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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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the_pen_turner

cgcsb wrote: »

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.

We have oil too . But we gave it all away

cgcsb

the_pen_turner wrote: »

We have oil too . But we gave it all away

Where is our oil? our gas fields can just about supply our own needs up to 2025 then we'll be importing from Russia.

FreudianSlippers

the_pen_turner wrote: »

We have oil too . But we gave it all away

Always trotted out, never actually thought through.

Macy0161 wrote: »

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.

First of all, why folks pay more for electricity in rural Ireland, it is still nowhere near the real cost of supplying electricity to rural areas. It is still heavily subsidised by urban Ireland. If you were paying the real cost, it would be roughly three times more expensive.

Not sure what the point about elderly people is about. Lots of people in cities look after their elderly parents. And a big advantage of living in cities for them is that they can often walk to their local shops/cafes/etc. or take buses/trams/etc. Gives them added independence. While in rural Ireland they end up terribly isolated in one of houses when they can't drive any more

FreudianSlippers

The irony in rural Ireland objecting to wind turbines is that they could be lowering the cost of electricity in rural Ireland by having the turbines.

LeinsterDub

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

The irony in rural Ireland objecting to wind turbines is that they could be lowering the cost of electricity in rural Ireland by having the turbines.

And generate jobs and wealth for the local residents

[Deleted User]

bk wrote: »

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?

What in terms of figures would be the difference within Germany. As I said I would consider living in nearby villages or towns but the trade off is too much.

How much more do you want me to pay for electricity?
Why is it all stick (make me pay more) and no carrot (make the alternative more affordable)?

LeinsterDub wrote: »

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

That looks like great value but isn't comparable to the price of housing around me next to Galway city.

cgcsb wrote: »

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.

I won't be using eir and have to provide a treatment system rather than a septic tank.

I recognise that there are costs both direct and indirect to where I will be building but the benefits to me are hard to ignore.

On a very practical basis - what would people suggest to make living in urban areas more attractive?
How would you bring down the cost, improve the quality or change things?

Shurimgreat

bk wrote: »

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.

I wish people would move away from this subsidised thing. Its a huge grey area.
The broadband cable is likely going to the home of a middle aged or elderly couple who reared their children in the country. The same children then moved to Dublin where they pay the tax which pays for the broadband, healthcare, pensions, etc of their parents.

In a Republic there are many people "subsidised" by the majority. Pensioners, the unemployed, children in school, college students, medical card holders, bus pass holders, etc etc. Its not black and white.

Many of those living in rural areas also may have worked their entire lives in cities, paid taxes and then retired to the countryside. To claim they are being subsidised after paying a lifetime of taxes is foolish.

blanch152

the_pen_turner wrote: »

We have oil too . But we gave it all away

What oil?

FreudianSlippers

the_syco

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Ironically rural Ireland is being killed by the one off housing / road frontage brigade. The same people who are complaining about this plan.

To be honest, if we implement their plan, rural Ireland would probably cease to exist :pac:

blanch152

Let us look at some facts:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS

World Bank 2016 figures.

Albania 58%
Algeria 71%
Argentina 92%
Australia 90%
Austria 66%
Belgium 98%
Bulgaria 74%
Canada 82%
Cyprus 67%
Czech Republic 73%
Denmark 88%
Finland 84%
France 80%
Germany 76%
Greece 78%
Hungary 72%
Iran 74%
Ireland 64%

Those figures relate to percentage of urbanisation. What does that mean? Now I only went from A to I, and of those countries in the EU (plus a few others), only one - Albania - had a lower percentage of urbanised population than Ireland.

What implications does that have for Ireland? Urbanised populations are cheaper to provide services to, everything ranging from schools to hospitals ton banks to postal delivery to care in the home to broadband is cheaper when provided to an urban population. Ireland needs to compete with all of these countries (and the rest down to Z) for foreign investment. We need to be cost effective.

The policy implications lead to one conclusion - Ireland needs to be more urbanized and the cities need to take the vast bulk of the growth over the next 30-40 years. Dublin has its part in that, but to counter-balance Dublin, we really need to double the size of Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford, at the expense of rural areas and smaller towns.

Those are the cold hard realities of what this country needs to do. So either our national plan gets on board with this or we will be left behind.

Harry Palmr

There is no question that cities provide cheaper but also superior quality services be it the bus or dealing with the state's various offices.

Deleted User wrote: »

What in terms of figures would be the difference within Germany. As I said I would consider living in nearby villages or towns but the trade off is too much.

