Burning of EU flag outside Cork City Hall tomorrow, Monday 9th May at 10am

The_Kew_Tour

Harika wrote: »

Where does the EU prevent us to look after our own? Or which policies, that were in place before Ireland's entry into the EU, would ensure no kids are starving anymore?

EU few weeks ago put pressure on Ireland to house a couple of Refugees, the one I do know of is non national and got house in Cork after only been here 3 weeks, while people are still waiting 15 years. BTW I'm pro refugee once they are legit.

Secondly we will never have total perfect country, however, my point was in Relation to response in which Ireland is meant be "wealthy"country.

I never blamed EU alone for that

Avatar MIA

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

Ireland is meant be "wealthy"country.

What do you define as a wealthy country? Everything is relative, no country is without its poor.

chocksaway

great bunch of lads

https://www.facebook.com/dobz95/videos/1069282606466564/

The_Kew_Tour

Avatar MIA wrote: »

What do you define as a wealthy country? Everything is relative, no country is without its poor.

A country that least gives Equality to everybody in that country alone would be wealthy in my eyes

Avatar MIA

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

A country that least gives Equality to everybody in that country alone would be wealthy in my eyes

So, no country is wealthy...

Wanderer78

Avatar MIA wrote: »

What do you define as a wealthy country? Everything is relative, no country is without its poor.

i do think michael hudson has this one also right, we have confused wealth with debt. we believe we have become wealthy but in fact all we are doing is accumulating debt!

The_Kew_Tour

Avatar MIA wrote: »

So, no country is wealthy...

No been to many a country that's gives its citizens a fair chance.

Sweden and Norway were the leaders but sadly these countries now are baring brunt of being too nice

Gavlor

12Phase wrote: »

Not really, you at least get to fire the elected lot once every 5 years or so where as you're stuck with whatever the banks decide is in *their* best interest, not yours.

Yeah you get to fire them and replace them with even more teachers, lifetime politicians and failed builders. I almost forgot about fraudsters and those involved in bribery

Avatar MIA

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

No been to many a country that's gives its citizens a fair chance.

Ireland definitely gives people a fair chance. Some level of responsibility needs to be taken by citizens.

My wife works in a DEIS school and it looks like that's not always the case. Unless you're looking for a complete Nanny state...

12Phase

Well, by any objective measure Ireland ranks extremely highly:

It's currently 6th in the world on the Human Development Index and 9th on the Inequality Adjusted Human Development Index, behind Sweden but ahead of Finland and Canada and significantly ahead of the UK (12th), France (18th), USA 27th.

It's 11th in the world and 4th in Europe in terms of GDP per capita. (Although this is misleading for almost every country)

It ranks ahead of the UK, France, Japan and others on GNI per capita.

Unemployment is now below the EU average by quite a bit and is falling rapidly at 8.4% in the latest update from the CSO.

And, despite all the ranting and raving its GINI income equality index puts it still well within the top chunk of the world, albeit with fluctuations during the crisis (although it still remained within a the EU bands)
You can either look at the whole picture, or you can subjectively pick a small number of very wealthy figures and pitch them against the very low income levels. However, if you look at Ireland in perspective the vast majority of people are in a band in the middle. That's not the case to the same extent in quite a lot of other countries, including the US.

and it ranks #1 on the Good Country Index which is a measure of a whole range of factors..

The way people go on about it though in some of these ranting threads you'd swear Ireland was some kind of hellish war zone where everyone's fighting in the streets for scraps of food in between class riots.

Yeah, we've got a few issues which we are actively working towards resolving, but it's still one of the statically best places in the world to live.

The_Kew_Tour

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Ireland definitely gives people a fair chance. Some level of responsibility needs to be taken by citizens.

My wife works in a DEIS school and it looks like that's not always the case. Unless you're looking for a complete Nanny state...

Compared to most countries in Europe even countries like Croatia and Ukraine, Ireland has terrible equality record

Citizens have to take total responsibility for their actions no doubt about it, problem is many ain't getting the chance to.

Plenty of lazy no good for nothing people in this country I won't deny that and I don't care about them, but the Education, Health and Equality systems in this country are no where near fair.

12Phase

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

Compared to most countries in Europe even countries like Croatia and Ukraine, Ireland has terrible equality record

Citizens have to take total responsibility for their actions no doubt about it, problem is many ain't getting the chance to.

