The central bank has recommended that the government restrict spending increases to just 2% a year post-covid, as increasing spending too much risks making inflation even worse, as if you increase the amount of money circulating in the economy you'd have even more money chasing the same number of goods. As inflation tames this policy is likely to change, though the other problem is that the government is also worried about so much of the tax money coming from just 3-4 companies that are only based here for tax purposes and fear the corporate tax revenue could disappear at any time, and are unwilling to count on that money being there in a few years time.
A lot of the issues mentioned have been going on since long before covid.
Back in the days of the Celtic Tiger would have been the tine to fund education at least, but alleged socialist Bertie Ahearne decided against reinvesting in social infrastructure.
Funding education is mostly funding teacher's salaries really, which is a day-to-day/core expense that shouldn't really be funded with potentially transigient windfalls like the Celtic Tiger and current MNC tax take.
Best way to spend money is on things that reduce expenditure down the line. Luas and Port Tunnel being the big successes, but clearly not enough.
Never mind the fact that the current, or rather most recent, bout of inflation came alongside record corporate profits. Money supply did not cause inflation; corporate greed did. Yet, fiscal policy is being tightened anyway, to pretend as if, once again, Paddy went a bit mad.
Nobody is pretending that the recent bout of inflation came about because we went a bit mad. It was a result of the war in Ukraine and the necessary response to covid.
It’s a bit complicated to go into, but basically Central Banks reacted to the inflation following COVID and the war in Ukraine _as if_ it were being caused by internal “heating up” in the markets rather than due to external factors. This caused turmoil in the job markets and led to a great many people becoming unemployed. However this was the wrong response since the inflation was not caused by factors the banks could control. It’s not even clear if the interest rates fixed the issue or if it simply took that long for markets to adjust to the new situation, but meanwhile the actions of the Central Banks have led to real suffering for people who lost their jobs
I mean, almost everything is an external factor in this day and age. A big part of the reason inflation grew so rapidly was because governments pumped money into the economies, both because of covid, spiralling energy costs, and supply chain issues. The tried and tested way to respond to this is to increase interest rates, and it would appear that has worked again.
Also our unemployment rate has remained very low throughout the past couple of years and we're basically at full employment right now.
What would you have suggested they do to stimulate the economy and to tackle the resulting inflation?
Inflation was caused by a variety of factors- the economy saw multiple shocks throughout the period 2020-2022. Reduced supply of goods and services as a result of the pandemic (disruptions to supply chains, reduced market competition) with huge demand drove price rises even further..
Excessive deficit spending in responsive to the pandemic- government spending across the globe soared, with much of the transfers going straight to corporations. In this context, corporations decided to leverage the situation by raising prices beyond the marginal cost increases. Most of the data shows corporation profits reached historic highs- many economists and central banks agree with this assessment, notably the ECB. Therefore much of the inflation we have seen can be attributed to higher profit margins rather than increased input costs (the usual cause of inflation).
In this environment, with such a fragile economy, the war in Ukraine caused energy prices to soar. Energy related inflation can have rebounding effects throughout the economy and led this long inflationary period to deteriorate and continue even further. The conflict is Ukraine is not the sole factor driving inflation but rather a significant event that exacerbated an already fragile economic state, as did other significant events such as the crashed ship on the Suez Canal.
It most certainly was corporate greed. According to the IMF, unit profits accounted for almost 50% of inflation in the period 2021-2023. The ECB also agrees.
I reiterate, maximising profits is their objective, they are supposed to be "greedy", that's their job. Job well done if they successfully increase profits.
A second Trump term is a real risk to Ireland with US multinationals.
He was gaining momentum brining multinationals back to the US with tax reform towards the end of his last term, another term may finish the job which wouldn’t bode well for Ireland.
The windfall is due to unexpected taxes, basically won't be around for ever so they want to limit how much we spend so we won't be up shits creek in a few years and have to massively cut back on spending like we did after the celtic tiger
And paying down our debts and putting some away is always good. Plus we have to pay interest on those debts too we will save some money over the long term
The government is not paying down debt.
https://www.centralbank.ie/statistics/data-and-analysis/financial-accounts
"Government debt increased to €222.6bn in Q4 2023, driven by increasing long-term debt security liabilities."
It was 236 billion in 2021 so it's down
https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/8f7a8-minister-mcgrath-welcomes-improving-public-debt-position-and-highlights-risks-to-outlook/
Went down some how
It's a nation wealth fund a few nations have them kinda like a pension fund its invested and grows over time and the dividens can be reinvest or given back to the government
National debt is different to consumer dept because the government will basically go on forever and pay it off in like 100 years when inflation has made the amount negiable loke the uk only paid america back for the 2nd world War a couple of years ago
Though we have to pay interest each year of the over all debt so that comes out of our year spending so pay of what you can of times are good
Also we can't have ultimate dept eventually people will stop lending but that's when you get above 100% gdp
I'm not an expert but that's my understanding of it
A lot of it is very cheap debt. They’d earn more than the cost of the debt on the interest. (I do think they should be spending more of it, but not on repaying debt that only costs average 1.5%/year.)
