2020: The Year Ireland Left its Adolescence period

Wasn't Ireland pretty much first in the world when it came to both the plastic bag levy and the smoking ban back in the day? Policies that most major countries have followed since. We were also the world's first country to divest from state investment in fossil fuels (or at least there was a vote on it and I remember it being news, I don't know if that has actually happened since?)

I'm sure there are plenty more examples, we haven't always just copied Britain.

Ridiculous comment.

OP we broke with Sterling in 1979 and decided to join the euro without the UK in 1999 so we've been going on a divergent path from the UK for a long time.

Don't worry it will be gone soon enough. Its only limping along from one stay of it's execution to another

TBH I wouldn't worry about it too much. If it goes away the rate will only go up a few %, there is a huge cost to moving one of those companies and tons of their staff won't want to go to the new location. The whole notion about the 12.5% being so vital comes from an outdated generation of betrodden self-loathing spud pickers who thought the best Ireland had to offer was a cheap ticket to Europe for American megacorps.

Portugal would be a strange choice seeing that it has the highest corporation tax in all of Europe, not just the EU. Unless they wanted to keep in the same time zone as Ireland? Having to change their clocks would be a big imposition.

A bit. The danger is a big tech slump that's already kind of happening that could cause a mass exodus. For years now there is an expectation with certain degrees that you can just march into a tech company and get a few k horsed into your bank account every month for the rest of your days once you keep de head down. There aren't nearly enough indigenous start ups here despite grants being available

Not enough people quittin' the almighty Goog/Apple and starting their own tech company. It does happen now and then but that scene in Ireland is much smaller than it needs to be.

We're far better off with the euro than without, that's just a fact. Oh and we never had our own currency until 1979, anyway.

The Lisbon treaty never had anything to do with abortion, that was just the government here choosing to pander to the religious crazies as usual.

It was the Irish electorate's decision to repeal the 8th amendment and it's quite likely they'd have done it years earlier if politicians had had the balls to give us the chance to vote on it sooner.

The "fall into line" stuff is rubbish. Abortion has got nothing to do with the EU.

Might be handy when you go on holidays but we are stuck with the EU's interest rates and their threats to kick us out if we don't pay up like during the 2008 crash.

It doesn't really matter what would or could have happened to abortion, the point I'm making is the EU does influence us on social issues and our autonomy is reduced

Yet more puerile rubbish with no basis in fact and no evidence provided.

You've made an assertion with no proof, which you then blame on the EU, again with no evidence provided.

Pub bore level stuff tbh.

I am bewildered by the Irish state, for example I overheard in the news this week some journalist saying to Mary Lou McDonald in an argument about gangland criminals and the IRA that "crime is crime". What a chilling phrase to use, a quote famous from Thatcher during the hunger strike. By his logic then the old IRA were criminals too, after all "crime is crime". If you insist on still demonising the IRA in 2022 then you should have the consistency to also demonise your own IRA. I find the whole thing bewildered and I don't think I could trust those people if there was a unified Ireland.