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Norweigian Infrastucture Compared to Irish

MrAbyss

Same population. Has oil money alright. Even so. We get 50m trams on the Green Line from our politicians and are over the moon for it. BTW Norway has a superb rail system (building new lines all the time) and Oslo has an incredible commuter rail, tram and metro system. Same size as Dublin.

We get slightly longer trams and crayons for Renelagh.

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[Deleted User]

Comparing Norway to anywhere in terms of govt investment is just plain silly, end of

wmahcm

If you have ambition for Ireland it's a very decent comparison. Beats the people who set the bar at "at least we are better than Albania etc."

MrAbyss

Deleted User wrote: »

Comparing Norway to anywhere in terms of govt investment is just plain silly, end of

You are so typically Irish in this regarding it's soul destroying listening to the likes of you.

[Deleted User]

Never mind the money, Norway is decades ahead of us when it comes to the sheer planning/thinking/innovation. They look into the future and find new solutions.

We look to the past and implement ideas that other countries used about thirty years ago.

gozunda

Norway has considerable natural resources not just limited to oil reserves - they're fairly ringing the bell at the top tbh.

...Norway has vast reserves of petroleum, titanium, nickel, natural gas, iron ore and coal. Globally, it ranked fifth in the production of natural gas and second in export of natural gas. The country’s titanium production accounts for 6% of the total world production of titanium. It is a globally leading producer of ferroalloys and aluminium.

The country also produces zinc, steel, copper, cobalt, cadmium and aluminium. Some of the country’s economically important industrial minerals include sand and gravel, nepheline syenite, limestone and aggregates.

https://www.azomining.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=99

That said organisation and good governance helps ...

I Am The Law

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Never mind the money, Norway is decades ahead of us when it comes to the sheer planning/thinking/innovation. They look into the future and find new solutions.

We look to the past and implement ideas that other countries used about thirty years ago.

That's it exactly, decades, we can't look beyond Saturday week. Utterly depressing.

Vic_08

gozunda wrote: »

Norway has considerable natural resources not just limited to oil reserves - they're fairly ringing the bell at the top tbh.

https://www.azomining.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=99

That said organisation and good governance helps ...

And that's on top of generating more than 100% of their domestic electricity supply from hydro, sure why can't the ESB send a lad down to Ardnacrusha to just make it work properly FFS.

Vic_08

Deleted User wrote: »

Never mind the money, Norway is decades ahead of us when it comes to the sheer planning/thinking/innovation. They look into the future and find new solutions.

And they are centuries ahead of us in therms of being a wealthy independent country, we are only a few generations on from being an asset stripped, genocide ravaged colony. Compared to most of the former British Empire we are well ahead of the curve.

Can we do better than currently; absolutely, is it realistic to be anywhere near the standard of the most advanced nation on the planet; no.

noodler

MrAbyss wrote: »

You are so typically Irish in this regarding it's soul destroying listening to the likes of you.

They've the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world.

gozunda

Vic_08 wrote: »

And that's on top of generating more than 100% of their domestic electricity supply from hydro, sure why can't the ESB send a lad down to Ardnacrusha to just make it work properly FFS.

Interesting until recently Norways hydro electricity was viewed as as the green battery of europe

https://industryeurope.com/pumped-hydropower-the-green-battery/

Seems like hydro electricity is now the bad boy according to a changing political scene ..

https://www.localfutures.org/dammed-good-questions-about-the-green-new-deal/

wmahcm

Vic_08 wrote: »

And they are centuries ahead of us in therms of being a wealthy independent country, we are only a few generations on from being an asset stripped, genocide ravaged colony. Compared to most of the former British Empire we are well ahead of the curve.

Can we do better than currently; absolutely, is it realistic to be anywhere near the standard of the most advanced nation on the planet; no.