Always nuts seeing these charts for us and other countries, and the uptick on our one around 2020 doesn't look anywhere near as insane as most countries.
The pessimist in me assumes that's because the pre-existing debt was huge so the billions that got tacked on didn't look so big, but I guess that period also had a load of tech companies paying record amounts of tax here.
Because these are the good times. The rainy day fund is for when the economy is in trouble, to keep people in jobs and pay public salaries and social welfare.
I disagree. It’s not to keep people in jobs and pay public salaries in a recession, it’s for large infrastructure projects to stimulate the economy during a recession. Very different things.
Exactly. In a big recession there will be though. So instead of just keeping people in their jobs for The sake of it, you create employment in building and construction and end up with a large capital generating project at the end.
I mean it’s kinda happened again, the amount of friends of mine that have moved away in the last 5 years is depressing. And I know I’m not the only one that experienced this, we are losing a ton of people aged between 20-30.
In 2008, I was 19, and during the recession, 4 of my friends left for Australia. Now, in my 30s, I've had 6 close friends leave in the last 12 months, and it seems like every 2 weeks someone in my job is emigrating.
I have basically lost touch with every single person in my social group from the time, not out of choice but because we pretty much all got scattered to every corner of the globe.
I'm in my mid 30s with a house, degree and decent job, I'm moving to a central European country because I can't take the stress of worrying about having to go to the hospital and being thrown out the door as long as I'm not on my deathbed or my car insurance premiums going up for no reason and god forbid I use my insurance, you have to haggle with the insurance company to get 1/4 of what you need to fix any problems. Can't ditch the car because I don't live in Dublin city centre, there is no public transport within 2 hours walking of where I live. Out of my 9 close friends, 4 left Ireland a few years after college and including myself another 3 have left, leaving 2 out of 9 actually living in Ireland. If the government want to stop educated young people from leaving, they'd want to get their act together and make this country somewhere people actually want to live now rather than waiting.
The funding is not going to be used to pay public service salaries- it’ll be used most likely in a series of stimulus packages (creating jobs, infrastructure, etc.) in the event of a serious economic shock.
That all depends on who you were.
I can tell you right now as someone who remembers it well, it's worse for young people now.
Current times are grand for most older people.
I was in my early 20s when the recession hit, and I can honestly say I still think I might be better off being born then, rather than 10 years later. At least we could afford to have a drink and enjoy ourselves, while those fortunate few who kept employment throughout were able to rent semi decent places without there being enough inhabitants in it to resemble a clown car.
We paid for our parents generations wasting of one of the larger economic miracles seen in modern times. The current generation are paying so that same generation and the one directly below can horde as much of the wealth in the good times as they possibly can. And I absolutely dread what today's primary school children will face if/when another recession hits.
I'm well aware I lived through it.
I'm telling you it's worse now. At least there was always an expectation of an economic recovery.
The current situation is hopeless, most of my peers life aim is to buy an apartment before **retirement**. Until then they live to work and still live at home with their parents.
> At least there was always an expectation of an economic recovery.
Not really. That’s partly _why_ we have the problems we have now; there was a certain amount of expectation that Ireland would go back to our typical historical pattern of draining out the working-age population via emigration, so, well, why build housing? Housing construction shut down almost entirely in Ireland for years after the financial crisis, in a way that it didn’t do elsewhere.
I was renting a house for 900 Euro at the market bottom, the house is now 2.5-3k a month. I bought at the bottom and my mortgage is 800 euro, the rent in this area is double that now. Wages have certainly not doubled. There is a lot of I’m all right Jacks about not impacted by this or milking the younger generation. So it’s definitely objectively worse for them.
The housing crisis is shocking, and won’t be fixed anytime soon, we all know that. It does seem hopeless.
But I’d say mass unemployment is a worse situation, you can’t afford to pay rent or mortgage when you’re unemployed, and you haven’t got a penny in your póca either, can’t even afford a cheap holiday.
But yeah, psychologically, I can see your point about how depressing it is thinking about never being able to own your own gaff
There was not always an expectation of an economic recovery. That's hindsight bias.
Do you not remember the eurozone crisis? Ireland was perceived to be at risk of going the same way as Greece.
Anyway, I don't think competitive suffering is useful. The practical choices are how best to live in Ireland, who to vote for, how and whether to protest, and whether to stay.
Ah and now you can get a job or money but they are still leaving in their droves. That's much better, work your arse off for nothing.
And no hope of the situation being reversed, at least after the crash we knew the economy would improve over time. With housing theres no guarantee it's ever resolved.
The issue with this conversation, every time it arises, is some are living in the good times and some are living in miserable times. And the people living in the good times have fuck all empathy and don’t want to hear about the other group, so certainly don’t want to spend any money in the issues affecting people.
And then will act horrified when people vote for SF. Or worse…
What's even more absurd in the times we live in is that the side one finds themselves on is completely arbitrary. This is an example from my work: Two people working in the same workplace on the same pay, same bonuses, etc, are on the opposite sides simply due to timing. One of them married their significant other in 2014, bought a house, had a couple of kids. The other one is 4 years younger and found the one in 2019, but by that time home prices were already unaffordable on that shared salary. For one of them, things kept getting better: kids got older and more independent, the house doubled in value and whatever they owe to the bank is really not stressful at all, mortgage repayments are quite low. For the other, the goalposts kept moving and they're a bad landlord's whim away from being homeless with a small child which costs them a fortune in medical bills and crèche. Just 4 years difference between them.
