Will Ireland ever improve?

I am pie · 12-07-2012 01:44PM

golden lane wrote: »

you are watching too much telly.......lol

Actually I am not, depsite your ill informed assumptions, I have friends and family in each on of those cities.

I am pretty well informed.

There were or there were not riots in Manchester and Birmingham last summer?

mikom · 12-07-2012 01:47PM

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

Ok right well I'm going to lunch now, I'm just saying what's on my mind let's not take all this too personally, brb!

Enjoy your plate of sauerkraut and your glass of milk (half empty).

golden lane · 12-07-2012 01:51PM

I am pie wrote: »

Actually I am not, depsite your ill informed assumptions, I have friends and family in each on of those cities.

I am pretty well informed.

There were or there were not riots in Manchester and Birmingham last summer?

of course there were......but very few were affected.....just some people out to get a free ride......

if they had riots in the centre of every city in the uk.....less than ten percent of the population would be affected.......

there are 60 million people here......

the telly and the papers give the impression that everybody is rioting.....

it wasn't rioting anyway....it was telly grabbing.......

Funglegunk · 12-07-2012 01:51PM

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

With the mess that the country is in now financially, and socially (See Saturday in the Phoenix Park), do you think this country is actively progressive in it's nature? Evolving? Or just stuck in the same rut, a backwater always stuck behind the rest of the developed world. Our public transport is awful, same with healthcare, corruption is rife...

To be blunt... I sometimes cringe at how awful a country it is when reading newspapers online. I look around me here at the news here in the UK, science, politics, media and see a different world. Not perfect but a vast improvement on what Ireland does in almost every aspect, despite both countries having similar opportunities. The pig-ignorant Irish and their 'ah sure its just a bit of craic' and spineless 'its not my job, someone else will do it' mentality to every thing disgusts me and its something that filters through to every single facet of Irish society.

Read a story in any of those newspapers about corruption etc at the highest levels and you'll find half the commenters trying to crack wise. The hilarity. It's far easier to crack a crap pun than sum the intellect to ask a question or write to your local TD. It's the spineless insecure trait that really does it.

Even the drunks who were making a show of us on the world stage with their 'win or lose we're here for the booze' mentality at the euros. They're not fans. They're just drunken Paddies who are so insecure about losing or asking serious questions as to why we lost that they need to hide behind 'ah sure we're here for the craic and we're the best fans in the world' rubbish.

Having a bad day OP? I'll excuse your calling the Irish 'pig-ignorant' and let you calm down a bit. When you come back from lunch hopefully you'll realise you are painting a very rosy picture of the UK and maybe apply some balance and perspective to your comparison of Ireland to other countries.

rgmmg · 12-07-2012 01:53PM

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

Has it improved? So poor people on the dole have xboxes and sky TV these days, which isn't really an improvement, but they are completely out of touch with everything and seem to be very angry. Were people getting beaten to death by teenagers or stabbed in the head with screwdrivers back then? Morals and decency and community are dead. Our leaders have shown us the way, to take all you can for yourself and not to care about anyone else.

The same could be said of any country - hardly unique to Ireland. The world is changing and we're all changing with it, not always for the better alas.

As to whether morals, decency and community are dead in Ireland, compare it to England which you seem to see as a beacon of progress and civility. You clearly don't live in the same area of London as I do, where a neighbour who slashed his wife's throat at the weekend didn't even make the regional news bulletins. It's a bigger economy so can more easily accomodate RBS and Lloyds scandals, with recent libor exposees suggesting it's not just old Paddy that's on the take.

As for the win, lose we're on the booze jibe, again, look at England in the Euros. Would they have exited at the group stage if they'd been in our group instead of us? Most likely considering how they were completely dominated by Italy.

Not too sure insight or incite is your motivation, but one thing Ireland shouldn't do anymore is take sh1t lying down like we did in the past. That's progress.

ToddyDoody · 12-07-2012 01:53PM

Ireland is..? Dont really have a comparison except that when i went to London for the first time a while back i came to dislike dublin for a bit. It is true that you can define ireland in many ways as 'what britain is not' and so you're almost forced to chose to like one and dislike the other! Maybe something similar is at play for the op.

