love to know what this bit means:

Wifi: Finally, the RDS are blocking a simple wifi solution in the RDS. They need to understand that putting up barriers that increase the cost to over €1 million this coming year, when it's free and reliable in other cities, just adds significantly to the pressures forcing us out of Dublin.

I can't really see how the government could force the RDS to implement a WiFi solution.

Macy0161

thomasj wrote: »

irrespective of whether or not it was their area, they should have lead the way to try and resolve the issues, maybe host meetings with the parties involved. It was in their interest, to resolve this.

no interest despite the organisers constantly stating that they wanted to remain in ireland.

I'm still not convinced it's the Governments role. They made a commercial decision - why do they feel the need to be so defensive about it? Only read the article, which mentions the interest the UK showed... and then they went to Portugal anyway.

Given the disruption the summit caused, I'd be annoyed if the Government did any of the things asked for without a full cost benefit analysis tbh, as it wasn't like it came cost free (in terms of disruption/ lost work time etc) for the city even before whatever they were looking for this time.

noelfirl

hardCopy wrote: »

I can't really see how the government could force the RDS to implement a WiFi solution.

Nor force hotels to engage in some sort of pricing charter. No matter how much they may gouge attendees.

Chris_5339762

Interesting how the other CITIES were proposing solutions, but they are blaming the GOVERNMENT here. Why didn't they hassle DCC?

Gumbo

If we start paying for management plans, traffic plans etc for this event, will we have to pay for them for every other event in the city !!!!

Private issues here in my opinion.

markpb

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Interesting how the other CITIES were proposing solutions, but they are blaming the GOVERNMENT here. Why didn't they hassle DCC?

Irish cities don't have much devolved power.

annfield1978

They should have prepared their own event traffic management plan, and then get it approved by DCC/NTA. Its not rocket science

Its strange that they wanted someone else to do that for them

n97 mini

Crocked wrote: »

Sounds more like the organiser didn't get the money he wanted and has now thrown the toys out of the pram by running to the press with his sob story.

He's moved it to Portugal, time to get over himself.

The WS brought in a huge amount of money from abroad.

From listening to the radio today the message came across that the authorities here weren't arsed basically, whereas those in several other places were, and made assurances that all the issues would be addressed.

uck51js9zml2yt

They had years in the RDS and had issues for years with their wifi. It was up to the event host to sort out their wifi, not the Government.
There's enough events in the RDS with large numbers of people attending that would have justified it.

As for the Government making private enterprises cut their room rates. In his interview on RTE he fudged the question. I cant imagine the Portugese Government making the hotels cut their rates.


In short - Its a cop out. He didn't get his at together over the last few years and now wants to blame everyone else.

strandroad

I've read the files and there is definitely a fundamental misunderstanding there. The government saw them as a prestigious business event and they were happy to engage to support them albeit in a limited manner, as it is a commercial undertaking after all. The organisers on the other hand saw the event as a blessing to the city and presented a long list of requirements ("asks"), many if not most of them are normally paid for and which they intended to receive for free. There was in fact an official plan to support the event, but not with the direct support they were looking for, in services given or fees waived. This is hardly surprising as the authorities would be taken to task for such spending, just imagine the headlines in relation to the homeless crisis. The government's reaction is therefore somewhat baffled, and Web Summit comes across as quite irritable at not being recognised.

If what they are saying is true and other cities were indeed happy to pay for it all plus guarantee hotel prices, and government ministers were in daily contact, clearly their priorities are different and the organisers should avail of them.

strandroad

noelfirl wrote: »

Nor force hotels to engage in some sort of pricing charter. No matter how much they may gouge attendees.

I'll be interested to see how it works out for them in Lisbon; they do raise their hotel prices for events too, I'm not sure how this could be prevented.
Public transport is much better though (excluding trams, which are often ancient and slow) and the expo area much more spacious.

alcaline

Dot com bubble 2.0 is inbound, let the Portuguese host it when it happens and they will be associated with the crash, then Dublin swoops back in to host once things pick up again.

thomasj

This time last year the taoiseach rang the NASDAQ opening bell from the web summit .

Today he stated

The Web Summit are fully entitled to make their decision, I expect that vacuum will be filled by others in a relatively short time

That reeks of we don't need you we can do better without you!

Jamie2k9

They followed the money, the key things they wanted bar the Wifi and expecting Goverment to interfere is a joke.

