"Green" policies are destroying this country

how can anyone think this is nothing but a disaster for the country?

How is it a disaster? how often do you be in the countryside anyway, let me have a guess never unless you have a free travel pass?

Most of these city folk who moan and winge about the countryside are the first to hop on the Ryanair flight out of the country rather than go down the country, but that's okay for the environment in their book.

Would that be the same city folk that drive their kids to school in an SUV.

Would that be the same city folk who dump their rubbish on side streets rather than pay for bins?

Would that be the same city folk that won't pay water charges?

Would that be the same city folk that have bonfires every year as an excuse to burn their rubbish?

Would that be the same city folk that pack the airport every bank holiday weekend?

Would that be the same city folk that have millions of street lights?

The list goes on, so it works both ways so unless we are all going to go back living in caves, no point getting excited about it.

Yep, plenty of them types around, living in a shoebox and having to keep their head down when they go outside the door in case they make eye contact with their scumbag neighbour.

Jealousy is an awful disease.

I lived in the big smoke for a long time and I would be fairly sure I know more about it than a lot of the natives.

Possibly some people have more realistic ideas as to what constitutes a 'disaster' beyond; 'OMG, my bicycle had a flat this morning and I had to catch a diesel powered bus, and then when I went to the supermarket, they had discontinued the vegan section! And then later when I watched the news, they didn't cover either incidint, just some stupid stuff about a volcano exploding on an island and thousands dead.'

A bit hypocritical then to complain about the public purse paying grants towards septic tank upgrades when the same purse is paying 100% for all water and wastewater plants construction, operation costs and maintenance is it not?

Hey ho here we are because there was never a believable guarantee that it would remain a public owned utility, and we are still waiting on the referendum on that many years later. We are also here because it was only another tax gathering scam. Even Eurostat recognised that.

Now if any charges were ring fenced guaranteeing the charges would be used for the purpose stated and show where it was spent, but seeing as it apparently cannot be done for carbon taxes .........

When the polluter is a Council, do the tax payers get their money back in this polluter pays principle of yours, or is it situation normal, they get to be do as they like while the only whipping boy is the rural home owners you so hate, several of which near me work in the public sector, ironically?

Its not even a rural thing these days, any politician even slightly suggesting they want to curtail housing, reduce housing availability or saying anything other than "lets build more houses" is pretty much signing their own resignation letter. Its not rocket science to foresee any attempt to push people out of one off rural housing and into cities will only reduce availability of houses and increase prices in those areas.

The argument that rural people should just build their houses in the local village holds no water either, there are no sites available for one off builds in local villages so that solution is reliant on property developers who only want to build in high volumes and maximise profits.

The solution to this would be for local councils to purchase agri land on the boundary of each major town, re-zone it for residential and put in the basic infrastructure and sell them as affordable serviced sites at cost price, its a great solution as it takes all the hassle of building & finance away from the councils and future proofs the area, they might have a field capable of 10 sites but there is only demand for 3 this year, 2 next year etc into the future, as long as you leave the unused sites as green area and build from the front the town keeps growing naturally but also stick a use it or lose it clause on the sites so the council gets it back if you haven't built on it in 3 years.

You appear to be confused here between the Water Framework Directive and the polluter pays principle.

Phil Hogan when in charge of the water charges fiasco tried a few bully boy tactics. One being the threat you favour of E.U. fines for none compliance. He even attempted to drag the then European Commissioner Vella into that, but other than a few very vague muttering on the subject the commissioner was very vague. The reason for that became clear shortly afterwards.

Has it ever crossed your mind why now 5 years after water charges being scrapped the E.U. have not issued any fines ?

Your mention of you being from a rural village reminded of a story I heard a few years ago. In Mayo there was a rural community general meeting being held to discuss the problems in the area. For every problem there was this lad sitting in the front row who had the answer to every problem. All of them recognised as financially impractical by the rest of the attendees from mutterings and eyerolls. One lad eventually turned to his older companion and asked "Who is this lad who thinks he is such an expert on our problems that he knows all the answers" ? The reply was "He`s a lad that went away, and now he is back". The inference being that he knew sweet F A before he left and it`s clear that in the time he has been gone he learned sweet F A.