EdenHazard · 12-07-2012 01:55PM

Everyone always thinks their own government sucks, Ireland's different in that(on boards anyway) there's loads who actually don't like the actual country which is understandable tbh. Its small, peripheral and changes that are happening elsewhere don't take on here in the same way, but then again not everywhere can be Tokyo or New York.

golden lane · 12-07-2012 01:56PM

ToddyDoody wrote: »

Ireland is..? Dont really have a comparison except that when i went to London for the first time a while back i came to dislike dublin for a bit. It is true that you can define ireland in many ways as 'what britain is not' and so you're almost forced to chose to like one and dislike the other! Maybe something similar is at play for the op.

i just think it's the valliun....

paddydriver · 12-07-2012 01:57PM

chin_grin wrote: »

Is someone reading Fifty Shades of Grey to come up with that username? :pac:

My wife got given a copy of that last night... pure filth I hear...

I Love It.. roll on the good times:D

12-07-2012 01:57PM

I dont know if you can improve on perfection.

Dyr · 12-07-2012 01:58PM

Country was a dump through most of the tiger years but the money grubbing covered it up. No values, No real sense of identity, as a nation we stood for nothing and got taken for everything. I've given up on us a people tbh, a shower of c**ts

mikom · 12-07-2012 02:02PM

EdenHazard wrote: »

but then again not everywhere can be Tokyo or New York.

Thank fuck for that.

hooradiation · 12-07-2012 02:03PM

Deleted User wrote: »

I dont know if you can improve on perfection.

I for one look forward to the day this is actually a problem for us.

12-07-2012 02:06PM

Bambi wrote: »

Country was a dump through most of the tiger years but the money grubbing covered it up. No values, No real sense of identity, as a nation we stood for nothing and got taken for everything. I've given up on us a people tbh, a shower of c**ts

This is just crap.
On what are you basing your opinion that the country was/is a dump?

I know that the WHO always rate us quite highly on quality of living surveys, maybe you need to stop reading the indo and actually live life.

http://www.mercer.com/qualityoflivingpr#city-rankings

Dublin was a top 20 city in the personal safety of cities in the world survey.
http://www.mercer.com/qualityoflivingpr#personal-safety

Or instead of expert opinions and fact based on serious crime per head of population we could all just read the indo the irish sun and the irish daily mail and hide behind our couches in fear of our lives.

Mr Benevolent · 12-07-2012 02:10PM

OP admits he takes his opinions from the media. That's enough to make me ignore the rest of his post.

Sea Filly · 12-07-2012 02:11PM

Bambi wrote: »

I've given up on us a people tbh, a shower of c**ts

I assume you're including yourself there?

Nodin · 12-07-2012 02:21PM

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

....... The pig-ignorant Irish ........

If that's your racist attitude, perhaps you'd be happier elsewhere.

Ray Palmer · 12-07-2012 02:27PM

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

I was too young in the 80s to be aware of this stuff - was there a massive heroin problem then? Was Dublin city centre crawling with junkies? Were there as many drunks on the streets on a Saturday night? Was the country full of empty ghost estates? Were beauty spots polluted with one off housing due to brown envelopes?
Has it really improved?

Maybe too young as you don't seem to know what was going on. Yes there was a massive heroine problem then. Many ways worse than now. Drunks all over the place. Empty buildings everywhere. Boarded up shops on major streets in Dublin.
A lot of georgian buildings were destroyed during this time. The population in the city centre was destroyed. Many areas in the city and suburbs were no go areas.
Things improved and are no way close to as bad as they were.
Ops rant has complete lack of historical memory and no idea of other countries. A lack of economic reality too.
Consider Ireland was the biggest producer of software in the world for a number of years we can create jobs. We still are near the top.
We do have social issues like every country but actually people are pretty much equal. To compare the uk health system with ours is so stupid. Economy of scales apply.
Italy, Spain, Greece, uk etc all have corruption internationally reported on.
The thing that bothers me in this country who think problems here are somehow unique and have some high opinion of other countries without actually looking about.

Dyr · 12-07-2012 02:27PM

RobbieTheRobber wrote: »

This is just crap.
On what are you basing your opinion that the country was/is a dump?

I know that the WHO always rate us quite highly on quality of living surveys, maybe you need to stop reading the indo and actually live life.

http://www.mercer.com/qualityoflivingpr#city-rankings

Dublin was a top 20 city in the personal safety of cities in the world survey.
http://www.mercer.com/qualityoflivingpr#personal-safety

Or instead of expert opinions and fact based on serious crime per head of population we could all just read the indo the irish sun and the irish daily mail and hide behind our couches in fear of our lives.

