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Ireland 2040 plan "will kill rural Ireland"

marno21

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/ireland-2040-strategy-will-kill-rural-ireland-according-to-coalition-825724.html

Deja vu anyone?

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John_Rambo

the_pen_turner wrote: »

I don't believe those facts. how can 1.3million Dubliners generate more tax than
the other 3.5 million. there have to a decent tax pull from limerick, cork , Waterford, galway, athlone etc let alone everywhere else.
you can spin statistics to show any facts you want.
I'm not buying it . all the cities and towns v the rest yes but Dublin v the rest.

You don't believe facts?

Houses built close together are cheaper to build, cheaper to service and better for the environment. Less lines, less poles, less digging, less roads etc… per house... And all the costly maintenence of the aformentioned.

Here’s a few very very simple examples;

My postman delivers to thousands of houses on a bike - cheap.

Your postman delivers to a lot less in a van - expensive.

My Gardai patrol a small area with lots of people - efficient.

Your Gardai patrol a large area with a few poeple - inefficient and costly.

The list goes on. It’s not rocket science.

Another example, Ireland has 20.9km of paved road for every 1000 people. By comparison the UK has just 6.6km of road per 1000 people. We are over three times more!

Obviously this is why it is much more expensive to maintain roads here then in the UK.

Another example, there is almost 4 times as much electricity wires (per 1000 people) in Ireland as their is in the UK!!

All of this makes the supply services like electricity, telecoms, road maintenance MUCH more expensive then other European countries and we all pay the cost of this.

markodaly

Did I hear somewhere correctly that Ireland has the same amount of roads as Norway, despite being many many times smaller?

Has anyone challenged the way we developed rural Ireland, the main reason why we are having these problems to begin with?

Ben D Bus

John_Rambo wrote: »

My postman delivers to thousands of houses on a bike - cheap.

Your postman delivers to a lot less in a van - expensive.

My Gardai patrol a small area with lots of people - efficient.

Your Gardai patrol a large area with a few poeple - inefficient and costly.

The list goes on. It’s not rocket science.

bk wrote:

Another example, Ireland has 20.9km of paved road for every 1000 people. By comparison the UK has just 6.6km of road per 1000 people. We are over three times more!

Obviously this is why it is much more expensive to maintain roads here then in the UK.

Another example, there is almost 4 times as much electricity wires (per 1000 people) in Ireland as their is in the UK!!

Maybe we could compile these and other concrete examples into a set of bullet points and share it with anyone who doesn't understand (or doesn't want to understand) the costs imposed on the taxpayer by those who insist on choosing to live in isolation but expect the services of a town.

markodaly wrote: »

Did I hear somewhere correctly that Ireland has the same amount of roads as Norway, despite being many many times smaller?

Has anyone challenged the way we developed rural Ireland, the main reason why we are having these problems to begin with?

It is actually worse then that, we actually have significantly more paved road :eek:

Norway
total: 93,870 km (includes 393 km of expressways)
paved: 75,754 km
unpaved: 18,116 km (2013)

Ireland
total: 96,036 km
paved: 96,036 km (includes 1,224 km of expressways) (2014)

:eek::eek::eek::eek:

source

bk wrote: »

It is actually worse then that, we actually have significantly more paved road :eek:

Norway
total: 93,870 km (includes 393 km of expressways)
paved: 75,754 km
unpaved: 18,116 km (2013)

Ireland
total: 96,036 km
paved: 96,036 km (includes 1,224 km of expressways) (2014)

:eek::eek::eek::eek:

When reading that you almost think that's not too bad, similar sized populations, Norway about a million more. Then you look at the land area of the two countries;

Norway: 385,203km²
Ireland: 70,273km²

That is a fair difference alright.

BrianBoru00

Selective comparisons there . Countries need to be serviced by roads. Compare northwest Mayo to Dublin and there's a hell of a lot less roads up there. Norway is a bit of an outlier.
Its a fairer comparison to look at km of road per km2 of area . Uk is about 1.7 km of road per 1km2 area. Denmark -similar size / population is 1.8 and Ireland is 1.3.

BrianBoru00 wrote: »

Selective comparisons there . Countries need to be serviced by roads. Compare northwest Mayo to Dublin and there's a hell of a lot less roads up there. Norway is a bit of an outlier.
Its a fairer comparison to look at km of road per km2 of area . Uk is about 1.7 km of road per 1km2 area. Denmark -similar size / population is 1.8 and Ireland is 1.3.