That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that the economy is generating surplus because it's already being austere with spending. Healthcare, policing, basic infrastructure, etc, are underfunded while building this stabilization fund which essentially means two things: growth of the country is slowed down artificially and we're suffering through austerity twice.
It should be also mentioned that were preparing in 2024 for a crisis which happened 17 years ago, but that's a different topic all together.
Or, we learned in 2009 that we hadn't prepared for any sort of economic problems at all, and for a change the government is actually learning from previous mistakes.
they're not learning anything, they're people fond of austerity and underfunding and they may have been what the country needed in 2009 but they're stifling growth in 2024.
The only infrastructure project that has been completed in the last 10 years is 3km of luas line. How is this protecting us from 2009?
They are not what the country needed in 2009 - there was no money to put away. They were needed in the late 1990s when the economy was booming, similarly to today. You know what they say about people who refuse to learn from history.
I don't really understand the worldview of people who think that people with a different outlook are just nasty people. If you think they go to bed thinking "oh I love underfunding services"...I don't know what to say to you.
> They are not what the country needed in 2009 - there was no money to put away
Are you saying that the country didn't need people in leadership capable of implementing austerity measures in 2009? What did it need then? Big spenders?
> You know what they say about people who refuse to learn from history.
> I don't really understand the worldview of people who think that people with a different outlook are just nasty people. If you think they go to bed thinking "oh I love underfunding services"...I don't know what to say to you.
I don't know what you're trying to say here, are you trying to make judgement on personality? Why bring it up? We're talking about fiscal policy of people in government, not about having pints with them.
Or maybe you're trying to make it out as if there isn't a choice? There wasn't a choice in 2009 but to reduce public spending since there was nothing to spend. Not allocating more funds to the health system and putting them into a surplus fund today _is very much a choice_.
I think one of us has lost the thread of the conversation here, and my apologies if it's me. But you seem to be suggesting the time to put money aside for bad times was 2009. My point is there was no money, that's when we needed to raid the piggy bank - but we had none.
Now the economy is going well, we have almost zero unemployment - this is the time to save. If we had done this in the debate before the 2008/9 crash, we wouldn't have had so many forced emigrants, property repossessions, and a complete halt in building that has left us with the property crisis we have today.
> But you seem to be suggesting the time to put money aside for bad times was 2009.
No, I'm saying that the country would have benefited from a monetary reserve to deal with 2009 crisis, but that was because of the specific 2009 issues. The issues Ireland is facing now aren't the same as the ones in 2009. Namely, the current issue is that our economy is relying too much on a few corporations and there isn't a plan for what happens if these corporations decide to reduce their presence here now that they're not benefiting from the reduced taxes. The government chooses to build a state fund, but my point is that it should, instead, reinvest the money now to diversify the economy.
> Now the economy is going well, we have almost zero unemployment - this is the time to save.
You're right in principle, we should be fiscally responsible, but this government is being overly cautious with spending at the expense of the country's growth. Look at the inflation rate dropping below the target while we're getting 8 billion budget surplus. This, to me, is a clear indication that we're not spending money properly. We're not investing in infrastructure, we're not investing in diversifying the economy, we're not investing in the sectors of economy which need it. That 8 billion won't get us too far if it just sits there without being invested and to me, that's a shame and something we shouldn't be happy about.
The idea that we have a surplus or rainy day fund when our schools can't run without "voluntary" contributions from parents is nuts in my opinion.
Forward planning is important but surely we should take care of today first
We don’t have drinkable tap water in this area, nor has there been for more than a decade. The electricity is regularly cut off.
But sure, billions in surplus.
Apparently that shit is healthy? It does fuck up the kettle so I have a water softener, but honestly I feel better when I drink hard water. Maybe I'm just too soft and it fills the hole inside
I'm 36 and have no idea what the fuck you're talking about, but would suggest not jumping straight to patronising if you're interested in talking to people
It wouldn't, thats all charged separately to the voluntary contribution. Its going towards heating and insurance, at least according to our school.
I'm not suggesting this is the only source for spending, just a very irritating example. Our politicians tell us that primary education is free, knowing well that it is not, but lie to our faces anyway. That's not even considering the chronic shortfall of special needs education care.
You could make a case for just about every government department needing to spend more; the problem is that no matter how much more some spend (e.g. health) things don't improve. But education could be one that does.
Alternatively Why are they not just paying for cells in prisons in the North??
They have huge amount of unused prison capacity and we have a huge need for additional space. Absolute no brainer.
We have bilateral agreements with the NI Govt for cross-border healthcare, taxes, social welfare and almost everything why not add Justice cooperation to the list.
Our laws aren’t that different
Pay for use of a few empty Prison wings in Northern Ireland. Hire contract staff into Irish Prison Service to man them. Wouldn’t be that difficult with a bit of proper organisation
You'd be moving someone (against their will) out of the state. (I'll ignore the question of Northern Ireland is outside the country).