How much more do you want me to pay for electricity?
Why is it all stick (make me pay more) and no carrot (make the alternative more affordable)?

That is the point. Broadband, electricity, etc. are so expensive in urban Ireland because it is subsiding rural Ireland. The flipside of increasing the cost of bb, electricity in rural Ireland would be significantly reducing the cost of BB, electricity, etc. in urban Ireland, as it is no longer subsidising it.

Another mechanism to do this would be to substantially increase Local Property Tax on rural homes to reflect the higher cost of maintaining rural roads, while significantly dropping the LPT of urban homes to reflect their cheaper costs (do overall LPT intake would still likely be higher in urban areas).

In Germany for instance, if a road is little used, then ownership and maintenance of it is turned over to the people who live along the road. If they want to maintain it, then you have to work with your neighbours to pay for it.

Also perhaps LPT can be adjusted to reflect the size of a home. Bigger your house, the more tax you pay on it. The truth is most people building one off houses are paying as much for them as they would for a house in a nearby town. The difference though is that they can build a house two or even three times as large outside of town and that is the true motivation.

BTW In Germany you can only build new one off houses within 1km of a town or village. In other words within walking distance of the town/village. This policy has stopped the one off development you see in Ireland and has helped German towns and villages to actually grow and expand, rather then die like you see in Ireland.

ED E

bk wrote: »

BTW In Germany you can only build new one off houses within 1km of a town or village. In other words within walking distance of the town/village. This policy has stopped the one off development you see in Ireland and has helped German towns and villages to actually grow and expand, rather then die like you see in Ireland.

If we could do ONE thing nationally to start fixing our dogs dinner of a dwelling pattern this would be it.

the_pen_turner

blanch152 wrote: »

the_pen_turner wrote: »

We have oil too . But we gave it all away

What oil?

Maybe it has I'm thinking of

the_syco

blanch152 wrote: »

We need to be cost effective.

TBH, we need to build up. Currently we're building out and not up, and out tends to be further away from transport links. Example of this would be High Park here in Toronto. Multiple high rise buildings, some 24 floors high, and 12 or so apartments per floor. All within 5-10 minute walk of a subway station that goes into the heart of Toronto.

Building out is great, but people are renting in Naas to work in Dublin.

Before someone mentions the Balllymun towers; they failed as no-one gave a flying fcuk about repairing any of the major issues that they had, for example when the plumbing broke.

the_syco

the_pen_turner wrote: »

We have oil too . But we gave it all away

We have oil along the coasts, but no means to get it. AFAIK, the company that rents the drills only rents said drills to companies.

Fcuk shale drilling; that gets oil and gas, but the price to the environment is not worth it.

Needles73

the_syco wrote: »

We have oil along the coasts, but no means to get it. AFAIK, the company that rents the drills only rents said drills to companies.

Fcuk shale drilling; that gets oil and gas, but the price to the environment is not worth it.

What kind of nonsense are you on about....."the company that rents the drills...". we have no proven oil reserve or commercially viable oil producing reservoir at this time.

FreudianSlippers

Needles73 wrote: »

What kind of nonsense are you on about....."the company that rents the drills...". we have no proven oil reserve or commercially viable oil producing reservoir at this time.

I think they're referring to the sale of exploration rights - it was speculative, so we granted a good share of the profits to the exploration company, but IIRC they didn't find any commercially viable oil as a result of the exploration.

markodaly

the_pen_turner wrote: »

We have oil too . But we gave it all away

Oh, this myth again....

markodaly

Deleted User wrote: »

That looks like great value but isn't comparable to the price of housing around me next to Galway city.

How do you like the traffic in Galway? You do know that decades of bad planning and ribbon development is the main reason for this, something you are going to contribute to.

By all means work away, but you give up your right to complain about cheap BB to your house then.

fly_agaric

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

This is really just a catch-all position that puts a moral sheen on not wanting to pay any more tax.

They're all lazy public sector bums on the take anyway, so I'm dead right to vote FF/FG and take my few Euro extra when they cut usc/top tax rate as promised! Shure those wasters would have just squandered it!

Shurimgreat wrote: »

I wish people would move away from this subsidised thing. Its a huge grey area

There is opportunity cost of subsidising the fairly inefficient "one-off house" lifestyle Irish people like + as was pointed out is traditional for the country. Any subsidy so spent is not available to be directed elsewhere in economy (such as better services for towns and villages...[and cities but say that quietly]).

