Ireland 2040 plan "will kill rural Ireland"

LeinsterDub · 01-02-2018 10:57am

Mickiemcfist wrote: »

They have the same number of jobs in either office, Google London has higher quality jobs. Why do you think that is?

https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/google-hits-5000-employee-level-in-dublin-now-one-of-capitals-biggest-employers-31480103.html

Fair enough. I would expect it due to the nature of the Irish operation being the European HQ but I think we are loosing sight of the fact that Google could have located in Waterford for example and choose not to.

Pete_Cavan · 01-02-2018 11:00am

Urbanisation is happening all over the world and has been for a long time. Cities everywhere are growing, often at the expense of rural areas, it is not just an Irish phenomenon. Talk about grants and promoting regional towns is ignoring the reality of the situation, you can't hold back the tide. The same even happens on a smaller scale in rural areas where villages are declining as people use the county town for shopping and socialising.

I am from a rural area, I see plenty of towns and villages dying and it is not because of investment or infrastructure in Dublin, it is because the local people have abandoned their town in favour of their own acre of grass. The local shop, pub and post office didn't close because people in Dublin don't use it, they closed because the so called locals choose to drive 12km to the county town instead of 2km to the village.

The only people who can save rural towns are the locals. Thinking that you can continue to do what has failed all around the world and that the government can force a large multi-national to set up and employ lots of people is fantasy. The small town or village will only survive if people actually live in it, the people living outside the village are killing it.

Pete_Cavan · 01-02-2018 11:04am

Mr.H wrote: »

You mean like apple going to galway? Uber to Limerick?

What about Amazon, dell and vmware? All big companies who have no problem being outside Dublin.

Rural Ireland doesn't mean everything outside of Dublin. There are many urban areas away from Dublin. Stop trying to make this about Dublin versus the rest of the country.

lawred2 · 01-02-2018 11:12am

Is everything outside of Dublin classed as rural?

Lot of talk about Cork and Galway in this thread...

lawred2 · 01-02-2018 11:13am

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Mr.H wrote: »

You mean like apple going to galway? Uber to Limerick?

What about Amazon, dell and vmware? All big companies who have no problem being outside Dublin.

Rural Ireland doesn't mean everything outside of Dublin. There are many urban areas away from Dublin. Stop trying to make this about Dublin versus the rest of the country.

You beat me to it

Mickiemcfist · 01-02-2018 11:30am

LeinsterDub wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/google-hits-5000-employee-level-in-dublin-now-one-of-capitals-biggest-employers-31480103.html

Fair enough. I would expect it due to the nature of the Irish operation being the European HQ but I think we are loosing sight of the fact that Google could have located in Waterford for example and choose not to.

Yeah we have sort of lost sight of the issue, my point was that FDI should be incentivised to come to Ireland, anywhere. But further large incentives should be given to set up in a tertiary city with low employment (would obviously need to suit on many levels, infrastructure, universities/IT's etc).
As it stands it's just creating a completely two tiered economy, 5k google staff push up house prices in Dublin, increases spending in already successful Dublin bars, cafes & shops. That could be spread better throughout the country to have other smaller businesses thrive.

I say this as someone who will from this point on always live in Dublin, but I have worked with plenty of Cork & Limerick people who'd love to move back if the right jobs were there.

01-02-2018 11:36am

Mickiemcfist wrote: »

As a city dweller, even I think this post is ridiculous. This is a problem caused by unevenly spread FDI, it's hardly that Dublin workers are working harder. It's that the government are using Dublin as a selling point to get Facebook, Google, Microsoft etc. To base themselves here & they're paying corporation tax as a Dublin based business, you'll find a lot of staff there are from outside Ireland, or not from Dublin.

I really think the Govt should be giving further grants for businesses to start in other cities, Kilkenny, Limerick Waterford etc.

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Urbanisation is happening all over the world and has been for a long time. Cities everywhere are growing, often at the expense of rural areas, it is not just an Irish phenomenon. Talk about grants and promoting regional towns is ignoring the reality of the situation, you can't hold back the tide. The same even happens on a smaller scale in rural areas where villages are declining as people use the county town for shopping and socialising.