Who mentioned crime? You're being weird. I'm basing it on personal opinion my man nothing more

forfuxsake · 12-07-2012 02:28PM

Watched the UK news last night. Here's what I saw in the ifrst 4 stories:

1. Crisis in care -no money to pay for the car of senior citizens, over 40,000 people had to sell their homes to pay for care and yet people with no homes get it free. So of course people are now starting to sell their homes before they get too old and blowing the money on cruises and getting free care. Others are killing themselves as they want to have something to leave to their children. The whole systems is a shambles.

2. The banks, British banks have been illegally fixing interest rates causing thousands of people to lose their homes. The British banking system, as customers of Ulster Bank here will know, is a fúcking mess.

3.Security at the Olympic Games, the company responsible is 3000 security men short so they are having to call in the army(something that didn't even happen in Beijing)

4. Milk - the distributors of milk are forcing farmers to accept a wholesale price of milk that is 5p a pint less than cost. The government are asking farmers to go away and ensure they have cut their production costs down as much as they can. dairy farmers threatening to strike during olympics.

To be honest the main difference I see is that Irish people like to boast about how shyte their country is, British people like to boast about how great their's is. So if ye are running around England telling everybody how shyte it is in Ireland maybe you should have a cup of shut the fúck up and just stay put.

No country is perfect but bitching about it from afar helps no-one.

MarkHitide · 12-07-2012 02:29PM

The fact that we tolerated a governments lead by Bertie Ahern and his pals for so long says something of how disengaged with national government we are. The fact we replaced them with one lead by Enda Kenny re-inforces it.

Dyr · 12-07-2012 02:32PM

Sea Filly wrote: »

I assume you're including yourself there?

No, I am now le outsider, similarez to le albert camus. Youse all disgustez moui

Sea Filly · 12-07-2012 02:34PM

Bambi wrote: »

No, I am now le outsider, similarez to le albert camus. Youse all disgustez moui

C*nt, so! :pac::P

trevp · 12-07-2012 02:38PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUreokkjadmq9iBCHzl8ee0w&v=at1EPPp0Dko&feature=player_detailpage

Eve_Dublin · 12-07-2012 02:39PM

OP I lived in the UK for 3 years - 2 years in London, 1 years in the midlands. I've no idea where you live in London but parts of my area were cordoned off on a regular basis because of stabbings. My own parents visited me and were outside a pub and saw a man kicked to death and left there. They were the only ones who called the ambulance.

Midlands was bleak. The city I lived in is supposedly the 3rd worst city to live in in the world. Most nights we'd hear car chases, gun shots and thhe street I lived on was lined with prostitutes, most of them drug addicts, most nights.

There was a massive crack problem there and the cities were crammed full of people off their heads.

It's very easy to live in a bubble in London and ignore the fact that London is not the UK. I dunno about you, but I tended to stick to one part of the city, so didn't know what was going on in other parts. If you lived in West London, for example, it could be very easy to never step foot in East London hence have no idea what's going on there.

I live in Spain now. The Spain you know from your holidays is a very different country to the one we live on a daily basis. It's tough to survive and the only reason I'm here at this stage is the weather and my boyfriend is finishing up a masters and can't leave 'till then otherwise I'd be out of here like a shot.

Austerity measures have been carried out recently that are much more severe than Ireland's. For example, the VAT has been increased to 23% in the last few days and the average base salary here is 641 Euro a month.

Public healthcare IS great but the system is MASSIVELY in debt. Basically the councils are not paying what is owed and using the money elsewhere. Public education is slowly but surely becoming privatised.

Corruption is rife and one of two parties will only ever be voted in, like the States.

The dole has a limited time frame and after that, you're on your own.

50% unemployment among young people, 24.2.% among everyone else.

Madrid city is bankrupt.

Most young people are supported by their parents and still live at home.

Spanish might not be big drinkers but are massive cocaine takers...walked home last night from the theatre to find a guy sitting on the step of my flats snorting coke. It's everywhere and it ain't pretty.

Things here are REALLY desperate....not comparable to Ireland hence the mass protests.

I wish the Irish protested more but the Greeks and Spanish (but only among one sector of society) have protested mainly because things have become so intolerable. You can really feel it day to day and only the sunshine makes it bearable. I'm not exaggerating.

I don't completely disagree with all you've said but Ireland isn't the worst, not by a long shot. That doesn't make it any better but just to make it clear that I hear people say similar things to what you've said here....I hear it most days from my students. People are angry and desperate. I heard it in the UK too.