So we should stop looking towards the best examples and practices worldwide, and look towards what ? lol

Cookiemunster

wmahcm wrote: »

So we should stop looking towards the best examples and practices worldwide, and look towards what ? lol

It's very easy to have best practice worldwide when you've got practically unlimited resources. Quite simply we don't have the money to impliment a quarter of what they've done in Norway.

wmahcm

Cookiemunster wrote: »

It's very easy to have best practice worldwide when you've got practically unlimited resources. Quite simply we don't have the money to impliment a quarter of what they've done in Norway.

A quarter is a start . .. funny we have billions upon billions for future generations to protect the fortunes of bankers, banks, bondholders and developers though, and can afford to happily give away all our resources for a few brown envelopes.

Elemonator

Having oil and having the world's most valuable sovereign wealth fund definitely helps. Nonetheless Ireland is just lazy too.

noodler

wmahcm wrote: »

A quarter is a start . .. funny we have billions upon billions for future generations to protect the fortunes of bankers, banks, bondholders and developers though, and can afford to happily give away all our resources for a few brown envelopes.

God this is literally everybody's answer to everything in Ireland.

I'm gonna put a number on your rant. The net cost of saving the banks has been about 35bn when our stakes and NAMA profits are considered.

wmahcm

noodler wrote: »

God this is literally everybody's answer to everything in Ireland.

I'm gonna put a number on your rant. The net cost of saving the banks has been about 35bn when our stakes and NAMA profits are considered.

lol, a bit of creative accounting . . yet we took on billions more in national debt for them.

noodler

wmahcm wrote: »

lol, a bit of creative accounting . . yet we took on billions more in national debt for them.

64bn the gross cost of the bailout.

20bn from the NPRF so 44bn onto the national debt (the rest of the 200bn+ is basically the cost of borrowing to fund public services during the deficit years of 2008-2014).

My understanding is our steak in AIB and the other banks is about 20bn+, there's been a few more billion in dividends and NAMA expects a few more bn in profit.

Happy to hear your version.

wmahcm

noodler wrote: »

64bn the gross cost of the bailout.

20bn from the NPRF so 44bn onto the national debt (the rest of the 200bn+ is basically the cost of borrowing to fund public services during the deficit years of 2008-2014).

My understanding is our steak in AIB and the other banks is about 20bn+, there's been a few more billion in dividends and NAMA expects a few more bn in profit.

Happy to hear your version.

Ahh there's the bullshyte

tdf7187

Denmark would be a more appropriate comparison as they don't have the oil money and like Ireland have limited natural resources in general. Very similar population to Ireland, similar stage of economic development and similar land geographical area. Also high cost of living.

Even at that they have a better rail network than us (I think - I've only visited Copenhagen and that was for barely a week).

New Zealand might be another suitable comparator. Actually (whisper it) we've probably done a bit better than NZ on infrastructure. Unfortunately, that's not saying much.

tdf7187

Deleted User wrote: »

. We look to the past and implement ideas that other countries used about thirty years ago.

Very true, although we followed the UK with regard to dismantling our tram network just a few years after they dismantled theirs. Well done us! At least we're not stupid enough to follow them out of the EU.

sheesh

wmahcm wrote: »

If you have ambition for Ireland it's a very decent comparison. Beats the people who set the bar at "at least we are better than Albania etc."

no its the exact same only coming from the other side.

Ireland has a national debt of over €200billion.

Norway not only have no debt they will have a budget surplus for the foreseeable future. this means that even though we are nearing complete employment we still cannot run a health service.

Comparing the two countries is an exercise in extreme stupidity

noodler

wmahcm wrote: »

Ahh there's the bullshyte

Not at all.

The country ran deficits for about 7 years (quite apart from substantial bank bailouts as evidenced above)

Easily seen. The EBR (exchequer borrowing requirement) in those years was as high as 20bn in down years alone (majority for public services)

It's been a serious failing of some of our media not to correct the misperception of some that our national debt is down to the banks.

Any evidence you need on this, happy to provide links, sources etc.

wmahcm

sheesh wrote: »

Comparing the two countries is an exercise in extreme stupidity

Yeah lets never look towards any better ways of managing or doing things . .wouldn't want to rock the nice cronie cartels would we.

