Do we really need Dublin?

2morrowHelios

At the moment it appears we live in a Dublin first economy.

What would happen if the country separated itself from Dublin (city and surrounds) and split? I would imagine there would be plenty of hurdles for the 'countryside' part, however, I think the rest of the country has a lot to offer without Dublin. There would be some key strengths for the countryside economy in terms of resources that Dublin would need (Water, Gas, Food) that could be negotiated for areas where the countryside are lacking

fliball123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058263217/do-we-really-need-dublin

Does Dublin need the rest of the country?? If taxes collected in Dublin only went into resourcing infrastructure and other areas within Dublin we would have an amazing city and the rest of the country would be in bother

CGI_Livia_Soprano

Residents outside of Dublin have to pay the same tax as a resident of Dublin, with a fraction of the services. No busses, no LUAS, shït broadband, no “fercilities” for the under-privileged youths of the countryside.

And yet who do you always see on the television moaning about how difficult they have it? How everyone looks down on them for their “salt of the ert” accent and coarse humour? The Dub. They suck up all of the country’s resources and squander it. I would rather die than ever live in Dublin.

fliball123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613336#Comment_119613336

They pay most of it they pay in more than they take

dunnerc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613336#Comment_119613336

i would prefer you to die than live in Dublin !

jack67

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058263217/do-we-really-need-dublin

Stupid thread and an equally stupid first post 🙄

Ten of Swords

If the country separated itself from Dublin as you suggest (obviously with walls, a moat, watchtowers and minefields) where would the countryside be administered from?

In other words, where's the new Capitol? (don't say Cork - that's absolutely inconceivable 🤣)

2morrowHelios

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613322#Comment_119613322

I would say yes Dublin needs the rest of the country currently. There would not be much going on in Dublin without running water from the reservoirs in the countryside, electricity, gas and the basics.

Furze99

Well whatever about separating, one possible solution for a new island administration would be a kind of federal government made up of regions. And those regions could be Ulster, Connacht, Munster, Leinster and Greater Dublin. So Greater Dublin would become a region with same say as other four regions.

fliball123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613413#Comment_119613413

With the taxes that would be saved from not funding the rest of the country I am sure they could afford a solution.

dunnerc

And another stupid post

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613413#Comment_119613413

Yet you posed the absurd question in the first place. Odd.

No city can survive isolated from its hinterland. Likewise any non Dublin area will require an administrative centre.

Strumms

Dublin became separate from the rest of the country the rest of the country is fûcked. Dublin would be paradise though.

the greater Dublin area has approximately 1.6 million people living in it…there are about 5.1 million people in Ireland.

roughly 31.4% of the population live in Dublin.

the country to be minus that tax intake of 1.6 million people. And the numerous businesses based here..hmmm

The country to be without Dublin airport and other critical transport links

hospitals in Dublin have people from all over the country occupying beds, so to be without those … ?

😅🎖🤡

dunnerc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613447#Comment_119613447

Ah here stop making sense lol.....

Dont we supply nearly half the produce grown in the entire country? The poor turnip-munchers would starve without our superior farming infrastructure.

CGI_Livia_Soprano

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613339#Comment_119613339

Absolute rubbish. A resident from outside of Dublin pays exactly the same tax as a resident of Dublin with a fraction of the same facilities available to them.

fliball123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613541#Comment_119613541

What about the corpo tax from the MNCs in Dublin and the fact that we have about 1/4 of the total population living in the area. The issue is the amount of tax payers not the amount.

EmmetSpiceland

Dublin should build a wall around the M50 and declare independence from the rest of the country. Deport anyone not from there back to their county of origin.

Make Dublin Great Again!

CGI_Livia_Soprano

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613556#Comment_119613556

MNCs, despite what the corporate propaganda will have you believe, are not people.

Greyfox

Yes, country folk need something to moan about

thomil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613541#Comment_119613541

To be fair, unless you live along a few specific axes a few hundred meters either side of a Dart or LUAS line, you're not really that much better off than in any other urban area in Ireland. Dublin Bus isn't really that much better than Bus Éireann's city services in Cork, with similar reliability issues. This would encompass probably the vast majority of the city area. Availability and quality of housing is on par with other cities in the country and I wouldn't be so sure that available internet speeds in Dublin are that much ahead of other urban areas either. The city centre is just that little bit too large to be walkable, something not helped by decades of incompetent traffic planning that routes major thoroughfares right through the heart of the city. And whilst services like DublinBikes may be convenient, I've personally found that service far inferior to its "provincial" counterpart TFI Bikes, now available in Galway, Limerick, Cork and Waterford.