BraziliaNZ · 12-07-2012 02:40PM

RobbieTheRobber wrote: »

You did make it personal you referred to the irish as pig ignorant in your OP, Im Irish and I take insult at being accussed of having a pig ignorant attitude.

Perhaps the real ignorant one is you, who armed with only a biased opinion formed solely from reading of tabloid media sources have come here to insult a nation of nearly 5 million. :rolleyes:

You're right, I got caught up in the rant - I withdraw. Afterall my dear mother is Irish too

KerranJast · 12-07-2012 02:41PM

MarkHitide wrote: »

The fact that we tolerated a governments lead by Bertie Ahern and his pals for so long says something of how disengaged with national government we are. The fact we replaced them with one lead by Enda Kenny re-inforces it.

People may not have warmed to Enda pre-election (he was in and around 20% popularity afair) but he went up to 65% popularity last year dropping back to 42% this year after the budget.

You may not agree with his policies or like him but a fairly large chunk of the voting population think he's doing a decent job given the circumstances.

BraziliaNZ · 12-07-2012 02:45PM

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

O.k. which reminds me, wait a sec........... FART!

Jaysus, must have been the......FART!

Feck, what's wrong with me..........FART!

I'm gonna have to excuse..........FART!

You are so extremely witty

ejmaztec · 12-07-2012 02:51PM

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

You are so extremely witty

Being in the EU, we're all affected by Brussels, but he's more affected by the sprouts.

BraziliaNZ · 12-07-2012 02:55PM

Eve_Dublin wrote: »

OP I lived in the UK for 3 years - 2 years in London, 1 years in the midlands. I've no idea where you live in London but parts of my area were cordoned off on a regular basis because of stabbings. My own parents visited me and were outside a pub and saw a man kicked to death and left there. They were the only ones who called the ambulance.

Midlands was bleak. The city I lived in is supposedly the 3rd worst city to live in in the world. Most nights we'd hear car chases, gun shots and thhe street I lived on was lined with prostitutes, most of them drug addicts, most nights.

There was a massive crack problem there and the cities were crammed full of people off their heads.

It's very easy to live in a bubble in London and ignore the fact that London is not the UK. I dunno about you, but I tended to stick to one part of the city, so didn't know what was going on in other parts. If you lived in West London, for example, it could be very easy to never step foot in East London hence have no idea what's going on there.

I live in Spain now. The Spain you know from your holidays is a very different country to the one we live on a daily basis. It's tough to survive and the only reason I'm here at this stage is the weather and my boyfriend is finishing up a masters and can't leave 'till then otherwise I'd be out of here like a shot.

Austerity measures have been carried out recently that are much more severe than Ireland's. For example, the VAT has been increased to 23% in the last few days and the average base salary here is 641 Euro a month.

Public healthcare IS great but the system is MASSIVELY in debt. Basically the councils are not paying what is owed and using the money elsewhere. Public education is slowly but surely becoming privatised.

Corruption is rife and one of two parties will only ever be voted in, like the States.

The dole has a limited time frame and after that, you're on your own.

50% unemployment among young people, 24.2.% among everyone else.

Madrid city is bankrupt.

Most young people are supported by their parents and still live at home.

Spanish might not be big drinkers but are massive cocaine takers...walked home last night from the theatre to find a guy sitting on the step of my flats snorting coke. It's everywhere and it ain't pretty.

Things here are REALLY desperate....not comparable to Ireland hence the mass protests.

I wish the Irish protested more but the Greeks and Spanish (but only among one sector of society) have protested mainly because things have become so intolerable. You can really feel it day to day and only the sunshine makes it bearable. I'm not exaggerating.

I don't completely disagree with all you've said but Ireland isn't the worst, not by a long shot. That doesn't make it any better but just to make it clear that I hear people say similar things to what you've said here....I hear it most days from my students. People are angry and desperate. I heard it in the UK too.

I'm not blinded by London at all, I know it has lots of problems but it feels like they are progressive here and actually try and tackle issues head on. If Covent Garden, a massive tourist location, was crawling with heroin addicts like Dublin city centre, I've no doubt Boris would do something about it.
And when the expenses scandal was big news here, they did something about it, they imprisoned people. Why is Ivor Callelly walking the streets?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_parliamentary_expenses_scandal#Criminal_charges

Will Ireland ever improve?

Comments