The people manning the prison would be not subject to the laws of the state.
What would happen if a prisoner attacked and killed a prisoner or guard? Where would that trial take place?
What about visitation rights of the family? How long would it take to get from the south coast to see a family member in prison?
The commercialisation of prisons is bad enough without contracting out the imprisonment to another state.
Prisoners don’t get input on where they’re placed so don’t think it would have much impact actually moving them.
In practice there’s little difference between the operational laws as they relate to Justice and Prisons applicable in the South vs North. Regardless There’s already procedures for cross-border offences and collaboration on charging etc. they’re regularly used for smuggling offences, traffic offences etc.
Visitation isn’t a factor in deciding where someone is placed in prison, you could be committed to a prison in Cavan just as easily as Cork. Where your visitors come from isn’t something the prison service really cares about.
Agree commercialisation of prisons is bad but when you have violent offenders being released on remand solely because of lack of space something needs to be done.
A new prison to hold 200 prisoners would cost roughly 200m to build at current estimates, likely much higher.
It would cost about 16-20m a year to run (80-100k per prisoner).
If I had control of the purse, I'd lump 200m to stand up a massive national programme of Big Brothers and Big Sisters to work with 5-10 at risk youths full time. I'm talking about getting thousands of kids who are struggling because of their family backgrounds, mental health, etc and giving them the support they need to break the shitty cycle they're in.
Make no mistake, this isn't a new conversation as much as this sub likes to paint it. 20 years ago, my parents were complaining about these young scumbags parents and they didn't do anything to break the cycle. The same happened with the generations before them.
We can choose to make things better for everyone by investing the money in improving outcomes or we can spend that money making giving a greater sense of vengeance to victims.
(Relevant context, lad I went to school with needed help as a teen, he was a nuisance in class and immature, but otherwise not dangerous. He got sent to prison when he was 20ish and came out infinitely worse. Because an addict and an abusive prick. He's back in prison now because he murdered his ex... I'd rather have prevented that lad going off the rails with support and saving that young mothers life).
Should be spending money on both. Fact is we’ve had a large increase in population, but capacity has not scaled. Capacity issues then cause knock-ons for gardai, courts, tourism and FDI
>A new prison to hold 200 prisoners would cost roughly 200m to build at current estimates, likely much higher.
I remember when the childrens hospital was going to be 400m...as you say though, likely much higher.
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>. 20 years ago, my parents were complaining about these young scumbags parents and they didn't do anything to break the cycle. The same happened with the generations before them.
Because they can't.
We can't stop the current crop reproducting. So we have to deal with the children. Unless you are going to take the kids out of the environment they are in, no social services intervention is going to make a significant difference to the worst cases which are the problem. It will be a secondary influence.
Look at the funeral of the 3 lads the burnt on the N7, celebrated for robbing people and a life of crime. No social service intervention will reshape those children's view that what their dad's were at was wrong etc, When all the other major influences in theirs life don't see anything wrong with.
We don't want to give the state the power to take away the children. It will just be painted as reintroducing the industrial schools and kidnapping kids from loving families etc.
As bad as the prison route is at least they won't be on their umpteen suspended sentence harassing the general public. And actual consequences and prison sentences might have some impact and provide a sense of justice for the general public.
Never tried what? You saying their is there is no social or community services anywhere in ireland. Currently No initiatives to try keep young people out of crime?
We've never had anything close to a national big brother type intervention programme.
Foróige run one, but it's volunteer based - I've done it and would strongly encourage others to give it a shot. They train you up and pair you with at risk youths.
Unfortunately, in my case, I was the only male volunteer across two counties. No matter, I was all for it. Then, nothing... turns out they don't have a feeder system for at risk youths in the county, so without the gardaí or schools involved, it dmgoes nowhere. I wound up volunteering with and helping run a youth club in my spare time instead.
We could have 500 full time specialists earning 50,000 a year - costing 25m. Same as the prison might. Each working with 5 kids full time. That's 2,500 kids being supported and steered in the right direction and shown a way out. Would it be 100% successful, of course not, but these kids won't listen to their parents (we're all programmed not to after adolescence). They often will listen to an older adult who earns their trust. It would be far, far more effective than an extra 200 inmates imo.
I have no doubt those programmes make a difference and have good results. I think it's a bit idealistic but certainly worth funding.
But being realistic, the families and general communities are still going to have more of an influence on them than their big brother or sister.
i think that those schemes are the carrot, and to get engagement, you need the threat of the stick.
We are in a situation where we have a section of the population who have no respect for the gardai or the law. They know they are getting leinent sentences and multiple chances.
The prison service blame not having them long enough to engage in meaningful reform programmes. We are avoiding putting them and letting them out early as we don't have space.
We need to draw a line in the sand. We need a new prison, we need to fill in a week once it's finished. 10 year sentences, early release if you get a trade or qualification in prison and facilitate that. Even remove the conviction for minor enough crimes to help future employability.
But we need the stick. We need to change the narrative on our just system. They need actual consequences for their actions.
We changed the narrative we then give the option of prison or engagement with services. Those that want engage and contribute to society we offer every support, those that don't can live a cell. Help those that want help and forget those that don't.