If they wanted to be fully open they would reveal how much they received....

Nichard Dixon

kceire wrote: »

If we start paying for management plans, traffic plans etc for this event, will we have to pay for them for every other event in the city !!!!

Private issues here in my opinion.

Not really. The RDS, the Conference centre, are where these type of events take place. You shouldn't need a different plan for each event, but a generic plan for events at these locations which can be tailored to a specific event.

I think the idea of these events as being entirely a private matter needs to examined as does the start from scratch approach every time. Plans for the RDS could cater for anything from the Horse Show to the Web Summit. There is also an attitude in Ireland that if a lot of people want to go somewhere that that is a nothing to do with public transport providers etc, whereas in many European cities public transport aims to cater for need.

Hotel rooms have maximum rates in many cities and I'm sure did in Ireland in the past. As Cosgrove said these rates don't have to be cheap, just not outrageous.

The WiFi is not the fault of the Taoiseach though.

bk

mhge wrote: »

I've read the files and there is definitely a fundamental misunderstanding there. The government saw them as a prestigious business event and they were happy to engage to support them albeit in a limited manner, as it is a commercial undertaking after all. The organisers on the other hand saw the event as a blessing to the city and presented a long list of requirements ("asks"), many if not most of them are normally paid for and which they intended to receive for free. There was in fact an official plan to support the event, but not with the direct support they were looking for, in services given or fees waived. This is hardly surprising as the authorities would be taken to task for such spending, just imagine the headlines in relation to the homeless crisis. The government's reaction is therefore somewhat baffled, and Web Summit comes across as quite irritable at not being recognised.

If what they are saying is true and other cities were indeed happy to pay for it all plus guarantee hotel prices, and government ministers were in daily contact, clearly their priorities are different and the organisers should avail of them.

And that is exactly the problem.

Many in the Irish government and Irish civil servants are simply morons who don't understand the modern world.

The IT industry is at the absolute heart of the Irish economy. The success and growth of the Irish economy over the last 30 years is down purely to the IT industry in Ireland. The recent reversal of the Irish recession and return to growth is again down to the IT industry in Ireland.

But other countries and cities in Europe have woken up to how important the IT industry are and they are all now aggressively competing to bring the multinational IT companies to their cities and the best and the brightest young people from around the world to their cities to work at these companies.

The Irish government has to realise that it can't just sit back and rack in the money, that it has to work hard to keep these companies in Ireland and attract new ones to our shores. That it is of vital importance to the Irish economy.

The Web Summit was an event created here in Ireland that grew into a premier international event that brought a great deal of prestige to the Irish IT industry.

Frankly the government should have been bending over backwards to keep this event in Ireland. It doesn't matter that it is a commercial event, cities and countries are always expected to work hard to bring such events to them as it creates a great direct boast to the economy and an even more important long term effect to the industries of the country.

The things that the WS organisers are complaining about are things that any of us in this forum will be well aware of. The lack of proper public transport infrastructure in Dublin and organisation of it.

I have long said there are two different Irelands and we are seeing the clash of cultures here.

You have young, modern Ireland. The very well educated young people of Ireland working side by side with the best and brightest from all over the world at some of the top companies of the world, the Googles, Facebooks, Apples.

Incredibly smart and hard working professionals who expected top quality services and support.

Then you have what I call old Ireland. The former teachers and pub owners from rural Ireland who have become politicians and lazy civil servants. People who only care about getting re-elected, which means getting pot holes filled in their constituencies and turning up to every road opening and funeral, but do little else.

These people have little understanding what it means to be hard working and productive, what the multinationals need and the people who work for them expect.

High quality, well integrated public transport. High quality cycling infrastructure. Nice cities that are easy to live in with nice, large high quality apartments and the infrastructure needed to support them. High quality broadband available to all.

We have been saying over the last few weeks how they are failing miserably to look after this most important part of Irish society. Lack of regulation of building quality at Longboat Quay, cancellation of DART Underground and kicking Metro North down the road and now losing the Web Summit due to the lack of engagement.

The Irish government needs to wake the feck up! They need to realise that Dublin isn't competing with Mayo, that it is competing with Lisbon, Zurich, London, San Francisco and that it needs to do everything in it's power to keep top events like this and companies and their employees here in Ireland.

