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Population of 5 million soon
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Yes, great reposts to back up your argument.
By the way approx 20% of employment in Ireland relates to Direct Foreign Investment so whilst it's clearly very important it's not as dominant as you're trying to make out.
Well, you know, when you're gainsaying people and diminishing points as "rubbish", plus trying to claim things that people didn't say, there's nowhere to go.0 -
Well, you know, when you're gainsaying people and diminishing points as "rubbish", plus trying to claim things that people didn't say, there's nowhere to go.
You said without the bump in multinationals we'd be absoutely screwed and i just think it's a ridiculous point.
It's like Saudi Arabia saying if it wasn't for the oil we're producing we'd be absolutely screwed.
It doesn't not mean we have a poor or vulnerable economy as you're trying to make out.0 -
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Exactly.
We can't even properly house the population we have at present and there's no political will there to institute a functioning state housing policy.
We have a vast swathe of young people who'll never even get onto the property market and who are at the behest of a pretty reprehensible landlord class that portions out 12 month leases on their crappy accommodation, and will be for their entire lives...assuming we don't see another devastating crash and property prices plummet to reasonable levels.
Our housing situation, alone, is an absolute farce and certainly one thing that needs looking at in a very serious way before we even engage in fantasies about population growth to the tune of millions.
Now this I fully agree with.
Land and property is being held by a small group that is choking supply and increasing prices and making it unaffordable.
Government need to tackle this but seem to lack the nerve. This is the issue that could destroy the economy.
David McWIlliams had intersting podcast about this very recently.0 -
You said without the bump in multinationals we'd be absoutely screwed and i just think it's a ridiculous point.
A view that isn't shared by a lot of economists in the country, including David McWilliams. There have been countless articles outlining our reliance on foreign corporations since the 90's.
It may not the be all end all, and I never claimed that it was. Nor did I make out that Ireland wasn't a relative success story in terms of attracting such investment here. Nor is it "rubbish" either.
But the fact still remains that we have never been great at employing our citizens, as evidenced by the emigration our people have seen over the years, and if those multinationals ever did find a reason to leave, we've would be in a much worse state. A MUCH worse state.
There's nothing controversial here in what I am saying. It's merely outlining a straightforward situation. A situation I believe we'd be better off trying to find a solution for should that situation come to pass.0 -
Lockdown has a lot to answer for...
Guff about stuff, and stuff about guff.
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Shopping in a UK supermarket chain might be an issue..If I hand over 200 euros for groceries in Tesco, I expect the right change and to leave with everything I put in my basket...I dont want my change to be given away or a percentage of my purchases to be handed to others.
Ah yeah, but leaving aside the direct effect of FDI on gross national income and employment, what about the multiplier effect of FDI?Yes, great reposts to back up your argument.
By the way approx 20% of employment in Ireland relates to Direct Foreign Investment so whilst it's clearly very important it's not as dominant as you're trying to make out.
The good salaries that buy the Irish produce instead of central european imports? The taxes from work, and from commercial activity, that fund our public sector workers, and their mortgages?
What about the intangible effects, too? The skills and resources and physical capital that diffuse into the indigenous economy, and the universities?
We are not as wealthy or as self sufficient as we think we are. That 20% figure is unquestionably an underestimation. My guess, is that it underestimates the value of FDI (to jobs alone) by a long shot.0 -
Oh what rubbish, the international investment in Ireland is the envy of many countries and shows how competitive Ireland is and attractive to investors.
It also shows the weakness in Ireland's economy because the reliance on foreign companies, as opposed to homegrown companies (that haven't gone international), means that Ireland is very weak to changes in the international markets and supply demands.
Ireland is an expensive country, and it's becoming more expensive over time. Skills based economies are easily copied. Ireland's success shows the way for other countries to do the same, and while Ireland has some natural advantages (English speaking in the EU), other languages are becoming more important over time for international business (Think Poland, where many people speak 3-4 languages fluently, including English). This focus is risky, as international companies have zero loyalty to any nation... they'll move where the skills are, but also where the costs are lower. Ireland is fast losing that competitive edge.It's a success story and it has improved our economy no end. They're also industries that are more recession proof than what was here before.
Such as? Which companies are recession proof? (In that, they don't need government intervention to continue being profitable)They in turn generate business for the homegrown enterprises you are on about.