Plenty of lazy no good for nothing people in this country I won't deny that and I don't care about them, but the Education, Health and Equality systems in this country are no where near fair.

Would you like to quote where exactly Ireland has this terrible equality record compared to most of Europe?

I can see basically no evidence of it whatsoever.

Our GINI score sank dramatically during the economic crisis where it went flying down towards the UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria etc and below EU average. That has been recovering rather dramatically as unemployment levels ironed out.
It still didn't go off the deep end even during the crisis.

Ireland ranks 5th of the EU 27 countries in effectiveness at reducing income inequality (ahead of the UK). This is calculated by taking the GINI score before and after taxes and transfers.

Have a read sometime : http://igees.gov.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-Distribution-of-Income-Post-Tax-and-Transfers.pdf

It's not exactly what you'd call a state that's actively trying to increase social inequality. Quite the opposite.
Also the level of public discourse here is quite strong around inequality and there's a general push to resolve it. That's quite the opposite in the UK mainstream at present where there's a lot of Tory policy pushing to basically reward wealth and punish poverty. The same applies to a far more dramatic level in the US.


Income distribution etc:

http://www.oecd.org/social/income-distribution-database.htm

kooga

Fantastic will pop out on my coffee break which entrance to city hall will ye be at ?

The_Kew_Tour

12Phase wrote: »

Would you like to quote where exactly Ireland has this terrible equality record compared to most of Europe?

I can see basically no evidence of it whatsoever.

]

http://www.socialjustice.ie/content/policy-issues/ireland-has-one-worst-levels-social-justice-among-oecd-member-states

Avatar MIA

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

Ireland has terrible equality record

Terrible is it - should be easy to point out why this is the case so.

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

Citizens have to take total responsibility for their actions no doubt about it, problem is many ain't getting the chance to.

It does sound like a far away hills are green analysis.

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

the Education,

Health is debatable (I'd argue we have better than average), but in what way is Education in Ireland not equal. Where do they do it more equal?

Avatar MIA

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

http://www.socialjustice.ie/content/policy-issues/ireland-has-one-worst-levels-social-justice-among-oecd-member-states

Gotta love that the basis of this assessment is linked to a German language website.

Have you read any of the research yourself?

The_Kew_Tour

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Gotta love that the basis of this assessment is linked to a German language website.

Have you read any of the research yourself?

Any link you give is Gospel

Anyone else is wrong

HeidiHeidi

Gavlor wrote: »

Yeah you get to fire them and replace them with even more teachers, lifetime politicians and failed builders. I almost forgot about fraudsters and those involved in bribery

Well you can only vote for those who stand..... so....... off you go and stand for election if you think it could/should be done better. Put your money where your mouth is.

The_Kew_Tour

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Terrible is it - should be easy to point out why this is the case so.



It does sound like a far away hills are green analysis.



Health is debatable (I'd argue we have better than average), but in what way is Education in Ireland not equal. Where do they do it more equal?

It's not easy to pick at it, that is the problem.

On Education. The favour your Ann or Johnny has be Catholic to get into a school these days is fairly liking in fairness don't you think. And dont get me started on College etc

Avatar MIA

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

Any link you give is Gospel

Anyone else is wrong

What link did I use... can't remember any.

I'm pointing out obvious flaws.

But, back to education - how is that not equal in Ireland?

12Phase

Health here is terrible largely because of structural issues, not money though.
We spend *more* per capita (in raw €) than the NHS does and get worse outcomes in terms of access and waiting lists.

The issues here around health are almost entirely down to the fact it was never really reformed into a proper system and it's full of fighting vested interests.

Ireland also has to compete for staff against the likes of Australia and the US both of which pay way more than the EU average for consultants etc. That's not the case in say France where French doctors tend to stay there and are far less mobile.

To solve health here you'd need to start with primary care and actually take a lot of what goes on in hospitals back into community clinics for a start and have proper integration between those and hospitals.

GPs need to be moved into proper group practices with facilities for carrying out tests, scans, etc available to them etc and you need to totally reorganise how most of the hospital system works.

The way vested interests start to fight over health here is unbelievable. I mean the National Children's Hospital project wasted €35 million to site selection battles!!?!?

Anytime anyone tries to reorganise hospital services, there's uproar when well meaning community groups get in the middle of it.