I don't like here politics, but I have to agree completely on this:

Renua Ireland leader Lucinda Creighton said the Coalition needed to learn that developing a cohesive, effective jobs policy was far more complex than "gallivanting" in front of the camera at carefully staged photo shoots.

And more excellent points here:

Chief Executive of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce Gina Quinn said there has been a failure in long-term planning for Dublin, including investment in infrastructure, which is now having a negative impact.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Ms Quinn said there is not enough money being spent on infrastructure in Dublin.

"Well I think that we have in Dublin, failed to actually put together effective long-term planning for the region. We have had, everybody knows, a long period of recession," she said.

"What that has meant is that we have not had building of hotels, of office accommodation, of housing. And all of those things now are coming back to bite us as the economy is picking back up."

She added that we have to now look at Ireland and Dublin's reputation as a tech hub that was nurtured and developed by having the Web Summit in Dublin and we also have to look at the kind of investment we are willing to make in these areas.

Exactly, this isn't just a one off event. It is evidence of systemic underinvestment in the infrastructure of Dublin due to rural pump politics.

Losty Dublin

Last year the Web Summit hired the RPSI to provide a train to bring some of them to Cork. They were horrified to discover days beforehand that there was no on board WIFI or barista bar on the 50 year old Craven set and kicked up blue murder over same

uck51js9zml2yt

I assume this is being held on the PARC de Nacoes - expo convention centre.
If that's the case public transport is very good in the area .

Good luck to them getting the hotels to keep their prices down though!

n97 mini

I've just read the files. While there is a very laid back attitude from the govt e.g. days to answer emails - and then with one liners, and a certain degree of hand-washing and book-passing, it reads like Paddy Cosgrove knew what he was dealing with, was expecting the govt to trip up, and kept pushing them till they did.

Presumably he chose not to deal with "the city" as they have no control over IE, DB etc.

n97 mini

Losty Dublin wrote: »

They were horrified to discover days beforehand that there was no on board WIFI

Very easily and cheaply provided.

Losty Dublin wrote: »

or barista bar

I'm sure that could have been provided too.

Assuming they were asked for from he outset?

Eugene Norman

n97 mini wrote: »

The WS brought in a huge amount of money from abroad.

From listening to the radio today the message came across that the authorities here weren't arsed basically, whereas those in several other places were, and made assurances that all the issues would be addressed.

If Dublin is crowded anyway why would anyone care about this. Dublin can clearly handle rock concerts, big games of rugby and football. Maybe it just can't handle the web summit ( who wudda thought).

delahuntv

thomasj wrote: »

irrespective of whether or not it was their area, they should have lead the way to try and resolve the issues, maybe host meetings with the parties involved. It was in their interest, to resolve this.

no interest despite the organisers constantly stating that they wanted to remain in ireland.

why?

Maybe every event should contact Taoiseach's office for everythig they want.

Next Cosgrave will be demanding for the sun to shine everyday and dictate the colour of taxis turning up.


Think - Ploughing championship have noissues running an event with 280,000 people attending over 3 days.

Maybe Cosgrave just isn't up to it?

delahuntv

Remeber this is a PRIVATE money making event organised by a PRIVATE company who charge plenty themselves.

Why shoudl the taxpayer cointribute to every whim of Mr Cosgrave?

Also, it may yet come out, some European cities after showing interest in holding the event, decided not to pursue it! - It would be interesting to know why!

munchkin_utd

delahuntv wrote: »

Remeber this is a PRIVATE money making event organised by a PRIVATE company who charge plenty themselves.

Why shoudl the taxpayer cointribute to every whim of Mr Cosgrave?

Also, it may yet come out, some European cities after showing interest in holding the event, decided not to pursue it! - It would be interesting to know why!

well, just look at the hotel income
Just an average of €250 per room (which actually seems to be on the low end), for 30,000 delegates staying for 3 nights is 22.5 million Euro coming into the country.
Add in spend per person on food, taxis etc and theres easily another 10+million, and just having people of influence in the country can bring in multiples of that if its the marginal difference in them being a little more favourable to Ireland with investment or job announcements.

something went amiss here, but maybe the lesson to be learnt is that a horse loving argicultural society isn't the best location for high tech events, and Ireland maybe needs to build something appropriate instead.

Losty Dublin

n97 mini wrote: »

Very easily and cheaply provided.



I'm sure that could have been provided too.

Assuming they were asked for from he outset?