The only real advantages I see Dublin having, apart from easier access to the German Embassy in Dublin, which is more of a personal thing, are Heuston & Connolly station as well as Dublin airport and the ferry terminals in the port. What do all of these have in common? Exactly, they get you out of Dublin quick. Dublin may be large and its infrastructure may seem to be more advanced, but once you look under the hood, it's really just your typical Irish city turned up to 11.

fliball123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613589#Comment_119613589

Thats not the point the point is the tax that is taken from corpo tax are mainly from MNCs who are mainly based in Dublin, add in most of the higher earners IT/Pharma and the top end of public service mostly live in Dublin so ergo more and more tax which would be spent in Dublin. It would be the rest of the country who would suffer if Dublin was its own entity.

Daisy78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613336#Comment_119613336

But people in the country benefit from cheaper housing. It’s a trade off.

EnPassant

There is a table here showing tax receipts per county:-

https://www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/documents/statistics/receipts/net-receipts-by-county.pdf

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613541#Comment_119613541

Because the facilities cost an order of magnitude more to provide outside Dublin.

Would you be happy for the tax outside Dublin to be raised to a level to provide those facilities?

Zebra3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613587#Comment_119613587

You don’t seem to understand Dublin’s geography.

Also, if Dublin was to declare independence from Ireland, or the rest of Ireland declare independence from Ireland (leaving just Dublin), the new entity would have to apply for EU membership. Could take some time.

Starfire20

lol, always amuses me how thin-skinned Dubs are, no matter how mild the criticism is.

they have such notions about themselves

EmmetSpiceland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613819#Comment_119613819

Understand it just fine, thanks.

Yes, we’d lose a good chunk of north county Dublin but a lot of that is just farmland anyway so the country folk would know what to do with it and losing “west Dublin” is hardly that big of a loss.

I’m sure we could make it work. Especially without having all the country crowd moaning and complaining about the city all the time.

Zebra3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613932#Comment_119613932

Saying goodbye to a lot of corporate tax with the big pharmas in D15 and Grange Castle. As well as a lot of lebensraum.

Count Dracula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613715#Comment_119613715

Thanks for posting.

But it is only useful if you can isolate the cost of each county to operate. Dublin supplies circa 61 percent of the national tax pool, the question is how much do the other 25 counties cost to run?

That is the economic answer in a nutshell.

I think it is also worth stating that Dublin is no longer as big as the county itself. People travel the length and breadth of the island daily to facilitate its' existence. Anyone living in Leinster is essentially a Dub now. It is only 100 minutes drive to Waterford. I have colleagues who commute from Connaught, every day.

So in answer op, to your fascinating concept, your answer from deepest Transylvania is a resounding no, the rest of the country would be phucked rapidly, get used to it.

Larbre34

**** me, Boards is gone to ****.

CGI_Livia_Soprano

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613757#Comment_119613757

An “order of magnitude?” It would cost ten times to operate a decent bus service in the countryside than Dublin then, yeah? I think you’re talking rubbish.

KilOit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613336#Comment_119613336

I'm a PS worker and my colleagues doing the same job down the country could afford 6 bed detached house for what I had to pay for a 3 bed semi d. So yes, we all pay the same tax but I'm much more in the red than the average country person purely down the cost to live up here.

riclad

Houses are cheaper outside city's, plenty of rural towns have broadband, cable TV, every country needs a city with an airport, university's , museums, theatres etc the problem is rents are high, houses prices are too high, new York, American city's have the same problem, if you want to work for a tech company you'll probably need to work in dublin I'd say a large part of tax revenue is received from Dublin

odyssey06

Without Dublin the rest of the country is closer to 1922 not 2022.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613601#Comment_119613601

Would you drive say 20 miles/ 30 km to access regular public transport? Would you drive 35 miles / 50 km to access a hospital?

I would think all of greater Dublin would have basic services far superior to this.

And yet in our case, we don't live in the wilds of the west but in the relatively well populated but unserved SE. The general strategy down here is to close public services and move them to the likes of Dublin or Cork, maybe Waterford and sure just hop in yer car & drive.

