No quitten we're whelan onto chitchat 12.

Jesus relax hey. 

Work doesn’t need to be punching a clock and sitting in an office. If work can be done from home and it suits the worker then it should be an option. I don’t even have an office desk any more it was reassigned, just my home office and then I’m out on the road most of the time.

can you direct me to where i said I was working or not working today?, you’re making blind assumptions about people and work and how work happens.
Many people don’t work standard 9-5 hours, I myself have to be available for evening and weekend stuff when it’s required which is offset during regular hours with time off so I’m often flaffing about when people who don’t know any better think I should be at work, maybe those people should mind their own business??

If you trust no employees and treat them like they do nothing when you’re not watching them then nobody would ever want to work for you. Then you end up with only people working for you who have no other choice and they leave as soon as they can because you’re an awful anwful employer and your business is doomed to failure.

The biggest part of managing is building trust with and having trust in employees. Old school having your foot on employee’s throats isn’t tolerated any more.

I doubt it’s been relevant really we’re such a small corner of the world.

It may become more relevant though going forward. It’s a very different security landscape out there. Are we significant enough for the EU to insist we do our share ?? I don’t know, but making an exception for us may open the door for others to look for the same and that might be too much.

I don't know but I always reckoned us Irish are Christians on the surface and Pagans underneath - as in we will run with both options and decide on which ever suits us on the day.

When we joined the EEC we sacrificed one of our best assets - our fishing territory and waters - as much as we have gained from the EU since then it will never match what we gave away in billions of Euro's of fish.

FDI investment mostly from the US has created lots of jobs over the last thirty odd years which was needed and welcomed.

We might as well have given them away, because we couldn't defend nor patrol them anyway, and they would have been emptied by other countries fleets with us getting nothing in return.

Sad to say but true.

Ireland is increasingly damaging itself internationally with our embarrassing position on our own defense. I am not inclined to believe many have an issue with us being "neutral"- a position I would disagree with myself. Comments that sure we're only a small nation don't hold water with our budget surplus and when we're compared to other small countries notably Denmark or Finland. We're milking the tit and it's increasingly being commented on, rightly so.

Mike Martin MP of the Lib Dems across the water has a good idea on a European defense alliance. Unfortunately for Ireland, but very practically, he says only serious minded nations ought to be involved. It would see forces standardising equipment as far as possible to only source military kit from within members of the alliance to help their economies and grow the defense industrial base with concrete orders. He argues, and I agree, the US is now unreliable. Buying kit from the US involves service plans, spare parts, software upgrades etc. which could all be easily delayed or stopped.

Europe is a very wealthy, technologically advanced continent that has for some reason not understood by me chosen to make itself subservient to the whims of - no offense to him - Homer from Wisconsin and whether he votes blue or red. Most statements I see from European politicians contain some version of "but we must America". For such a wealthy populous continent it is embarrassing and disempowering on the world stage. We have made a choice to be impotent, and Ireland is the worst offender.

I think a year in the army would do no harm for middle aged men in this country. Lots of bluster out of them nowadays

Agree with you there, fishing was sacrificed by Ray mcsharry in favour of the beef industry, the loss of fishing territory is permanent but the beef subsidies were temporary.

These companies basically thought they had the market on high end manufacturing to themselves and that China would be happy and indeed was only capable of making cheap tat for Christmas crackers.
Intel would be a great example, they thought because they were first to market with good semiconductors that rivals would never match them. I remember a period when I worked with them they were running with a 57% profit margin.
I see now there talk of Intel being split up and a Chinese company TSMC are eyeing up the manufacturing FABs

Ireland probably has a short window to diversify tax take or we could see another repeat of the recession when housing collapsed. I read over the last two years that some mad amount like 50/60% of our tax take comes from 6-8 companies. We’re the country with the highest exports to the US, I presume from these multinationals, it’s a very precarious situation

The Sun, no thanks! In other news a US aircraft carrier collided with a ship in the med, stuff happens, humans are human.

Times are changing. Countries and blocs like the EU are going to have to change with them. If it is true that NATO is dead, then the UK is going to be stretched in a new security situation. With French objection they appear to be the forefront "lead nation" in any new defense organisation. The very best thing they could do for us is tell us their services, outside of advising, are no longer available outside of their own interests. I find it amazing that on a forum that loves/loved to hammer dole recipients that our freeloading is seen as a good thing, maybe cute hoorism. Except there's nothing cute about it when a country is found out & called out.

Must try it...price?

Usually a small bit under the silage but it pulls out very easily no issues here I find it way better than the nets tbh so much so that I find the needs a pain now when I have to open one of them. Also the bales are much better preserved with the film a big improvement in bales I think

Theyre worthless. Where are you based?

If you're not too far away I won't see you stuck and I'll tidy them up for you.