I am from a rural area, I see plenty of towns and villages dying and it is not because of investment or infrastructure in Dublin, it is because the local people have abandoned their town in favour of their own acre of grass. The local shop, pub and post office didn't close because people in Dublin don't use it, they closed because the so called locals choose to drive 12km to the county town instead of 2km to the village.

The only people who can save rural towns are the locals. Thinking that you can continue to do what has failed all around the world and that the government can force a large multi-national to set up and employ lots of people is fantasy. The small town or village will only survive if people actually live in it, the people living outside the village are killing it.

Yup. If people aren't willing to pay the little bit extra in local shops and establishments to keep them going then what do they expect?

Wanderer78 · 01-02-2018 11:38am

Deleted User wrote:

Yup. If people aren't willing to pay the little bit extra in local shops and establishments to keep them going then what do they expect?

It's a bit more complicated than that, failures of macro economic theory play a huge part to

ED E · 01-02-2018 11:39am

Mickiemcfist wrote: »

Yeah we have sort of lost sight of the issue, my point was that FDI should be incentivised to come to Ireland, anywhere. But further large incentives should be given to set up in a tertiary city with low employment (would obviously need to suit on many levels, infrastructure, universities/IT's etc).
As it stands it's just creating a completely two tiered economy, 5k google staff push up house prices in Dublin, increases spending in already successful Dublin bars, cafes & shops. That could be spread better throughout the country to have other smaller businesses thrive.

I say this as someone who will from this point on always live in Dublin, but I have worked with plenty of Cork & Limerick people who'd love to move back if the right jobs were there.

Nobody is setting up an EMEA base anywhere other than Dublin. Its not happening.

Cork got an Apple contact centre. Thats not a HQ, its not high tech or high income. Fine.

Amazon Engineering and CS is Dublin. Their 2nd(4th, 8th, trade secret) DC is going to the west but a DC is 1000 racks per pair of hands, its not a big labour builder.

People love to think that Galway or Limerick could take a big office but they can't. Dublin is tiny, everywhere else is microscopic on the scale of multinationals.

01-02-2018 11:40am

Wanderer78 wrote: »

It's a bit more complicated than that, failures of macro economic theory play a huge part to

You can call it a failure if you like.

Wanderer78 · 01-02-2018 11:41am

Deleted User wrote:

You can call it a failure if you like.

Very obvious to me it is, strangely many don't see it that way

Mickiemcfist · 01-02-2018 11:46am

ED E wrote: »

Nobody is setting up an EMEA base anywhere other than Dublin. Its not happening.

You're right yeah.. Nobody:

https://irishtechnews.ie/nginx-announces-new-headquarters-for-emea-in-cork/

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/malwarebytes-to-establish-emea-hq-in-cork-1.2144249

We need more of the above sized businesses going to tertiary cities, we won't get a google to do it, but there's more jobs than just the top 10 tech companies. Ideally the aim should be for growing companies who the cities could grow with. You can't rock up and have 1000 jobs filled, but if they set up with 100 & grew consistently at 20/ year, multiply that by 10 medium sized foreign companies and you have stable local jobs.

Re: Your point about Dublin being tiny & Cork/Galway being microscopic. With enough incentives anywhere is "big enough", If you've ever been to Sliema in Malta on business you'll find a large corporation behind every second door. No 5000 person offices, but a lot of headcount none the less.

Pixel Eater · 01-02-2018 11:50am

I'm from rural Ireland myself - specifically a small town where I grew up - but my parents moved to a one-off house a good few years ago several miles away. Now when I visit home, without complete access to a car, I find myself marooned in the house. Even if I want to go into the local town to a cafe/shop or for a pint I often can't. I'm just one case; how many shops/restaurants/pubs aren't visited because it's too much hassle to get to them?

And how much money is literally burned up in petrol that otherwise could be injected into the local economy from people having to drive everywhere? One-off housing is a calamity for rural Ireland.