That really isn't a very good comparison in terms of comparing the cost of maintaining those roads. The UK has FAR more people living on each of those square km's making it cheaper per person to maintain.

Ireland is 70 per km2, UK is 268 per km2

Also you need to take into account the UK includes Northern Ireland and Scotland, which show many of the same rural issues as Ireland.

England has a population density of 420 per km2

cgcsb

the_pen_turner wrote: »

I agree that some and in a bad state. iv seen them first hand.

but that's not the point . rural people are paying for their system (and the future costs that will come) along with urban treatment systems through taxation.
we pay twice you pay once.

I'm not going to continue to dispute a fact that was taught to you as part of your primary school geography curriculum. The fact remains the bulk of economic activity and tax revenue is generated in the Cities, all over the world. And in Ireland's case only the GDR and the South West produce more tax revenue than they spend. These are the facts and I'm moving on to other posts.

Whether you could hypothetically argue that wouldn't be the case if only you had an arnotts down your boreen or that the miniscule proportion of your tax revenue contributing towards urban waste water treatment may offset some the damage being done to our country by septic tanks is neither her nor there.

the_pen_turner

I'm perfectly aware that there are downsides to living in the country side. I have to travel to get to the nearest shop instead of a 10 minute walk
restaurants, cinema etc are further away
asking for 100 meg broadband up you boreen in the middle of nowhere is asking a lot but asking for 5 meg isn't.
but the positives greatly outweigh the negatives

as for the setic tank issue.
have you ever stood at the side of a river and watched as the local treatment plant has pumped raw sewage into the river. I have. it happens all the time. I know one case years ago where an entire town sewage was diverted for months while they rebuilt part of the tanks .
have you been inside a treatment place and seen all the chemicals that are pumped into the sewage to 'make it safe' . I have.

if you added up all the bad tanks in the country they would be insignificant compared to a town pumping straight out.

cgcsb

BrianBoru00 wrote: »

Norway is a bit of an outlier.
Its a fairer comparison to look at km of road per km2 of area . Uk is about 1.7 km of road per 1km2 area. Denmark -similar size / population is 1.8 and Ireland is 1.3.

Roads per km2 is not a fairer comparison, if that were the case Iceland would be full of empty roads.
Norway is actually a conservative comparison, they splashed their oil and gas wealth on infrastructure BIG TIME, paving roads in the remotest of regions across extremely difficult and mountainous terrain with thousands of bridges and tunnels in order to connect communities previously only connected by ferry.

But they also built the worlds least used metro in terms of resident per km. Oslo is a little smaller than Dublin in population and boasts a whopping 6 metro lines, 6 light rail lines, 8 commuter rail lines, 32 quality bus routes, a number of island ferry connections and a vast network of cycling infrastructure.

cgcsb

the_pen_turner wrote: »

as for the setic tank issue.
have you ever stood at the side of a river and watched as the local treatment plant has pumped raw sewage into the river. I have. it happens all the time. I know one case years ago where an entire town sewage was diverted for months while they rebuilt part of the tanks .
have you been inside a treatment place and seen all the chemicals that are pumped into the sewage to 'make it safe' . I have.

if you added up all the bad tanks in the country they would be insignificant compared to a town pumping straight out.

Isolated incidents you may or may not have witnessed, the facts remain. The only chemicals used in waste water treatment are flocculants and they're only rarely used.

the_pen_turner

cgcsb wrote: »

Roads per km2 is not a fairer comparison, if that were the case Iceland would be full of empty roads.
Norway is actually a conservative comparison, they splashed their oil and gas wealth on infrastructure BIG TIME, paving roads in the remotest of regions across extremely difficult and mountainous terrain with thousands of bridges and tunnels in order to connect communities previously only connected by ferry.

But they also built the worlds least used metro in terms of resident per km. Oslo is a little smaller than Dublin in population and boasts a whopping 6 metro lines, 6 light rail lines, 8 commuter rail lines, 32 quality bus routes, a number of island ferry connections and a vast network of cycling infrastructure.

that sounds great.
when I was in Sweden we were in the middle of nowhere (or seemed like it) . all the hedges were neatly cut back and there was a separate footpath along the roads on both sides.
why cant we have similar.

the_pen_turner

cgcsb wrote: »

Isolated incidents you may or may not have witnessed, the facts remain. The only chemicals used in waste water treatment are flocculants and they're only rarely used.