It was provided for in both cases, yes, but they paid for it. It was only when they contacted the society demanding asking for an outside company to access for a coffee to board the train that they found out that vintage train sets actually aren't t fitted out with functioning barista bars or full on WIFI

bk

I'm sorry but people are nuts to defend this madness!!

Conferences are big money for cities and countries and they bring a great deal of prestige and focus to a city.

Having worked on some big conferences for IT multinationals in San Francisco, I can tell you that the City of San Fran has an entire department dedicated to running major conferences like these. The staff of this department work every day closely with the organisers of major events, leasing with the other city departments such as transport, police, etc. making sure everything goes smoothly.

They have invested heavily in their conference district, with great public transport around there and lots of parking with excellent control getting too and from the events. And it goes to show in just how well SF is doing and growing.

What I read from these communications it was purely amateur hour from the Irish government.

And it is really just an extension of the terrible focus on Dublin and infrastructure of Dublin by our government and as someone who works in the IT industry it is down right scary how bad our government are at this. It really seems like they are trying to kill the goose that laid the golden egg!

And unfortunately non of this is surprising to me. I've experienced it from government departments over the last 15 years in terms of building quality broadband infrastructure in Ireland and again with public transport infrastructure.

strandroad

bk wrote: »

Having worked on some big conferences for IT multinationals in San Francisco, I can tell you that the City of San Fran has an entire department dedicated to running major conferences like these. The staff of this department work every day closely with the organisers of major events, leasing with the other city departments such as transport, police, etc. making sure everything goes smoothly.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=97398363&postcount=329

Here's a post on another thread in After Hours where someone who ran events here explains how they were handheld and guided by DCC in their process, and how to book every item on Paddy's list, apart from the impossible ones.
Paddy's problem was that:
- we wanted all this for free.
- he wanted someone to organise it all for them and hand it over.

munchkin_utd

bk, what you are saying is lost on most irish politicans and the public in general who do not comprehend the benefits of having your city as a trade fair/ congress hub.

Berlin city reckons they make 1.8billion Euro on just money spent on accomodation alone from congresses and trade fairs
http://www.businesslocationcenter.de/imperia/md/blc/branchen/dienstleistungen/content/wirtschaftsfaktor_tourismus_2012.pdf
Add in the taxis/ restaurants etc and thats another billion or more.

I dont think the Irish government were as bad as it is being made out as they did make a fairly ok effort BUT they definitely should be more aware and focused and coordinated in bringing in these very lucrative events, maybe indeed ringfencing a portion of the income to feed back into the city rather than just funding more taxcuts and dole rises (of one of the lowest tax and highest dole systems in the world).

noelfirl

Acutely aware of how off topic this is becoming for 'Commuting & Transport', the big thing we havn't seen and may well see sooner rather than later with the FOI request is just how much the local agencies below the Department of the Taoiseach did or did not engage with the process. Which is, I think, vital to the issue. Because there is some possibly contradictory stuff in Paddy's dossier:

We've never succeeded in getting a single meeting with Dublin's City Manager, nor been invited
to one,

and

Last year, for example, the person appointed to coordinate the city, with whom I met numerous
times, publicly denied he was coordinating anything a few days before Web Summit.

If local government level engagement wasn't forthcoming, then fine that's bad. Expecting the head of government and/or the national executive to intervene on behalf of your hotel accommodation and WiFi, is still even in that case, quite frankly, a bit ridiculous.

n97 mini

Eugene Norman wrote: »

If Dublin is crowded anyway why would anyone care about this. Dublin can clearly handle rock concerts, big games of rugby and football. Maybe it just can't handle the web summit ( who wudda thought).

The vast majority of attendees at WS are foreign. With the exception of international matches those events you mentioned will mostly be attended by locals.

n97 mini

Losty Dublin wrote: »

It was provided for in both cases, yes, but they paid for it. It was only when they contacted the society demanding asking for an outside company to access for a coffee to board the train that they found out that vintage train sets actually aren't t fitted out with functioning barista bars or full on WIFI

The cheek of them. Lisbon is welcome to them, and the hundred of millions of euro they attract.

MrMorooka

bk wrote: »

..