01-02-2018 11:53am

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Very obvious to me it is, strangely many don't see it that way

What's the alternative in policy? (I have a few ideas of what they might be and am ready to argue against :P )

Wanderer78 · 01-02-2018 11:57am

Deleted User wrote:

What's the alternative in policy? (I have a few ideas of what they might be and am ready to argue against )

Where do you start! I'm not sure anyone really knows what to do but there are interesting ideas out there, some ideas really are out there though. It would make you wonder, how much of a mess do we have to make before we realise, Jaysis this isn't working at all

snotboogie · 01-02-2018 12:11pm

ED E wrote: »

Mickiemcfist wrote: »

Yeah we have sort of lost sight of the issue, my point was that FDI should be incentivised to come to Ireland, anywhere. But further large incentives should be given to set up in a tertiary city with low employment (would obviously need to suit on many levels, infrastructure, universities/IT's etc).
As it stands it's just creating a completely two tiered economy, 5k google staff push up house prices in Dublin, increases spending in already successful Dublin bars, cafes & shops. That could be spread better throughout the country to have other smaller businesses thrive.

I say this as someone who will from this point on always live in Dublin, but I have worked with plenty of Cork & Limerick people who'd love to move back if the right jobs were there.

Nobody is setting up an EMEA base anywhere other than Dublin. Its not happening.

Cork got an Apple contact centre. Thats not a HQ, its not high tech or high income. Fine.

Amazon Engineering and CS is Dublin. Their 2nd(4th, 8th, trade secret) DC is going to the west but a DC is 1000 racks per pair of hands, its not a big labour builder.

People love to think that Galway or Limerick could take a big office but they can't. Dublin is tiny, everywhere else is microscopic on the scale of multinationals.

The two biggest tech multinationals in the state are HQ'd outside of Dublin. Apple, which is far more than a call center is HQ'd in Cork and Dell is HQ'd in Limerick (despite having bigger operations in Cork and Dublin).

draiochtanois · 01-02-2018 12:24pm

This post has been deleted.

El Tarangu · 01-02-2018 12:44pm

Doltanian wrote: »

What rural Ireland needs more than anything else is fibre optic broadband and improved access to the cities for commuting ideally not by car.

Not that I disagree with you, but who do you propose should pay for that?

Malayalam · 01-02-2018 12:51pm

Go anywhere in rural Ireland and you will find the old stones of cottages that littered the landscape, one off dwellings outside of villages. In my area there would be multiples of these old places compared to the amount of houses here now, the place used to thrive. With one off housing!! It's not like we have not been doing that for millenia - we have. Sure, there were also villages and big towns, but people have also always liked to live in isolated landscapes. I sure do. Cities and towns give me feelings of distress, I could not bear to return. If me and my neighbours did not live here, no one would ever cast an eye on these beautiful hills and lakes and fields - no tour buses would fit up the roads for people to gawk at the empty landscape - and the land would truly wither, unseen. Now at least there are still voices carried on the wind, children playing, people calling for lost animals. The vitriol here is kind of surprising against country dwellers. I don't want your lights, libraries, amenities, trains. Never asked for them, though my tax is the same. I look after my own water and sewage and travel a couple of miles to meet the rubbish collection system. I don't care. It is more than made up for with the peace. I do loads of business in the local villages, buy fuel there, coal, sticks, use the post office regularly, buy milk and bread and whatever. As for the talk of the petrol we bumpkins use, for goodness sake, it's microscopic compared to the fuel being burned morning, noon and night on the main arteries (congested and awful) heading inexorably towards Dublin, squeezing in the hassled hoards who have to waste hours every day in their cars.
I may however be among the last generation to be able to live in the country side, by the looks of things. By the sound of people on here. It's as if we are outcasts, renegades, the blight on yer immaculate plan.
Feck yiz, I'm holing up here!!

Padkir · 01-02-2018 1:00pm

ED E wrote: »

Nobody is setting up an EMEA base anywhere other than Dublin. Its not happening.

Cork got an Apple contact centre. Thats not a HQ, its not high tech or high income. Fine.

Amazon Engineering and CS is Dublin. Their 2nd(4th, 8th, trade secret) DC is going to the west but a DC is 1000 racks per pair of hands, its not a big labour builder.

