Has urban Ireland finally a voice?

Rubbish 83 % of tourists only visit Dublin. And they really only visit the city centre.

And I am telling you the make it as far as the Dublin mountains and when the phone signal goes they panic. I would LOVE rural ireland to take some of the pressure off Dublin with tourism because particularly at night on the weekends this level of tourism makes Dublin unpleasant.

Rural Irish people refuse to believe me.

There are a staggering 427 tourists for every 100 hundred locals in the capital, new research by leading visa waiver processors Official ESTA shows.

Dublin has one of the highest ratios of tourists to locals in the world - pipping New York, London and even Paris for visitor-to-resident numbers.

https://www.dublinlive.ie/lifestyle/travel/dublin-one-highest-tourist-local-17371881

Tourists have four times the chance of meeting another tourist than another local. Which is fine I am sure they enjoy the share experience but for locals its a nightmare.

It's not sustainable.

Dublin needs LESS tourism not more.

I feel this is slightly silly.

I mean what do people expect? Yes people living in rural areas get bigger houses. Yes people living in urban areas get bigger services. I mean are Irish people lacking in common sense what do people expect? That is just life. I think most people understand it.

The idea tho that rural ireland can't make it without urban ireland or urban ireland can' make it without rural ireland is silly.

I mean this says it all the farmers rather than strike and stop producing food BLOCKED oil from other countries coming into the urban areas. In order to affect urban ireland they had to stop the functions of another industry. Why? Because they know that striking in their own industries would not affect urban ireland. If Urban Ireland needed rural Ireland then farmers simply would have stopped their own deliveries and the knock on affect of that would have been enough. Even they know it would not be. Most lidl brands are not Irish are they? And they are cheaper.

I am not saying rural ireland needs urban ireland at all either they don't they would do fine without us. Which is why i argue for more local autonomy. Local taxes staying in local areas.

Sucessor counties need to be discussed. Its not about more councillors although that could happen its about locals seeing their taxes spent locally and their council being more accessible to them by making it smaller etc. Cork is one of the largest counties in ireland and i hear people's frustration at the lack of a local voice because the county is so large.

This is what happened with dublin thus the successor counties which needs to be taken to its final goal.

I can understand your point of view. But the attraction of rural ireland is the lack of what you suggest. There are diff types of tourists some want the unspoiledness of it. Which i think we need to protect .. development of attractions for tourism ruins the area and its not catering to locals.

Marketing and finding the RIGHT type of tourists is important. Scandanavians for example LOVE hiking and all that stuff they love it. You can market trail rides .. surfing on the west. USE what is there instead of destroying it. Currough rowing would be another.

People want to see what rural ireland really IS not some fake thing paved over it. That is USA style tourism. I would hate to see that in rural ireland.

Yes that is exactly what im saying its a moderate balanced approach thanks for reading my post you understood it perfectly.

Exactly also the same with successor counties leading to more active local politics and local taxes being used locally.

Because of the 3 successor counties already in dublin (aka dun laogghaire-rathdown -south dublin and fingal etc ) we can take it to the final destination so to speak.

Counties are no longer used for local politics anyway we use districts and its best to allocate taxes with these as it makes people feel the people they elect decide what happens to taxes rather than some large council they dont know.

The Local Government Acts define counties to include separate counties within the traditional county of Dublin but I think it's time to give these counties back to themselves.

I can see this approach being used in a stage by stage basis for counties like Cork tho. I think it would help rural people feel they had more of a voice and give them more autonomy. You could start off with successor counties within the traditional larger county. Its probably happened already in cases I dont know about.

I think it would make rural people feel they had power and a voice.

Although I think within Dublin since we have already gone that route it wouldn't be too far to go the whole but open to hearing voices against it or the downside.

Going back to tourism .. the moderate route would seem best to me as you rightly read. However I don't make policy so… Its doubtful anyone will listen to me .. im just a foolish nobody lol! 😅

When I lived in Spain income tax was a lot higher. However you get more healthcare is free etc. And its good. The income disparity isnt as bad as people think in cities. Spain is huge and lower rural incomes bring the average income down in stats.

So its easier to think life is better etc. Its more complex than just taxes tho. Land is spain is widely available. Construction is huge and there are huge empty complexes. For obvious reasons that I think we all know.

But in general in spain income tax is higher at all levels partic for high earners.

They also have to pay fees pretty much simiar to the UK for university there.

Pharmaceuticals dont rely on tax payer subsidies to produce their product.

That industry is self sufficient in Ireland, farming is not.

Its not in the irish tax payers interest to over produce beef. We will be fined for the emissions on top of handing out the subsidies for food we dont need.

And dont get me wrong i buy irish whenever i can but that doesnt mean we arent producing too much because of the uncapped subsidies.

Leave the subsidies alone and let the market decide if the product is worth the cost of international export, just like every other industry does.

😶umm are there many bots on here? Apologies to the poster if he is not AI.

Agriculture is not like every other industry . It is massively subsidised to provide cheap food for the masses . To think that those masses are or should be solely within Irish borders is myopic in the extreme .
My own view on agricultural subsidies is that they should be eliminated as should all subsidies. ( 30 billion euros are spent here on social welfare / supports , while 2 billion is spent on farm subsidies )
If people aren’t happy with subsidised food, let them pay the full cost of it plus a margin .

Except rural ireland does not feed ireland.

Most of our food is imported and most of what we produce is exported.

I agree about the adoption of electric vehicles in agri.

This will have to happen but in reality its hard to see how we wont need to reduce the number of farms in ireland.

The EU climate fines will simply become too expensive for us to pay.

Urban Ireland has a loud voice already. Look at the front benches of the Dail and the media.

The real issue is that those who pay more tax support those who pay less. Its not about where you live but there is going to be more jobs in an urban area.

Also many of them are commuting huge distances to urban areas or even all the way to dublin and they expect to do this for the rest of their working lives.