Well, I suppose that is the difference. In Dublin, you can definitely get the issues sorted, there is a form on DCC's site for getting a road closure, anyone can put a traffic management plan together etc. But you have to do all the legwork and liaising with different bodies yourself as the event organisers. It seems the other cities like Lisbon have something like you describe in SF, a point of contact who will handle all this for the Web Summit team. Obviously they would be stupid not to take that, it seems what they wanted was for Dublin to provide the same but obviously that's not how things are done here.

mhge wrote: »

Paddy's problem was that:
- we wanted all this for free.
- he wanted someone to organise it all for them and hand it over.

That's the thing, the way he tells it other cities were willing to do just that. So should the discussion be on why we apparently don't go to the same lengths? Why not?

strandroad

MrMorooka wrote: »

That's the thing, the way he tells it other cities were willing to do just that. So should the discussion be on why we apparently don't go to the same lengths? Why not?

He tells a lot of things in fairness, some of the turn out to be quite a stretch and some are patently untrue. But even if he is indeed courted by Prime Ministers daily and everything is paid for - it means that their taxpayer is willing to take the hit while the Irish taxpayer would baulk at handing millions over to a private event.
I am not able to cost the list of his "asks" against the real benefit WS brings (I don't think 100mln is a true figure, there are much bigger events that do not get that), but I would start here.

IsaacWunder

bk wrote: »

I'm sorry but people are nuts to defend this madness!!

Conferences are big money for cities and countries and they bring a great deal of prestige and focus to a city.

Having worked on some big conferences for IT multinationals in San Francisco, I can tell you that the City of San Fran has an entire department dedicated to running major conferences like these. The staff of this department work every day closely with the organisers of major events, leasing with the other city departments such as transport, police, etc. making sure everything goes smoothly.

They have invested heavily in their conference district, with great public transport around there and lots of parking with excellent control getting too and from the events. And it goes to show in just how well SF is doing and growing.

What I read from these communications it was purely amateur hour from the Irish government.

And it is really just an extension of the terrible focus on Dublin and infrastructure of Dublin by our government and as someone who works in the IT industry it is down right scary how bad our government are at this. It really seems like they are trying to kill the goose that laid the golden egg!

And unfortunately non of this is surprising to me. I've experienced it from government departments over the last 15 years in terms of building quality broadband infrastructure in Ireland and again with public transport infrastructure.

I think you're right about the lack of political will, but the bigger issue is Dublin doesn't have the infrastructure to hold international level conventions.

The RDS is a Victorian curiosity that, when compared to expo centres in most cities of equivalent size, is lacking basic facilities, is inflexible in design, and is ill served by public transport.

A modern, multi-use expo centre should be built on the north side of the Liffey, near the point/o2/3 arena and the convention centre, with a rail link to Connolly station/Docklands station that extends to the airport.

The expo centre would also need a decent sized casino nearby to help attract global conferences.

Alun

IsaacWunder wrote: »

I think you're right about the lack of political will, but the bigger issue is Dublin doesn't have the infrastructure to hold international level conventions.

The RDS is a Victorian curiosity that, when compared to expo centres in most cities of equivalent size, is lacking basic facilities, is inflexible in design, and is ill served by public transport.

A modern, multi-use expo centre should be built on the north side of the Liffey, near the point/o2/3 arena and the convention centre, with a rail link to Connolly station/Docklands station that extends to the airport.

Agree fully with that, the RDS is a decrepit dump ...

The expo centre would also need a decent sized casino nearby to help attract global conferences.

... but now you've lost me. Who on earth puts the availability of a nearby casino on their wish list for a conference venue apart from James Bond?

ThisRegard

bk wrote: »

And that is exactly the problem.

Many in the Irish government and Irish civil servants are simply morons who don't understand the modern world.

The IT industry is at the absolute heart of the Irish economy. The success and growth of the Irish economy over the last 30 years is down purely to the IT industry in Ireland. The recent reversal of the Irish recession and return to growth is again down to the IT industry in Ireland.

They've been aided massively by the IDA. I worked for a US giant for 20 years and they can avail of a massive amount of financial aid and support from the state. Just because it's not in the public domain doesn't mean it's not there. To believe that the industry so successful here is all down to the IT companies themselves is pretty naive and serves a big injustice to state bodies such as the IDA. There was a time when the state would practically pay the salaries of employees of foreign companies who set up in Ireland.

The Web Summit is the one at fault here. They got caught up on their own self importance. In real terms, it's simply not that a big a deal for most companies in the industry.

munchkin_utd wrote: »

bk, what you are saying is lost on most irish politicans and the public in general who do not comprehend the benefits of having your city as a trade fair/ congress hub.