Have you looked at a lot of the groceries in our supermarkets? A lot of the produce comes from other European nations, or further afield. Why? Because it's cheaper overall, and the supply chains are in place for that to happen through the EU. At all levels of business, in the vast majority of industries, companies will outsource.. and they're often going to choose to outsource to foreign companies, because the price is right, and there are far more options nowadays to meet demand through their services.You can't try to turn a big success story into a negative.
There's always a risk that things can go wrong and that applies to every economy.
I can. Overconfidence is dangerous. As is the oft shown inability to recognise the realities of a changing world. Many people apply too much wishful thinking. Ahh sure, it'll be grand. Why will it be grand?
Recessions. Property bubbles. Debt financing. Inability of companies to repay beyond the interest on loans taken. Market instability. Government debt. Unemployment and business closure due to covid.
Honestly, I admire the sunny outlook that many people seem to have, but surely, you're aware that Ireland will be facing hard times for the next decade (at least)? Irish governments are extremely good at two things. Overspending.. and relying on the public's ability to forget what happened a few years previously.0 -
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An interesting POV from McWiliams...David McWilliams: Without multinationals, Ireland is a bad-weather Albania
Multinationals have transformed Ireland for the better, plugging us into the globe
It’s easy to be a little perplexed by attitudes towards multinationals, given their transformative impact on our economy, their complete upgrading of our industrial base and the enormous capital and technological transfer their presence in Ireland has facilitated.
Economically, without multinational investment, Ireland would be Albania with brutal weather. Politically, without multinational commitment to Ireland, Ireland would likely have succumbed to the populist, nationalist, protectionist disease that is afflicting most western politics.
Ireland’s economic performance can be divided into two time zones; premultinationals and postmultinationals. In the premultinational period, from 1921 to 1991, when multinational investment was modest here, the Irish economy was the worst performer, in terms of income per head, in western Europe. Not the fifth-worst, not the third-worst; the worst. Since the multinationals began to select Ireland as a bridgehead into the EU, from the early 1990s onwards, Ireland has been the best performer economically in western Europe. Not the fifth best; the best.
This national upswing is apparent not just from economic statistics but also from improvements in life expectancy, educational achievement, the size of the middle classes and, critically, the standard of living. Ireland has experienced enormous social uplift, the most impressive in the EU, according to the Pew Research Institute.
The centre has not only held; it has also flourished – in direct contrast to the rest of the West, where the middle class has shrunk, leaving people unmoored. In Ireland a whole new multinational industrial base has been created.
The economic recovery from recession has the fingerprints of the multinationals all over it. The easiest way to see this is to compare Irish performance with that of our neighbours and then speculate why that difference might have arisen. What was going on here that wasn’t going on in other countries?
Taking national income in the period 2010 to 2018, whatever measure you use – whether gross domestic product (GDP), gross national income (GNI) or modified GNI – the Irish economy has grown much faster than those of our European neighbours. Multinationals play a major role in this story, both in distorting the figures and in having a material impact on the real economy. Two things can be true at the same time.
Some economists understandably get exercised about the exactness of the statistics and cite problems with multinational money coming in and out. These issues are legitimate. However, we should never forget that it’s far better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.
If evidence points to an upward trend then this is what is happening, and it’s better to see the big trend and be roughly accurate. If we’re nitpicking over the quality of the data, in the microscopic world of number-crunching, then we’ll miss the real story or lack the confidence to tie all the information together and make a big call.
When we examine the basic foundations of any economy – employment, labour-force growth and population – we see Ireland continually outperforming the rest of the EU. Again the multinationals are the missing link, present in Ireland, absent elsewhere.
Let’s look at these basic foundations. Between 2010 and 2018, employment growth in Ireland has been nearly three times stronger than the EU average, our population growth has been twice the EU average over the period, and every year Ireland posts the most rapid growth in population in the EU. The difference between us and the rest is that there are far more multinationals here per capita than anywhere else. They plug us into the globe. Yet the critical positive role of the multinationals has been denigrated from almost every side.
The equality-concerned left sees them as errant tax-avoiders who don’t pay enough tax, which the left claims is inherently unfair. The fiscally concerned right worries that they actually pay far too much tax, which the right claims is inherently unstable.