People love to think that Galway or Limerick could take a big office but they can't. Dublin is tiny, everywhere else is microscopic on the scale of multinationals.

You should probably take a look at the number of people employed in technology companies in Galway, specifically med tech, (won't speak for Cork/Limerick as not as familiar with them), by large multinationals before making a sweeping statement like that, e.g. Boston Scientific and Medtronic - 3,000+ employees each. Then you have Creganna, Avaya, HP, SAP, Cisco, Oracle, Fidelity, Metlife, etc. These are all high skilled employers in Galway, with most of these expanding in the last few years and looking to expand locally in the future.

There is certainly a constraint on office space in the city at the minute, but it's being worked on and I would say that's the key reason stopping investment right now - multinationals appear to be open to coming to Galway if the proper office space is made available, Metlife being one of the more significant recent examples. An old building in the centre of the city refurbished and suddenly 200+ high skilled jobs are created in a company that had no previous ties to Galway.

(http://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/96578/metlife-opens-world-class-global-technology-campus-in-galway)

LeinsterDub · 01-02-2018 1:02pm

Malayalam wrote: »

Go anywhere in rural Ireland and you will find the old stones of cottages that littered the landscape, one off dwellings outside of villages. In my area there would be multiples of these old places compared to the amount of houses here now, the place used to thrive. With one off housing!! It's not like we have not been doing that for millenia - we have. Sure, there were also villages and big towns, but people have also always liked to live in isolated landscapes.

In the past you could of lived and died with no interaction with the state or state infrastructure . This is simply not possible anymore

Malayalam wrote: »

I sure do. Cities and towns give me feelings of distress, I could not bear to return. If me and my neighbours did not live here, no one would ever cast an eye on these beautiful hills and lakes and fields - no tour buses would fit up the roads for people to gawk at the empty landscape -

Yeah because what tourists want to see is a beautiful landscape and Malayalam's house. Beautiful unspoiled is what tourist want

Malayalam wrote: »

and the land would truly wither, unseen.

Why would the land wither?

Malayalam wrote: »

The vitriol here is kind of surprising against country dwellers. I don't want your lights, libraries, amenities, trains. Never asked for them, though my tax is the same.

There is no vitriol . So you've never used the Garda, Fire , Health , Schools ?

Malayalam wrote: »

I look after my own water and sewage and travel a couple of miles to meet the rubbish collection system

Where does your power and internet come from?

Mutant z · 01-02-2018 1:10pm

The world is becoming more urbanised 70% predicted by 2050 you'll just have to get used of it more and more people are moving to cities and towns for the sort of opportunities that rural areas don't provide, that's nothing that can be done about that its the natural changing of lifestyle choices and job opportunities etc.

Pixel Eater · 01-02-2018 1:10pm

Malayalam wrote: »

Go anywhere in rural Ireland and you will find the old stones of cottages that littered the landscape, one off dwellings outside of villages. In my area there would be multiples of these old places compared to the amount of houses here now, the place used to thrive. With one off housing!! It's not like we have not been doing that for millenia - we have. Sure, there were also villages and big towns, but people have also always liked to live in isolated landscapes. I sure do. Cities and towns give me feelings of distress, I could not bear to return. If me and my neighbours did not live here, no one would ever cast an eye on these beautiful hills and lakes and fields - no tour buses would fit up the roads for people to gawk at the empty landscape - and the land would truly wither, unseen. Now at least there are still voices carried on the wind, children playing, people calling for lost animals. The vitriol here is kind of surprising against country dwellers. I don't want your lights, libraries, amenities, trains. Never asked for them, though my tax is the same. I look after my own water and sewage and travel a couple of miles to meet the rubbish collection system. I don't care. It is more than made up for with the peace. I do loads of business in the local villages, buy fuel there, coal, sticks, use the post office regularly, buy milk and bread and whatever. As for the talk of the petrol we bumpkins use, for goodness sake, it's microscopic compared to the fuel being burned morning, noon and night on the main arteries (congested and awful) heading inexorably towards Dublin, squeezing in the hassled hoards who have to waste hours every day in their cars.
I may however be among the last generation to be able to live in the country side, by the looks of things. By the sound of people on here. It's as if we are outcasts, renegades, the blight on yer immaculate plan.
Feck yiz, I'm holing up here!!