Again, people are over estimating the importance of the Web Summit, but it's obvious that their marketing department have done something right.

MrMorooka

MrMorooka wrote: »

That's the thing, the way he tells it other cities were willing to do just that. So should the discussion be on why we apparently don't go to the same lengths? Why not?

Because we don't believe in throwing taxpayers money at private, profit-making organizations? And inconveniencing the rest of the city for the benefit of one man?

I work in tech (have done for a long time) and I'd say two things:

Firstly - Lisbon are selling. Of course they promise the earth, that's how it works. The reality is often something different. We shall see how it pans out.

Second - among most people in the industry the Web Summit is viewed as a bit of a joke. Not a serious place to do business. That doesn't mean it can't bring money into the country, but the argument that it is essential to the irish tech sector is total nonsense.

As a rule the bigger the show the less it matters to the people who count.

Carlos Orange

They wanted free stuff. The government didn't want to give them free stuff. They left to go somewhere that would give them free stuff. In a couple of years the cycle will repeat in the new city or they will be back to Dublin with their tail between their legs.

Eugene Norman

bk wrote: »

I'm sorry but people are nuts to defend this madness!!

Conferences are big money for cities and countries and they bring a great deal of prestige and focus to a city.

Having worked on some big conferences for IT multinationals in San Francisco, I can tell you that the City of San Fran has an entire department dedicated to running major conferences like these. The staff of this department work every day closely with the organisers of major events, leasing with the other city departments such as transport, police, etc. making sure everything goes smoothly.

They have invested heavily in their conference district, with great public transport around there and lots of parking with excellent control getting too and from the events. And it goes to show in just how well SF is doing and growing.

What I read from these communications it was purely amateur hour from the Irish government.

And it is really just an extension of the terrible focus on Dublin and infrastructure of Dublin by our government and as someone who works in the IT industry it is down right scary how bad our government are at this. It really seems like they are trying to kill the goose that laid the golden egg!

And unfortunately non of this is surprising to me. I've experienced it from government departments over the last 15 years in terms of building quality broadband infrastructure in Ireland and again with public transport infrastructure.

Are you expecting Obama to get invoked in San Francisco? If not then why the Irish government in Dublin.

Fact is Dublin can handle these crowds. Does every year.

Macy0161

Eugene Norman wrote: »

Fact is Dublin can handle these crowds. Does every year.

On the last word this evening, an Irish times journalist (can't remember her name) said that the web summit isn't even in the top 10 of conferences in Dublin in terms of attendance.

Tbh, what would ultimately cost if all fees were waived (and the precedent that would set), for intangible benefits, the Portuguese taxpayer is welcome to it.

strandroad

ThisRegard wrote: »

They've been aided massively by the IDA. I worked for a US giant for 20 years and they can avail of a massive amount of financial aid and support from the state. Just because it's not in the public domain doesn't mean it's not there. To believe that the industry so successful here is all down to the IT companies themselves is pretty naive and serves a big injustice to state bodies such as the IDA. There was a time when the state would practically pay the salaries of employees of foreign companies who set up in Ireland.

Similar experience, they assisted in bringing two companies I worked for to Dublin. And they are in startup space too, although perhaps not to the same degree.

Anyway, I think that WS accusations were ridiculous and hurt their own image, but if the resulting noise shames the government into reprioritising underground projects it's all fine with me!

delahuntv

Before those jumping on the anti gov bandwagon on this - here's 2 facts.

A twin room in jury's inn during the web summit is €159.

A ticket for the summit is €495


And Mr Cosgrove wants the Irish taxpayer to provide garda escorts, dedicated bus lanes, subsidised hotel rooms etc etc???????


Funny how the horse show with 100,000 + visitors, the all irelands, various rugby matches and large scale concerts are all able to cope, but the wwb summit can't cope with 30,000 people?

I reckon the organisers need a couple of mirrors - and look into them to see who is responsible.

If anyone actually knew how mr Cosgrave works (my cousin USED to do work for him) you'd know that whilst he's got flair and great ideas, he's utterly disorganised and expects everyone to fall at his feet.

Ps - expect an alternative web summit to take its place and they won't be expecting everything for free.

BuffyBot

I think this topic's limited crossover with this forum has been exhausted.