I have witnessed them .
I worked for an electrition that was doing work for a sub contractor. I was in a few treatment plants pulling in cables.
I was in the room where the containers of chemicals were being pumped into the different treatment chambers. there is a lot of very harsh chemicals being used judging by the loads of warning sybles on the containers. the guy fiddling with it had a hell of a lot of ppe on for mild chemicals.

the_pen_turner wrote: »

asking for 100 meg broadband up you boreen in the middle of nowhere is asking a lot but asking for 5 meg isn't.

Just on this point, it is almost as expensive to deliver 5mb/s BB as it is to deliver 100mb/s

The biggest cost in telcos is by far labour and getting a guy to install the cable. Once the cable is in place it is pretty cheap and easy to replace the DSLAM at the end of the line for faster BB.

A 1km run of cable in an urban area might serve hundreds if not thousands of homes, while in rural Ireland it might serve just a handful of homes, thus a much higher cost per home.

BB in rural Ireland is heavily subsidised by urban Ireland. It is one of the mean reasons why we have one of the most expensive BB's in the world. Eir has asked Comreg if it would allow them to charge more for rural BB, to reflective the real cost of delivering BB in rural Ireland.

El Tarangu

the_pen_turner wrote: »

that sounds great.
when I was in Sweden we were in the middle of nowhere (or seemed like it) . all the hedges were neatly cut back and there was a separate footpath along the roads on both sides.
why cant we have similar.

A little bit off topic, but the income tax rates in Sweden would make your eyes water.

And tbh, I think that we would be better off spending our tax money on Dart Underground than hedge-trimming in rural townlands.

the_pen_turner

El Tarangu wrote: »

A little bit off topic, but the income tax rates in Sweden would make your eyes water.

And tbh, I think that we would be better off spending our tax money on Dart Underground than hedge-trimming in rural townlands.

really . you would put the lives of half the population behind saving you a few minutes commute time.

the diference is that sweden has high tax rates but they get a lot back from that in services. here most of it is wasted

cgcsb

the_pen_turner wrote: »

that sounds great.
when I was in Sweden we were in the middle of nowhere (or seemed like it) . all the hedges were neatly cut back and there was a separate footpath along the roads on both sides.
why cant we have similar.

Extreme taxation. Norway has oil wealth also.

Dyr

We've been killing rural Ireland for about 60 years now if you believe some people

Bastards just won't die.

Dyr

We've been killing rural Ireland for about 60 years now if you believe some people

Bastards just won't die.

the_pen_turner wrote: »

that sounds great.
when I was in Sweden we were in the middle of nowhere (or seemed like it) . all the hedges were neatly cut back and there was a separate footpath along the roads on both sides.
why cant we have similar.

When I hike in Norway, which I do every few years, beautiful country. I pass many villages where all the houses are boarded up and I've walked on completely disused rail tracks and bridges and through tunnels.

I can't speak for Sweden, but I know for a fact that despite the Norwegian government spending a complete fortune on high quality rural BB and roads, etc. that the depopulation of rural areas for urban has actually increased!

Norway was 77.89% urban in 2006, it is 80.73% in 2016

BTW Sweden was 84.43% urban in 2006, it is 85.96% in 2016

BBTW Ireland was 60.75% urban in 2006, it is 63.54% in 2016

I suspect in time we will reach the same levels of Norway and Sweden.

BTW Urban in Ireland is defined as a town or village with more then 1,500 people.

[Deleted User]

I don't get the comparisons with Norway or the UK. We have very different experiences and lands etc.

If land ownership was more concentrated or if we had had clearances or if the climate and terrain was less hospitable we might have a more urban population but we have a temperate climate with widespread land ownership meaning that lots of people build their own houses.

What would make living in a village, town or city more appealing to people?
More affordable housing, employment, easier commutes?
Giving out about urban generated rural housing doesn't make the alternative more appealing.

As it happens I have planning permission to build a one off house on family land.
I have seriously considered alternatives like buying in nearby villages or the city but none of them stack up.

I would trade off space, garden and other perceived negatives if the alternative was more affordable but it isn't.

cgcsb

the_pen_turner wrote: »

I have witnessed them .
I worked for an electrition that was doing work for a sub contractor. I was in a few treatment plants pulling in cables.
I was in the room where the containers of chemicals were being pumped into the different treatment chambers. there is a lot of very harsh chemicals being used judging by the loads of warning sybles on the containers. the guy fiddling with it had a hell of a lot of ppe on for mild chemicals.