Pro-European integrationists accuse them of smashing European solidarity by playing beggar-my-neighbour against our EU neighbours, while some of our EU neighbours, such as the Netherlands, have no problem playing the tax-arbitrage game deftly.
Across the water, English nationalists of the Brexit persuasion accuse us of trousering money that is rightfully theirs, while planning to set up a buccaneering low-tax haven as soon as they take Number 10. Scottish nationalists talk the language of the socialist Keir Hardie but admit they’ll pay for it by copying the Irish industrial policy of the capitalist Jack Welch.
All over the world there are conferences extolling the Irish model of tatty rags to reasonable riches, while here at home you could happily fill a talkshow with multinational-bashing.
Like all national conversations, there’s a bit of truth in all these positions, but – and this is a big but – policy is never black and white. Economic policy is ambiguous, operating in the grey. It regularly throws up uncomfortable dilemmas, particularly for those who prefer to take the side of the angels.
Today, western countries are mired in what the former US treasury secretary Larry Summers calls “secular stagnation”. This term describes an economic recovery that is extremely weak, because demand is not strong enough. It creates the conditions for populism all over the West because people feel threatened and they vote for those who promise to protect them.
Ireland has avoided this, which I believe is down to the much stronger performance of our economy. Multinationals boost internal demand with wages and employment. This difference in performance between us and the rest is driven by multinational investment, multinational jobs, multinational tax revenue and the dramatic upskilling of the Irish workforce associated with multinational corporations here.
In addition, people from the multinationals are heading out on their own, armed with the knowledge, contacts and experience garnered from working in a big corporation.
Many years ago, Ireland decided to transcend the limitation of geography, free itself of the tyranny of our own small market, break our dependency on Britain and play in the global world. We have done this with a decent degree of success. It is also our future.
Small countries trade or die – simple. Multinationals have allowed us to trade and have employed hundreds of thousands of us in the process.
In 1978, Deng Xiaoping, ushering in the opening of China, stated: “I don’t care whether the cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.” He meant that his job was to improve the lives of Chinese people and he didn’t care whether it was communism or capitalism that achieved this, so long as it did its job.
Maybe we might take this advice in the context of the multinationals. It is easy to criticise, from the certainty of the moral left and the righteous right, but we must be careful what we wish for, because plenty of countries would trade places with us right now and deal with their ambiguities. We live in a complicated, compromised world. All cats are grey in the dark. And we all live in the half-light.
The bolded paragraph coincides with the basic point I am making.0 -
Deleted User wrote: »Irish governments are extremely good at two things. Overspending.. and relying on the public's ability to forget what happened a few years previously.
This.
It's a constant source of bemusement to me that we have completely forgotten the disaster that was 2008 re: property and have found ourselves right back on the doorstep of that in 2021.
We learned nothing and forgot everything.0 -
An interesting POV from McWiliams...
The bolded paragraph coincides with the basic point I am making.
100% correct.
People dropped their jaws at the Govt insisting on letting Apple keep it's money but this is why. We're always 6mo max away from economic collapse. Few big names go and we're f'cked.0 -
100% correct.
People dropped their jaws at the Govt insisting on letting Apple keep it's money but this is why. We're always 6mo max away from economic collapse. Few big names go and we're f'cked.
People forget the amount of money that runs through Ireland - which gets taxed. I worked for two different companies when living on the continent, Both followed a similar model Engineering office in mainland Europe, Financial headquarters in Ireland. That meant my corporate credit card was provided by Bank of Ireland both times.
There are an awful lot of people in Europe who have never set foot on Irish soil with irish credit cards,that are subject to Irish stamp duty, and tax,0 -
100% correct.
People dropped their jaws at the Govt insisting on letting Apple keep it's money but this is why. We're always 6mo max away from economic collapse. Few big names go and we're f'cked.
What a pessimistic outlook.
You could say that about any country if a major driver of their economy disappeared overnight.
What do you think are the chances of this happening here?0 -
100% correct.
People dropped their jaws at the Govt insisting on letting Apple keep it's money but this is why. We're always 6mo max away from economic collapse. Few big names go and we're f'cked.
Not really. If anythign we have shown big companies have shut operations and Ireland continued with no problem
Go back years ago and Ireland was a hub of manufacturing and call centres for MNC. This changed with India/China etc and those requirements disappeared yet Ireland reinvented itself and now a lot of the jobs in Ireland are high skilled people, software development etc
We should be proud of how Ireland has changed itself and grown to take these types of jobs, yet people always want to sneer at it.