Technological changes may make this type of living somewhat more feasible but at the moment it is a massive white elephant. Even if there are revolutions in manufacturing, energy, automation etc I can't see it emptying out the cities - most it will do is stop their growth. Clusters of people (as in a town or a village) will still be more sustainable than the way we have been doing things.

jimmycrackcorm

The only thing that will save rural Ireland is twofold: the introduction of fibre-quality (not necessarily actual fibre) broadband, and an actual transition to acceptance of remote working.

If you work in IT, for example, you'd loathe living outside Dublin because of the lack of employment opportunity choices. Bizarrely IT is still reluctant to allow remote working despite the positives of having some peace an quiet to actually get on with programming. So the real hold-back is the inability of slow broadband to measure up to the equivalent of being in the office.

It'll happen eventually. Just like in Sci-fi movies, when I can do the equivalent of a meeting where I can virtually be in the middle of a meeting, and not just looking at a webcam picture, then there'll be no rationale for holding up remote working.

So I think rural broadband is as important as the rural electrification scheme in the early days of the state. Not just for the benefit of Rural communities but also to take the pressure off commute choked Dublin and other cities.

the_pen_turner

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

The only thing that will save rural Ireland is twofold: the introduction of fibre-quality (not necessarily actual fibre) broadband, and an actual transition to acceptance of remote working.

If you work in IT, for example, you'd loathe living outside Dublin because of the lack of employment opportunity choices. Bizarrely IT is still reluctant to allow remote working despite the positives of having some peace an quiet to actually get on with programming. So the real hold-back is the inability of slow broadband to measure up to the equivalent of being in the office.

It'll happen eventually. Just like in Sci-fi movies, when I can do the equivalent of a meeting where I can virtually be in the middle of a meeting, and not just looking at a webcam picture, then there'll be no rationale for holding up remote working.

So I think rural broadband is as important as the rural electrification scheme in the early days of the state. Not just for the benefit of Rural communities but also to take the pressure off commute choked Dublin and other cities.

I agree.
we should be doing as much as possible to move jobs around the country. every town and village could easily have those jobs that arnt location specific.
every one would win. . cheaper housing for those doing the jobs and more house available for those that cant
it would also create employment in these places doing up houses and building houses for those new jobs.

CatInABox

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

The only thing that will save rural Ireland is twofold: the introduction of fibre-quality (not necessarily actual fibre) broadband, and an actual transition to acceptance of remote working.

If you work in IT, for example, you'd loathe living outside Dublin because of the lack of employment opportunity choices. Bizarrely IT is still reluctant to allow remote working despite the positives of having some peace an quiet to actually get on with programming. So the real hold-back is the inability of slow broadband to measure up to the equivalent of being in the office.

It'll happen eventually. Just like in Sci-fi movies, when I can do the equivalent of a meeting where I can virtually be in the middle of a meeting, and not just looking at a webcam picture, then there'll be no rationale for holding up remote working.

So I think rural broadband is as important as the rural electrification scheme in the early days of the state. Not just for the benefit of Rural communities but also to take the pressure off commute choked Dublin and other cities.

A lot of companies are pulling back on the work from home thing, Yahoo and IBM are two that have drastically cut back in recent years. Right or wrong, they see a lot of resentment built up in staff who stay in the office, as they feel that they're picking up the slack.

[Deleted User]

CatInABox wrote: »

A lot of companies are pulling back on the work from home thing, Yahoo and IBM are two that have drastically cut back in recent years. Right or wrong, they see a lot of resentment built up in staff who stay in the office, as they feel that they're picking up the slack.

Plus the fact that office workers spend far more at the office facilities and provide customers to the local businesses that operate near the major places of work.

Home workers are at a considerable financial advantage over the ones who have to go to the office, it seems that this is considered as an unfair advantage.

They obviously want all their staff to suffer the same commuting hell.

the_pen_turner

I think there should be offices that could be rented out in villages and towns so that the people arnt working from home just near home.
I couldn't work from home , too many distractions

markodaly

The work from home thing has been the panacea for rural communities for years but it hasn't worked out like that. What will save rural Ireland, is cutting back on one off housing and moving back to the villages and small towns. Ireland is one of the few countries in the world that seems to have a human right to build in the arse end of nowhere and expect equivalent services as those in towns, for free.

MeTheMan

markodaly wrote: »

Oh, this myth again....

I'm guessing you're saying the 'give it all away' thing is a myth. Because there is oil there and lots of it! But the Atlantic sea and the depth of the oil make it costly. So the state make it very cheap to explore in the hope companies will come.