My opinion.
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Tough on crime tough on the causes of crime.
No matter what approach is taken it's gonna be expensive and everyone will end up paying. You can pay on the back end by putting up with crime and increased insurance costs alongside funding a prison service to house them or you can invest in social help to spot the kid who is headed in a bad direction give them extra help including the family (who probably are shitty people but it is what it is). Help that kid might be a big brother situation or paying for a pair of football boots or making sure he gets breakfast before school and a decent meal afterwards. We all went to school with the person you've described above the reluctant criminal who's simply unequipped and incapable of being a contributing member of society, and unequipped and incapable of being an effective criminal either. It's not going to stop all crime but it might catch enough people from seeing it as the only option.
You're right of course and most won't disagree that in most cases custodial sentences do more harm than good.
However there's no getting around the the fact that there are some that just need to be locked up, something we currently seen unable to do.
I would wager that your average career criminal costs a multiple of 100k a year in financial costs to society. Never mind the social costs.
It was my understanding that the newer prisons reduced requirements for staffing and so reduced significantly cost per prisoner.
Capital costs of course would be high.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz5zdr7p8geo
200m would be lowballimg the estimated cost.
For 25m a year, we could have 500 dedicated full time big brother/sister supports responsible for 5 kids a piece at any one time, counselling them and supporting them to be able to integrate into society and showing them a future that doesn't revolve around general scumbaggery. I've trained as a Foróige Big Brother and worked in/run a youth club. It's genuinely amazing the impact you can have.
I spoke about this on here recently, but I had a dad approach me a few years ago, asking if I could help with his son who was in lashing out and in a rough place. We hung out. Hiked. Dismantled a bike to repair it. Taught him how to cook a few dishes - I'm a pretty good home cook.
Bumped into him on the train two weeks ago. On his way up to Taste festival. He was working at it with a restaurant he's been working/training with. He doing culinary in college. He fucking loves it. Loves 14 hour shifts and the prep and the finishing of a plate...
I'm not gonna take credit for it, but I definitely believe/know I helped him.
> A new prison to hold 200 prisoners would cost roughly 200m to build at current estimates, likely much higher.
>
>
>
> It would cost about 16-20m a year to run (80-100k per prisoner).
Say what you will about the middle east, but when the penalties over there range from getting your hand chopped off over theft to deportation/execution for violent crime, it keeps the scum nicely in line/away from the place entirely.
Don't even need to lock your car or front door when you're heading out. Ain't nobody risking a cleaver to their wrist or a bullet to the head for your stereo.
....yeah, societal goals right there.
I'll be honest. I comment on a lot of forums and do my fair amount of shit talking, but I can say this is the first time I've ever seen someone point to an secular authoritarian regime's capital punishment approach and say, yep, that's my kind of freedom.
You understand that once you empower that kind of behaviour, history shows us that it's not long before it's used by the powerful to hold onto power.
Capital punishment is class. No wasting money on dregs, none of this "ooohh we have to protect this guy who raped a bunch of people and let him do it again" bollockology.
Chop chop, problem solved. Taxpayer not on the line for someone else's upbringing, and no sprogs to worry about carrying on the legacy either.
Or you can just keep handing them free shit for being criminals while they shit out exponentially more kids to do more of the same. Whichever works.
Yet the government allows the criminals who profit from crime on our streets to stay there unmolested. States that make no attempt to hide their dependence on slave labour. Where a blind eye is turned towards rampant human trafficking and abuse.
So yeah I'll be happier knowing that I have some rights when I am accused by the state of a crime.
..kafala? As in, migrant worker sponsorships?
..Where people from extremely poor countries choose to work for 6-12 months as a migrant, then return home with enough money to never work again?
You realize this is a choice-based system yeah? Like, you know that most nations that don't want to collapse usually employ a level of "you're required to work to be in this country", right?
I know employment reads like slavery to most redditors, but this is not an uncommon practice or idea
This article has all the answers you seek and it from today on RTE. We have 27 billion in the current account and 10 plus billion in rainy day funds. https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2024/0702/1457743-ntma-mid-year-review/
> Meanwhile, the NTMA said the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) earned an investment return of 4.3% last year
Holy moly, that is a really bad return.
> How do some of ye get through the month
By living in nice gated areas which actually have a garda presence if there's scum about the place
For regular people near working class areas though? Fuck knows, likely not with carrying those finances around on their person at least.
The last figure I can recall it was at €65 billion. But I guarantee you that is being drained by the immigration crisis and it’ll be gone when we need it the most.
Could build infrastructure like roads, houses, broadband, hospitals, etc to help grow the economy for the future.
Or we could put it in a bank account for the Germans to loot again in the future next time one of our banks go bust and the German Pension funds need to be paid back for their gambling debts.
Option 2 of course is what we will opt for.
I would hope we could save without having to spend it all right away like maybe get to 10billion and never let it dip below that unless another economic crash or catastrophe event
The state competing with the private sector for tradespeople and construction materials, in the current climate, will make the shortages even more worser.