Ireland is one of the major hubs in the World for companies, yes Apple & a few others get the headline but nearly every company in the World have offices of different sizes in Ireland0 -
Deleted User wrote: »It also shows the weakness in Ireland's economy because the reliance on foreign companies, as opposed to homegrown companies (that haven't gone international), means that Ireland is very weak to changes in the international markets and supply demands.
Ireland is an expensive country, and it's becoming more expensive over time. Skills based economies are easily copied. Ireland's success shows the way for other countries to do the same, and while Ireland has some natural advantages (English speaking in the EU), other languages are becoming more important over time for international business (Think Poland, where many people speak 3-4 languages fluently, including English). This focus is risky, as international companies have zero loyalty to any nation... they'll move where the skills are, but also where the costs are lower. Ireland is fast losing that competitive edge.
Such as? Which companies are recession proof? (In that, they don't need government intervention to continue being profitable)
Have you looked at a lot of the groceries in our supermarkets? A lot of the produce comes from other European nations, or further afield. Why? Because it's cheaper overall, and the supply chains are in place for that to happen through the EU. At all levels of business, in the vast majority of industries, companies will outsource.. and they're often going to choose to outsource to foreign companies, because the price is right, and there are far more options nowadays to meet demand through their services.
I can. Overconfidence is dangerous. As is the oft shown inability to recognise the realities of a changing world. Many people apply too much wishful thinking. Ahh sure, it'll be grand. Why will it be grand?
Recessions. Property bubbles. Debt financing. Inability of companies to repay beyond the interest on loans taken. Market instability. Government debt. Unemployment and business closure due to covid.
Honestly, I admire the sunny outlook that many people seem to have, but surely, you're aware that Ireland will be facing hard times for the next decade (at least)? Irish governments are extremely good at two things. Overspending.. and relying on the public's ability to forget what happened a few years previously.
I really just find this a very negative outlook.
It's very easy to just criticise and pick things apart.
Having multinationals here has been a major strength and positive for Ireland.
That's why we have bounced back from 2008 crisis.
I'd rather have our economy strong from that than it was from a property bubble like before.
Arguing about demand and supply is not relevant to me as most of the tech companies here are in services and not physical products (apart from pharma).
For me people here are just trying to make out that our positives are negatives and seem to think that other countries just thrive on domestic economies and that's just not the way the world is anymore.0 -
100% correct.
People dropped their jaws at the Govt insisting on letting Apple keep it's money but this is why. We're always 6mo max away from economic collapse. Few big names go and we're f'cked.
Sorry but Covid has shown that the whole world can be on the brink of economic collapse.
That's the way it is all over the world.
Also, Apple decision was good for Ireland and anybody who thinks Ireland should have kept that money, which would have also been split amongst European countries, is not looking at the big picture.0 -
I really just find this a very negative outlook
Sure, it'll be grand.It's very easy to just criticise and pick things apart.
Doesn't that suggest just how weak Ireland's economy is? Better yet, the economies of most nations, since our theories of economics were badly shook by recent recessions?
I realise that the word "recession" is easy to dismiss, but you are aware of what happens during one?Having multinationals here has been a major strength and positive for Ireland.
That's why we have bounced back from 2008 crisis.
They're part of the reason why we bounced back, although having a substantial base in small/medium sized companies to provide a backbone to the economy also helped. Alas, many of those companies have since closed their doors due to the recession, the aftershocks, and now covid. You do know that the world was facing another recession before covid even happened?
Multinationals, in themselves, aren't a negative. Relying on them is. The lack of investment for the growth of homegrown SMEs is a major concern for a nation like Ireland, who, as you said below focused on tech, but hasn't done enough to keep Ireland competitive... since Tech isn't reliant on borders and distance to limit competition. So, tech companies in Ireland get to compete against tech companies in S.Korea or India.I'd rather have our economy strong from that than it was from a property bubble like before.
I'd rather a lot of things... doesn't mean they're going to happen. What were these recession proof companies you referred to earlier?Arguing about demand and supply is not relevant to me as most of the tech companies here are in services and not physical products (apart from pharma).