Cody montana

The city is awful, you'd feel embarrassed for tourists coming over.

elperello

The very suggestion is beyond the Pale.

Galwayguy35

Maybe we could break it off altogether and send it over to the Brits, sure its only a little over a hundred years ago they were all out waving the butchers apron flag when Queen Vickie came to see them.

Pawwed Rig

The world GAA football and hurling championships would be interesting with the football championship going to Dublin and hurling going to ROI each year. The Dublin hurling team would get better over time as the refugees keep flooding in though.

odyssey06

I'm in favour of whatever political arrangement results in culchies needing visas to come to Dublin. No more come and go as your please. We'll have a Dublin mayor elected by Dubs with real powers, spending Dubs money on Dubs. Government for the Dubs by the Dubs.

And they can have Garth Brooks concerts in any bog or muddy field they like, as many nights as they like.

vegandinner

I think we all agree that Dublin is an irredeemable Kip. But we still would need a capital city, so choice would be an existing city or build a new capital. (We could also bulldoze Dublin an build a city that isn’t awful in its place)

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614382#Comment_119614382

We'll clean Dublin up when we have it back.

If we did it now we'd just get more blow-ins.

Start with Cork or Limerick or Athlone, all kips, see how ye get on after flattening it before you try it with Dublin.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614113#Comment_119614113

I know right? Christ Church, Trinity college, Stephen's Green, Collins Barracks, The Phoenix Park - truly awful.

Let's send the tourists to the midlands instead, that's where all the real sights are.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613336#Comment_119613336

It costs about 30 times as much to provide each rural resident with electricity and broadband and water and roads and buses. Rural life is subsidised by those who live in cities.

And then they start screaming about pylons and never a word about the 220KV lines running through housing estates in Dublin.

zg3409

To be fair it would make sense to try make a second capital city such as plan and invest in Cork city to take the strain from Dublin. Cork can expand in all directions while Dublin is blocked to the south by mountains and the east by sea. Many multinationals realise that Dublin is not desirable due to cost of living and quality of life. Indeed many located in Cork and Galway as a result.

As others have said public transport is not great in Dublin compared to similar size cities and as a result traffic is crazy with 30 minute delays a daily occurance on the m50. Commute times for short distances are high.

In terms of the financials rural dwellers are actually subsidised from cities tax take, as rural areas don't pay that much tax compared to the resources they use.

I would live to work from home 100% and live in a village. I can see more people demanding work from home to enjoy rural life.

pappyodaniel

Ya, all those low corporate tax rates would go far in sorting out all Dublin's antisocial problems. How many murders and violent assaults are committed in our capital compared to the rest of the country. 90% of our Garda resources are spent up there. Dublin is a big city with BIG problems. Outside of an All Ireland Final or a Garth Brooks gig most country folk avoid Dublin like the plague.

Cody montana

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614438#Comment_119614438

The spire, temple bar, the Luas, the entire city centre.

Avoid like the plague.

Real beauty is along our coasts and in our mountains and beaches.

Count Dracula

I actually love Dublin on a bank holiday weekend.

It morphs into a deculchified utopia. All the muckers tend to head west to kiss their mammies and from their local barstool bore the gods honest living shight out of their begrudging parish pals, who wish to bejaysus that they would ever just phuck off back to the big smoke where they actually live their lives now.

In the meantime the steets and pubs of Dublin are sublimely tranquil and are tamely bereft of culchies. For 3 nights anyways.

But I do love the aspirational culchie birds who hang around for the weekend. Especially the ambitious twentysomethings looking to get ahead in the big schmoke. My favourite are the types that develop a posh south side accent quicker than the speed of their kinckers dropping to any rich Dub on a fat salary with his own apartment on the Quays. They lose their sense of rural pride fairly sharpish once the Cab Sav gets flowing down in McSorleys on a Saturday night. Recently qualified doctors, sols, or nurses really get my fangs salivating.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614177#Comment_119614177

Would need to do the same for Cork if that is the case.

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614554#Comment_119614554

Didn't really engage with the point made, there. There are plenty of things in Dublin city to attract tourists (which @o1s1n named but a handful of), which is why a huge amount come and will continue to come as long as tourists are coming here. They obviously enjoy coming to the city, which may frazzle a few jaded countrymen's minds, but there you go.

Anyway, Ireland is so small that a tourist coming to Ireland for a week or two can easily both spend time in Dublin city and also go to other places around the country. It's not either/or.