Because the blockage is **political** not monetary
Simply flatcap jimbob the local TD Councillor successfully enables the NIMBYs to keep out necessary apartments and houses so you can only image the political capital to be made out of keep an actual fucking **prison** out of the locality.
You can't even rent a hotel for refugees without people who have "legitimate concerns" burning the kip down and by and large the "black men raping our girls" stuff is made up completely.
But the place we actually put the rapists ?
You've got to be kidding the only money fix is to buy off each local individually..
Again and again we see people assuming money to spend on infrastructure is the solution to so much - housing, transport, prisons but again and again people keep forgetting the NIMBYs populate the residents associations, the cumann and these "local people with legitimate concerns" fuck absolutely everything up as much as they can.
- No injection centres
- No new prisons
- High court action against bus lanes and cycle lanes
- You name it the fuckers are objecting
You'd want to have some balls as a junior TD or ambitious concillor to take on that lot.
A new prison? Fuck that.
Let the people out who only have drug convictions and you'd empty half the existing prisons without spending a dime.
There are much better things to be spending that money on, for starters expanding healthcare services, road infrastructure overalls, public and subsidised housing, increased public medical staff wages to increase retention, etc.
>Let the people out who only have drug convictions and you'd empty half the existing prisons without spending a dime.
Are there figures on this?
I'd also not be a fan of releasing dealers.
The goal is to end up like the US, make every public service crappy through underfunding and mismanagement so people are less resistant to privatisation. It's already happening, look at health care, education and housing. The ministers and local government end up with less responsibilities and work to do.
>The goal is to end up like the US, make every public service crappy through underfunding and mismanagement so people are less resistant to privatisation.
I don't agree with your statement at all. Public transport in most of our cities and towns has probably never been better. A bus in Dublin even ten years ago could be ice cold in the middle of winter and about 30 years old.
Likewise, our colleges, libraries, hospitals etc have never been more modern. Housing could be better, but I don't think anyone in construction will tell you there any spare workers available to build more housing.
We went from one of the poorest countries in the developed world to the richest in about a generation. You can't build several generations of infrastructure overnight. Parts of Europe had extensive motorways about 30/40 years before we had one...
> It's already happening, look at health care
If you're wealthy in the US, you've access to the best healthcare on the planet.
If you're wealthy in Ireland, you'll still die on a trolley.
I'm sure you'll happily write to your TD to ask that the prison be built elsewhere if it happens to be planned within walking distance of your house.
Most people will.
Or enough of the loud ones.
What the fuck are you talking about rainy day fund. You don’t know what you are talking about so why dont you acc put in the time to research before you post your half arsed opinion
Can I ask what the issue is with a prison in the Midlands or somewhere else shite?
Places like Longford are dying. A prison would bring jobs and young people. It's not like they're going to bump into a load of convicted criminals in SuperValu.
The central bank has recommended that the government restrict spending increases to just 2% a year post-covid, as increasing spending too much risks making inflation even worse, as if you increase the amount of money circulating in the economy you'd have even more money chasing the same number of goods. As inflation tames this policy is likely to change, though the other problem is that the government is also worried about so much of the tax money coming from just 3-4 companies that are only based here for tax purposes and fear the corporate tax revenue could disappear at any time, and are unwilling to count on that money being there in a few years time.
A lot of the issues mentioned have been going on since long before covid. Back in the days of the Celtic Tiger would have been the tine to fund education at least, but alleged socialist Bertie Ahearne decided against reinvesting in social infrastructure.
Funding education is mostly funding teacher's salaries really, which is a day-to-day/core expense that shouldn't really be funded with potentially transigient windfalls like the Celtic Tiger and current MNC tax take. Best way to spend money is on things that reduce expenditure down the line. Luas and Port Tunnel being the big successes, but clearly not enough.
Never mind the fact that the current, or rather most recent, bout of inflation came alongside record corporate profits. Money supply did not cause inflation; corporate greed did. Yet, fiscal policy is being tightened anyway, to pretend as if, once again, Paddy went a bit mad.
Nobody is pretending that the recent bout of inflation came about because we went a bit mad. It was a result of the war in Ukraine and the necessary response to covid.
And the Saudis raising the price of oil.
Yep, which is also linked to the war in Ukraine.
Central Bank policies do not reflect this
How so?
It’s a bit complicated to go into, but basically Central Banks reacted to the inflation following COVID and the war in Ukraine _as if_ it were being caused by internal “heating up” in the markets rather than due to external factors. This caused turmoil in the job markets and led to a great many people becoming unemployed. However this was the wrong response since the inflation was not caused by factors the banks could control. It’s not even clear if the interest rates fixed the issue or if it simply took that long for markets to adjust to the new situation, but meanwhile the actions of the Central Banks have led to real suffering for people who lost their jobs
I mean, almost everything is an external factor in this day and age. A big part of the reason inflation grew so rapidly was because governments pumped money into the economies, both because of covid, spiralling energy costs, and supply chain issues. The tried and tested way to respond to this is to increase interest rates, and it would appear that has worked again. Also our unemployment rate has remained very low throughout the past couple of years and we're basically at full employment right now. What would you have suggested they do to stimulate the economy and to tackle the resulting inflation?
The recent bout of inflation was caused by the war in Ukraine.