Tech companies (removing the multinationals) only makes up a small share of Irelands industries. In any case, tech companies face international competition.. and are subject to their own weaknesses. Maybe this is going back too far for you, but remember the Dot.com crash? I do, since I worked in a tech company during and after it. Not pleasant, and the same issues remain within many frameworks.For me people here are just trying to make out that our positives are negatives and seem to think that other countries just thrive on domestic economies and that's just not the way the world is anymore.
Well.. I'm not going to argue against that, because it simply means you're unwilling to listen. Head in the sand and all that. Hands over your ears, shouting "la la la la la".
However, I would suggest you have a look at debt financing and how companies (and state funded institutions like Universities) have been availing of it. We had the problems with the Banks, and that simply transferred over into finance... A shifting of weaknesses, rather than the resolution of weaknesses.0 -
Deleted User wrote: »Sure, it'll be grand.
I realise that the word "recession" is easy to dismiss, but you are aware of what happens during one?
There have been 47 Recessions/Depressions/Crashes in America since they started recording them. They are a constants feature of the capitalist system. There will be some more in Ireland, but that does not make us a basket case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States0 -
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dxhound2005 wrote: »There have been 47 Recessions/Depressions/Crashes in America since they started recording them. They are a constants feature of the capitalist system. There will be some more in Ireland, but that does not make us a basket case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States
Did I say that Ireland was a basket case?
What's with the need to take things to extremes rather than argue against the points made?0 -
100% correct.
People dropped their jaws at the Govt insisting on letting Apple keep it's money but this is why. We're always 6mo max away from economic collapse. Few big names go and we're f'cked.
Well, I do think that various govt. ministers running off to Europe in defence of Apple made us look a little weak and desperate to be honest. Even if it was understandable, companies should be paying the extremely generous corporate tax rate that this country asks for.
However, the salient point to take from all of that malarkey is that a situation whereby companies where paying virtually nothing in tax should never have been allowed to fester in the first place.0 -
Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »And if the famine genocide hadn’t happened, we’d have a much better distributed population than we do now. Not the alpha city set up there is now. It’s always fascinating to wonder what that might look like for Ireland. I’m not one of the doom and gloom merchants (of which there are many on this thread), I have to say. I think it’d be a good thing.
There was no genocide. Studies have been done on the famine and real genocides like the Holocaust and Rwanda get diluted when you call our Famine a genocide.
Really Belfast was supposed to be the 2nd city to counterbalance Dublin but history got in the way of that so the Belfast conurbation isn't competing with Dublin. Its a shame0 -
PeggyShippen wrote: »There was no genocide. Studies have been done on the famine and real genocides like the Holocaust and Rwanda get diluted when you call our Famine a genocide.
Can you clarify this bit? What do you say the studies say, that it wasn't a genocide, or that calling it a genocide "dilutes" the Rwandan genocide?
Very keen to see those papers. I'm pretty sure the Irish Famine would meet the UN definition of genocide, which provides for omissions (or failure to act), but you claim you have seen alternative information.0 -
PeggyShippen wrote: »There was no genocide. Studies have been done on the famine and real genocides like the Holocaust and Rwanda get diluted when you call our Famine a genocide.
Really Belfast was supposed to be the 2nd city to counterbalance Dublin but history got in the way of that so the Belfast conurbation isn't competing with Dublin. Its a shame
Would love to read those studies as well please0 -
Randy irish must be breeding like rabbits or is something else influencing the pop explosion🀔🀫0
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PeggyShippen wrote: »There was no genocide. Studies have been done on the famine and real genocides like the Holocaust and Rwanda get diluted when you call our Famine a genocide.
Really Belfast was supposed to be the 2nd city to counterbalance Dublin but history got in the way of that so the Belfast conurbation isn't competing with Dublin. Its a shameThe CPPCG was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 9 December 1948[5] and came into effect on 12 January 1951 (Resolution 260 (III)). It contains an internationally recognized definition of genocide which has been incorporated into the national criminal legislation of many countries and was also adopted by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC). Article II of the Convention defines genocide as:
... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide#International_law0 -
Just marking the fact that the headline figure today says we have hit the 5 million. The population on the island is now near to 7 million.
Ireland Population (LIVE)
5,000,017
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Wouldn't the census be a better measure rather than some approximation counter ?
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From speaking to people who carried out the census I wouldn't put a whole lot of faith in the numbers. Particularly for the "hard to count" groups.
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