The system here could be very good, it has the money. It's just a case of probably needing to pretty much wind down what's there and start from scratch!

The single biggest issue is that Ireland largely skipped the 1950s era when most of the European health systems emerged in their modern form. We didn't have the impact of WWII and we had a very unusual setup with the Church dominating everything in health/welfare/education. So, you'd a sort of continuation of a 19th century / preWWII system that never really modernised other than adding a lot more state funding to it.

We also haven't been this wealthy for as long as most of Western Europe has. So, we have a lot of very odd systems that were kind of spun out of "mend and make do" type setups where the state relied on a lot of charitable organisations and so on to provide services. Other countries in Europe had far more developed public systems by the 1950s/60s.

Harika

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Gotta love that the basis of this assessment is linked to a German language website.

Have you read any of the research yourself?

And it is from 2011, without saying how the report is exactly called. There are 1055 free publications available, so good luck finding that.

Avatar MIA

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

It's not easy to pick at it, that is the problem.

On Education. The favour your Ann or Johnny has be Catholic to get into a school these days is fairly liking in fairness don't you think. And dont get me started on College etc

Ultimately they get into schools. How many kids do you know of that don't get schools within a short enough period.

The sooner more schools become non-denominational the better. But, then we'll have certain people scrambling to get into faith schools. It happens in the UK a lot.

The one unfair thing I can think about college education is that the middle class are bearing the burden. There are places specifically for applicants from certain disadvantaged areas and the less well off will have the fees and grants paid. The well off wont bawk at €3k per year per child.

Is that the unfairness you had in mind?

The_Kew_Tour

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Ultimately they get into schools. How many kids do you know of that don't get schools within a short enough period.

The sooner more schools become non-denominational the better. But, then we'll have certain people scrambling to get into faith schools. It happens in the UK a lot.

The one unfair thing I can think about college education is that the middle class are bearing the burden. There are places specifically for applicants from certain disadvantaged areas and the less well off will have the fees and grants paid. The well off wont bawk at €3k per year per child.

Is that the unfairness you had in mind?

It is unfair that many have travel to different town or part of City because Their children don't believe in Jesus and Mary.

Yes that is unfair

Avatar MIA

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

It is unfair that many have travel to different town or part of City because Their children don't believe in Jesus and Mary.

Yes that is unfair

It's a bloody inconvenience. It's hardly the reason for scrapping civilisation and starting again.

12Phase

The school system here is nothing to do with income inequality. It's good old fashioned institutional sectarianism due never having moved on from the 1920s model of how to do education.

We never developed a public school system due to a combination of lack of resources and the catholic church (and others) wanting to retain influence.

Ireland changed immeasurably since the 1980s but the school system still seems to be about 30-40 years behind social reality.

The best way forward would probably be to transfer the management of primary schools and secondary schools over to a local school board, similar to what is done in most of Europe. I think schools should be really a thing provided by the local council, much like libraries, playgrounds and so on. (common in other countries in the EU).

You'd also have the option then of integrating large second level schools into major sports facilities, libraries and so on too.

Avatar MIA

12Phase wrote: »

Ireland changed immeasurably since the 1980s but the school system still seems to be about 30-40 years behind social reality.

Yet many Foreign National companies state our general level of education as one of the reasons for their setting up in Ireland.

Avatar MIA

BTW, anyone know if they burnt the flag, and if all 18 of them turned up?

The_Kew_Tour

Avatar MIA wrote: »

It's a bloody inconvenience. It's hardly the reason for scrapping civilisation and starting again.

That's not what I said or want.

You asked for reason why Education has not Equality and I have given you a answer.

Stop moving goal posts everytime or no point going further

12Phase

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Yet many Foreign National companies state our general level of education as one of the reasons for their setting up in Ireland.

I didn't say it ranks 40 years behind in terms of academic results. It ranks 40 years behind in terms of being open to all on an equal basis.

The majority of the university education system here is totally secular (except for teacher training).

I know people who have opted not to relocate to Ireland from California (at mid/senior level in IT companies) because of lack of secular public schools here. Or a perception that they'd be discriminated against for being non-catholic.

Ireland in the 1960s/70s was pretty much a de facto catholic society run along those lines. It's secularised and opened up and is now far more like its northern european neighbours in almost every other aspect of society except schools.