JohnC.

wmahcm wrote: »

Yeah lets never look towards any better ways of managing or doing things . .wouldn't want to rock the nice cronie cartels would we.

The problem seems to be that your better way would involve us having loads of oil and other natural resources. The thing is, there's nothing we can do to make that happen. Other than to annex Norway. Which wouldn't work.

cgcsb

MrAbyss wrote: »

Same population. Has oil money alright. Even so. We get 50m trams on the Green Line from our politicians and are over the moon for it. BTW Norway has a superb rail system (building new lines all the time) and Oslo has an incredible commuter rail, tram and metro system. Same size as Dublin.

We get slightly longer trams and crayons for Renelagh.

That project is serious overkill.

wmahcm

JohnC. wrote: »

The problem seems to be that your better way would involve us having loads of oil and other natural resources. The thing is, there's nothing we can do to make that happen. Other than to annex Norway. Which wouldn't work.

It's not "my" better way. Yeah lets go with "your" way of never looking at any better systems anywhere or question anything that goes on in Ireland. lol . . that's worked out well in the past here.

JohnC.

wmahcm wrote: »

It's not "my" better way. Yeah lets go with "your" way of never looking at any better systems anywhere or question anything that goes on in Ireland. lol . . that's worked out well in the past here.

Care to explain how saying that we don't have Norway's resources is the same as never looking at any other systems?

In fact, I'd say that acknowledging that we don't have Norway's resources shows that we have looked at it and don't expect it to just work like magic.

wmahcm

JohnC. wrote: »

Care to explain how saying that we don't have Norway's resources is the same as never looking at any other systems?

In fact, I'd say that acknowledging that we don't have Norway's resources shows that we have looked at it and don't expect it to just work like magic.

Are you really trying to claim that every example of good administration and management in Norway or any other successful system in any other country . . by comparison to the systems that have failed in Ireland, requires massive resources and wealth ? lol

JohnC.

Okay. You're right. It makes no difference. Carry on. I'll leave you to your silly thread.

hognef

MrAbyss wrote: »

Same population. Has oil money alright. Even so. We get 50m trams on the Green Line from our politicians and are over the moon for it. BTW Norway has a superb rail system (building new lines all the time) and Oslo has an incredible commuter rail, tram and metro system. Same size as Dublin.

We get slightly longer trams and crayons for Renelagh.

Norway does not have a superb rail system. For example, the line between the two largest cities, Oslo and Bergen, is a single track that was constructed over a 100 years ago. The same largely apples to Oslo to Trondheim (3rd largest city). Both have journey times of 6-8 hours.

There's is not, and has never been, any direct connection between Bergen and Trondheim (which would likely take 8-10 hours if it did exist, assuming similar line), hence, to travel between those two, you need to go via Oslo (14 hours, say). By air, all these take about 45 mins.

That said, there are of course reasons, including the mountains, fjords, climate and wildlife. There'd be a need for many (likely record-breaking) tunnels and bridges to make these rail routes "superb". A new line to Bergen has been discussed for decades, but nothing fundamental has changed yet.

Admittedly, there is investment in rail in the larger Oslo area, including, but not limited to, the high-speed line to Gardermoen airport (20 mins, vs 40 mins by car largely on motorways). But "building new lines all the time" is not correct.

Norway does indeed invest in infrastructure at a different scale from Ireland, but also some things just cost so much more there (for example, it's never flat there, so everything requires expensive tunnels, etc.) that it's still lagging in terms of motorways too. There's no motorway connection between the largest cities, but there's certainly no lack of investigation in major projects otherwise (including a growing network of motorway around Oslo and generally in the east of the country in general).

Finally, just thought I'd mention the extremely high number (250+) of toll roads used to part-fund some of these projects.

Just to provide a bit of balance. A lot is certainly significantly better than in Ireland, but it's not all as it appears from the outside.

Edit: Indeed, public transport within and around Oslo (and other large cities) is miles ahead of anything that Ireland has to offer.