Shannon water for Dublin

You can't just 'make' development happen unless you live in some sort of communist command economy.

There is only one reason why you'd rather let a small fraction of the flow of the Shannon flow into the sea rather than be utilised - it's bigoted hatred of Dublin.

Nothing whatsover to do with the costs (which the benefits massively outweigh).

10Bn is not much for a project of strategic national importance. In 1920 you'd have been shouting about how awful the Ardnacrusha scheme was, the electricity went outside the area!

Kinsale gas - maybe they should have protested to ensure only Cork people should have been able to use it…

🙄

Where's that American spelling quote from?

It’s no secret you hate the capital and the "degenerates" that live there. You literally have hundreds of obsessive posts about the capital and how much you hate it. Over the years you’ve described it in very negative terms and suggested it should effectively be left to junkies and troublemakers, while ignoring and dismissing the culture, architecture, the city’s atmosphere and street life, its arts and music scene, theatres, galleries, festivals, restaurants, coastal amenities, parks, universities, and the many positive points that people bring up. This isn’t exactly the language of someone approaching Dublin infrastructure from a neutral standpoint.

And again, wanting a counterbalance to Dublin is perfectly reasonable. I agree with that, most people on the thread do.

But when the same poster repeatedly paints Dublin in the worst possible light, and then opposes infrastructure that supports the city, it’s hard not to see a pattern. At that point it starts to look less like planning policy and more like a long standing personal grudge dislike of Dublin influencing the position.

Just like the last thread you started and were banned from you're ignoring every single bit of data and evidence that's presented to you proving that the East coast needs fresh water. You're repeating your disproved mantras over and over again. You're obviously using AI to answer various posts, generic replies that manage to avoid the actual points being made. When challenged on specifics, you either repeat the same claims, pivot to something else, or ignore the data entirely. That’s not debate, it’s just recycling talking points.

In short, you're a troll.

Could you not have posted all those in one post?

You see it's not your water. It's not anyone’s private resource. The Shannon is a national asset, just like Dublin Port, the motorway network, or the electricity grid. These things exist to serve the whole country, not just the people who happen to live beside them.

And the idea that rural Ireland is somehow uniquely burdened is hard to take seriously. Wind turbines are built in rural areas for very obvious reasons: That's where the wind actually is, that's where the land is available, that's where population density is lower. that's where grid connections can be developed at scale and farmers make much needed money from them.

You cannot build wind farms in dense city centres any more than you can build large solar farms in apartment blocks. Geography dictates that.

The same applies to farming, forestry, solar farms, pylons, wind turbines, reservoirs. These are all rural based by necessity. They are not an attack on rural Ireland. They are simply the infrastructure that keeps a modern country functioning and it's not unique to Ireland, turbines are in rural areas throughout the world, just like farms are in rural areas throughout the world.

The river Danube pipeline to Stuttgart 320 km, Danube to Budapest major city supply. Danube to Bratislava major city supply. Shannon to Dublin 170 km. Completely normal European infrastructure.

And if we're going to talk about people "having no understanding", urban residents put up with constant development, density, traffic, noise, buses, trains, apartments, construction, infrastructure and population growth because that's what cities require. That's part of living in an urban area.

The same logic applies in rural areas. If you choose to live in a rural setting, you are going to encounter rural infrastructure. Farming, forestry, wind farms, solar farms, pylons, reservoirs. That is the reality of how a country works. If this comes as a surprise to you rural living isn't for you.

Also, framing national infrastructure as a "rape of rural Ireland" is wildly over the top. The Shannon is one of the largest rivers in Europe, carrying enormous volumes of water to sea every day. The proposed abstraction is a tiny fraction of overall flow and is specifically designed to avoid ecological damage.

This isn't urbanites versus rural Ireland. It's national infrastructure serving national needs.

And ironically, the same people objecting to wind farms, data centres and water infrastructure are often the first to complain about lack of jobs, lack of investment and rural decline.

You see I never claimed it was mine, that's your style… but the Shannon isn’t “yours”. It’s a national resource, not something to be ring fenced for whichever county happens to sit beside it. And this idea that supplying water to Dublin is somehow “cheering on damage” is backwards. Dublin is home to roughly 40 percent of the population and the country’s economic engine. Ensuring a resilient water supply there is not some vanity project, it’s basic national infrastructure that benefits the entire country.

Also, let’s drop the “rural folks will wrest control back” narrative. Rural Ireland already hosts nationally important infrastructure all the time. Wind farms, power lines, motorways, reservoirs, gas pipelines, data cables, wastewater plants. That’s how modern countries function. Infrastructure is placed where it makes technical and environmental sense, not where it causes the least political noise.

The Shannon abstraction is tiny relative to total river flow, designed specifically to avoid ecological damage, and will also strengthen water security beyond Dublin over time. That’s the opposite of environmental vandalism.

And the “swamping forums” line is a bit rich, you're not a moderator. People supporting national infrastructure are just as entitled to a view as those opposing it. Disagreeing with you isn’t swamping, it’s debate. This isn’t rural versus Dublin. It’s Ireland investing in essential infrastructure. Turning it into a territorial fight over “our river” just weakens the argument and ignores the bigger national picture.

Relative to its population it's arguably doing better than Dublin. You can cross the river on a toll-free dual carriageway in Cork. Try that in Dublin. The South Link Road is to all intents and purposes a UK-style urban motorway going right into the heart of the city.

Cork would have a Luas by now if the idiot local councillors were not blocking it.