Only FLOC is used and rarely so, the process of aeration and aerobic and anaerobic digestion is what cleans wastewater.

Deleted User wrote: »

As it happens I have planning permission to build a one off house on family land.
I have seriously considered alternatives like buying in nearby villages or the city but none of them stack up.

I would trade off space, garden and other perceived negatives if the alternative was more affordable but it isn't.

It is only more affordable because you aren't paying the real cost of it. You aren't paying the real cost of the electricity, broadband, road maintenance to your one off. They are all highly subsidised for you by those who live in urban areas (including your close by town).

Would it still be as affordable if you were asked to pay the real cost of these services like you are in Germany?

And why should folks in urban areas be subsiding it?

cgcsb

the_pen_turner wrote: »

really . you would put the lives of half the population behind saving you a few minutes commute time.

What are blithering on about?

the_pen_turner wrote: »

the diference is that sweden has high tax rates but they get a lot back from that in services. here most of it is wasted

yes we waste a lot here a good % of it on subsidizing unsustainable rural dwelings.

dr.fuzzenstein

Personally I loved living rural.
Didn't care about schools or amenities, but it was great for heading off with the dogs, the bike or the canoo.
My commute was around 45 minutes, most people commuting within Dublin need longer for shorter distances and the landscape was much better.
I lived rural knowing full well it wouldn't be the same as living in Dublin city center and thank fcuk for that.

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Personally I loved living rural.
Didn't care about schools or amenities, but it was great for heading off with the dogs, the bike or the canoo.
My commute was around 45 minutes, most people commuting within Dublin need longer for shorter distances and the landscape was much better.
I lived rural knowing full well it wouldn't be the same as living in Dublin city center and thank fcuk for that.

Actually that is the great thing about Dublin, it is a city and has all the services of one, yet it takes just 30 minutes to get into the Dublin mountains and Wicklow.

I live in Dublin, yet I go hiking, kayaking, etc. in Wicklow almost every weekend. Best of both worlds IMO.

BTW My commute is a 30 minute walk (very pleasant one) or a 15 minute cycle.

LeinsterDub

Deleted User wrote: »

I would trade off space, garden and other perceived negatives if the alternative was more affordable but it isn't.

http://www.daft.ie/wexford/houses-for-sale/castlebridge/27-woodview-castlebridge-wexford-1494345/
4 bed , 2 bath. 195K. Your self build is hardly going to be much cheaper than that

cgcsb

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't get the comparisons with Norway or the UK. We have very different experiences and lands etc.

If land ownership was more concentrated or if we had had clearances or if the climate and terrain was less hospitable we might have a more urban population but we have a temperate climate with widespread land ownership meaning that lots of people build their own houses.

What would make living in a village, town or city more appealing to people?
More affordable housing, employment, easier commutes?
Giving out about urban generated rural housing doesn't make the alternative more appealing.

As it happens I have planning permission to build a one off house on family land.
I have seriously considered alternatives like buying in nearby villages or the city but none of them stack up.

I would trade off space, garden and other perceived negatives if the alternative was more affordable but it isn't.

That's the key problem the system is set up to artificially inflate the cost of urban living while subsidizing the cost of rural living. A rebalancing would solve the issue, let eir charge more for their more expensive rural services, impose a septic tank charge and stop placing ridiculous height limits and apartment specs in urban areas.

Macy0161

bk wrote: »

Would it still be as affordable if you were asked to pay the real cost of these services like you are in Germany?

And why should folks in urban areas be subsiding it?

It's not zero cost though - own well, own water treatment system, all running off paid for electricity, whilst still paying for water and waste water through that VAT increase way back, and general taxation (as we've been told so often in the last few years). There's also potentially other cost savings such as being on hand to help with elderly parents who would be more reliant on state services or support etc.

fwiw from what I've seen the plan doesn't go far enough in prioritising infrastructure in and out of our cities. Better rail links and reduced journey times to the dormitory towns will not only make the current experience of people better now, but I believe long term makes them attractive for businesses to locate them to feed the cities. Better rail links doesn't have to mean one way commutes for people or business! They should be looking at as further out than Maynooth and Balbriggan.