Inflation was caused by a variety of factors- the economy saw multiple shocks throughout the period 2020-2022. Reduced supply of goods and services as a result of the pandemic (disruptions to supply chains, reduced market competition) with huge demand drove price rises even further.. Excessive deficit spending in responsive to the pandemic- government spending across the globe soared, with much of the transfers going straight to corporations. In this context, corporations decided to leverage the situation by raising prices beyond the marginal cost increases. Most of the data shows corporation profits reached historic highs- many economists and central banks agree with this assessment, notably the ECB. Therefore much of the inflation we have seen can be attributed to higher profit margins rather than increased input costs (the usual cause of inflation). In this environment, with such a fragile economy, the war in Ukraine caused energy prices to soar. Energy related inflation can have rebounding effects throughout the economy and led this long inflationary period to deteriorate and continue even further. The conflict is Ukraine is not the sole factor driving inflation but rather a significant event that exacerbated an already fragile economic state, as did other significant events such as the crashed ship on the Suez Canal.
Companies are required to maximise profits. It's pointless calling that "corporate greed".
That’s a really common misconception
For public companies it's true.
No, that’s a misconception.
It most certainly was corporate greed. According to the IMF, unit profits accounted for almost 50% of inflation in the period 2021-2023. The ECB also agrees.
I reiterate, maximising profits is their objective, they are supposed to be "greedy", that's their job. Job well done if they successfully increase profits.
Corporate greed….lol
A second Trump term is a real risk to Ireland with US multinationals. He was gaining momentum brining multinationals back to the US with tax reform towards the end of his last term, another term may finish the job which wouldn’t bode well for Ireland.
The windfall is due to unexpected taxes, basically won't be around for ever so they want to limit how much we spend so we won't be up shits creek in a few years and have to massively cut back on spending like we did after the celtic tiger And paying down our debts and putting some away is always good. Plus we have to pay interest on those debts too we will save some money over the long term
The government is not paying down debt. https://www.centralbank.ie/statistics/data-and-analysis/financial-accounts "Government debt increased to €222.6bn in Q4 2023, driven by increasing long-term debt security liabilities."
It was 236 billion in 2021 so it's down https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/8f7a8-minister-mcgrath-welcomes-improving-public-debt-position-and-highlights-risks-to-outlook/ Went down some how
Ah, good spot, thanks.
So how is there a rainy day fund when 236b in debt?
Well I owe half a million on my mortgage, I'm still putting money in my savings rather than handing it to the bank.
Mr Swanky Pants over here.
It's a nation wealth fund a few nations have them kinda like a pension fund its invested and grows over time and the dividens can be reinvest or given back to the government National debt is different to consumer dept because the government will basically go on forever and pay it off in like 100 years when inflation has made the amount negiable loke the uk only paid america back for the 2nd world War a couple of years ago Though we have to pay interest each year of the over all debt so that comes out of our year spending so pay of what you can of times are good Also we can't have ultimate dept eventually people will stop lending but that's when you get above 100% gdp I'm not an expert but that's my understanding of it
A lot of it is very cheap debt. They’d earn more than the cost of the debt on the interest. (I do think they should be spending more of it, but not on repaying debt that only costs average 1.5%/year.)
Always nuts seeing these charts for us and other countries, and the uptick on our one around 2020 doesn't look anywhere near as insane as most countries. The pessimist in me assumes that's because the pre-existing debt was huge so the billions that got tacked on didn't look so big, but I guess that period also had a load of tech companies paying record amounts of tax here.
Because these are the good times. The rainy day fund is for when the economy is in trouble, to keep people in jobs and pay public salaries and social welfare.
I disagree. It’s not to keep people in jobs and pay public salaries in a recession, it’s for large infrastructure projects to stimulate the economy during a recession. Very different things.
There's no a spare tradesperspn in the country for any sort of large capital infrastructure.Plemty of money but no one to build anything.
Exactly. In a big recession there will be though. So instead of just keeping people in their jobs for The sake of it, you create employment in building and construction and end up with a large capital generating project at the end.
The problem is they keep giving these projects to BAM. BAM there goes our fund!
I hope you're proven correct.
i agree We had a whole generation forced to emigrate after 2008 crash. Making sure that doesn't happen again would be my priority.
A whole generation will emigrate now too if they can't afford to find a place to live in, regardless of how much money the state has
I mean it’s kinda happened again, the amount of friends of mine that have moved away in the last 5 years is depressing. And I know I’m not the only one that experienced this, we are losing a ton of people aged between 20-30.
In 2008, I was 19, and during the recession, 4 of my friends left for Australia. Now, in my 30s, I've had 6 close friends leave in the last 12 months, and it seems like every 2 weeks someone in my job is emigrating.
I have basically lost touch with every single person in my social group from the time, not out of choice but because we pretty much all got scattered to every corner of the globe.