But they were from a far different era; they were often poor subsistence farmers who lived of the land. That's a far cry from the modern, technological, car dominated society today. Often today's one off dwellers are not involved in agriculture in any shape or form. Besides small cottages built of local stone stand in some contrast to massive suburban style houses with (inexplicably) large lawns that are favoured today.

And it's not about moving everyone to the cities; rather consolidating people in the small towns and villages around the country which would still be essentially rural in nature.

hmmm · 01-02-2018 1:34pm

Pixel Eater wrote: »

I'm from rural Ireland myself - specifically a small town where I grew up - but my parents moved to a one-off house a good few years ago several miles away. Now when I visit home, without complete access to a car, I find myself marooned in the house.

When you visit the really well run parts of rural Europe, you don't see the same sprawl we have with one off houses littered all over the countryside. You see little villages, with people often living in apartments in villages, often multiple generations of families in the same very large house.

the_pen_turner · 01-02-2018 1:46pm

Where is the urban rural divide.
Are all our towns included in the urban section. If not they should.

I don't believe those stats. Us rural people pay less tax yes but receive a lot less Money back too.
Look at all the billions spent on stuff like the luas in cities. Rural Ireland can't even get a pothole fixed .

Pixel Eater · 01-02-2018 1:48pm

hmmm wrote: »

When you visit the really well run parts of rural Europe, you don't see the same sprawl we have with one off houses littered all over the countryside. You see little villages, with people often living in apartments in villages, often multiple generations of families in the same very large house.

Yep, even if they lived in the local village it would be far more convenient for all.

I wonder if it's worth reviving the concept of the 'clachan'? The traditional small cluster of houses together but without formal buildings, curtail the sprawl at least.

LeinsterDub · 01-02-2018 1:50pm

the_pen_turner wrote: »

I don't believe those stats. Us rural people pay less tax yes but receive a lot less Money back too.
Look at all the billions spent on stuff like the luas in cities. Rural Ireland can't even get a pothole fixed .

You seem to have missed the 10's of billions spent on the Motorway network.

Malayalam · 01-02-2018 1:50pm

LeinsterDub wrote: »

In the past you could of lived and died with no interaction with the state or state infrastructure . This is simply not possible anymore

Yeah because what tourists want to see is a beautiful landscape and Malayalam's house. Beautiful unspoiled is what tourist want

Why would the land wither?

There is no vitriol . So you've never used the Garda, Fire , Health , Schools ?

Where does your power and internet come from?

Leinster Dub, you can squeeze almost everyone in there into Leinster and Dublin, for all I care, all of yiz on top of each other like hamsters, until the whole island topples over sideways...but I'm staying here!

the_pen_turner · 01-02-2018 1:52pm

LeinsterDub wrote: »

the_pen_turner wrote: »

I don't believe those stats. Us rural people pay less tax yes but receive a lot less Money back too.
Look at all the billions spent on stuff like the luas in cities. Rural Ireland can't even get a pothole fixed .

You seem to have missed the 10's of billions spent on the Motorway network.

The same if not more is being spent on urban motorways so that kind of balance s out

jobbridge4life · 01-02-2018 1:53pm

the_pen_turner wrote: »

Where is the urban rural divide.
Are all our towns included in the urban section. If not they should.

I don't believe those stats. Us rural people pay less tax yes but receive a lot less Money back too.
Look at all the billions spent on stuff like the luas in cities. Rural Ireland can't even get a pothole fixed .

I really detest the rural vs urban schtick. It does nothing to help either side. However, it must be said that the above is just not accurate, Dublin supports rural Ireland. So you get more back than you pay out.

Yes money is spent on building the transport infrastructure of cities, that is good and proper, because countless more people use it every single day. It should also be noted that Dublin is ridiculously underserved in transport infrastructure.

Ireland 2040 plan "will kill rural Ireland"

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