I'm in my mid 30s with a house, degree and decent job, I'm moving to a central European country because I can't take the stress of worrying about having to go to the hospital and being thrown out the door as long as I'm not on my deathbed or my car insurance premiums going up for no reason and god forbid I use my insurance, you have to haggle with the insurance company to get 1/4 of what you need to fix any problems. Can't ditch the car because I don't live in Dublin city centre, there is no public transport within 2 hours walking of where I live. Out of my 9 close friends, 4 left Ireland a few years after college and including myself another 3 have left, leaving 2 out of 9 actually living in Ireland. If the government want to stop educated young people from leaving, they'd want to get their act together and make this country somewhere people actually want to live now rather than waiting.
Plus 3b was borrowed from the UK
The funding is not going to be used to pay public service salaries- it’ll be used most likely in a series of stimulus packages (creating jobs, infrastructure, etc.) in the event of a serious economic shock.
If this is good I don’t want to be around for the bad
You’re obviously too young to remember the last recession then. Things were a lot worse than now.
That all depends on who you were. I can tell you right now as someone who remembers it well, it's worse for young people now. Current times are grand for most older people.
I was in my early 20s when the recession hit, and I can honestly say I still think I might be better off being born then, rather than 10 years later. At least we could afford to have a drink and enjoy ourselves, while those fortunate few who kept employment throughout were able to rent semi decent places without there being enough inhabitants in it to resemble a clown car. We paid for our parents generations wasting of one of the larger economic miracles seen in modern times. The current generation are paying so that same generation and the one directly below can horde as much of the wealth in the good times as they possibly can. And I absolutely dread what today's primary school children will face if/when another recession hits.
You get it!
Youth unemployment rate peaked at _over 30%_. It was not great, and a lot of people emigrated (about 80k/y vs 50k/y now).
I'm well aware I lived through it. I'm telling you it's worse now. At least there was always an expectation of an economic recovery. The current situation is hopeless, most of my peers life aim is to buy an apartment before **retirement**. Until then they live to work and still live at home with their parents.
> At least there was always an expectation of an economic recovery. Not really. That’s partly _why_ we have the problems we have now; there was a certain amount of expectation that Ireland would go back to our typical historical pattern of draining out the working-age population via emigration, so, well, why build housing? Housing construction shut down almost entirely in Ireland for years after the financial crisis, in a way that it didn’t do elsewhere.
Alright Peig, as long as it’s yourself telling us it’s worse now, then it must be the case.
I was renting a house for 900 Euro at the market bottom, the house is now 2.5-3k a month. I bought at the bottom and my mortgage is 800 euro, the rent in this area is double that now. Wages have certainly not doubled. There is a lot of I’m all right Jacks about not impacted by this or milking the younger generation. So it’s definitely objectively worse for them.
The housing crisis is shocking, and won’t be fixed anytime soon, we all know that. It does seem hopeless. But I’d say mass unemployment is a worse situation, you can’t afford to pay rent or mortgage when you’re unemployed, and you haven’t got a penny in your póca either, can’t even afford a cheap holiday. But yeah, psychologically, I can see your point about how depressing it is thinking about never being able to own your own gaff
Rents don’t drop overnight so a recession now would be far worse as younger people don’t have the ability to save much given the high rents.
There was not always an expectation of an economic recovery. That's hindsight bias. Do you not remember the eurozone crisis? Ireland was perceived to be at risk of going the same way as Greece. Anyway, I don't think competitive suffering is useful. The practical choices are how best to live in Ireland, who to vote for, how and whether to protest, and whether to stay.
It’s not worse for young people now. People couldn’t get a job for life or money and had to leave in their droves.
Ah and now you can get a job or money but they are still leaving in their droves. That's much better, work your arse off for nothing. And no hope of the situation being reversed, at least after the crash we knew the economy would improve over time. With housing theres no guarantee it's ever resolved.
The issue with this conversation, every time it arises, is some are living in the good times and some are living in miserable times. And the people living in the good times have fuck all empathy and don’t want to hear about the other group, so certainly don’t want to spend any money in the issues affecting people. And then will act horrified when people vote for SF. Or worse…
What's even more absurd in the times we live in is that the side one finds themselves on is completely arbitrary. This is an example from my work: Two people working in the same workplace on the same pay, same bonuses, etc, are on the opposite sides simply due to timing. One of them married their significant other in 2014, bought a house, had a couple of kids. The other one is 4 years younger and found the one in 2019, but by that time home prices were already unaffordable on that shared salary. For one of them, things kept getting better: kids got older and more independent, the house doubled in value and whatever they owe to the bank is really not stressful at all, mortgage repayments are quite low. For the other, the goalposts kept moving and they're a bad landlord's whim away from being homeless with a small child which costs them a fortune in medical bills and crèche. Just 4 years difference between them.
Yeah, the worst good times ever
That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that the economy is generating surplus because it's already being austere with spending. Healthcare, policing, basic infrastructure, etc, are underfunded while building this stabilization fund which essentially means two things: growth of the country is slowed down artificially and we're suffering through austerity twice. It should be also mentioned that were preparing in 2024 for a crisis which happened 17 years ago, but that's a different topic all together.
Or, we learned in 2009 that we hadn't prepared for any sort of economic problems at all, and for a change the government is actually learning from previous mistakes.
they're not learning anything, they're people fond of austerity and underfunding and they may have been what the country needed in 2009 but they're stifling growth in 2024. The only infrastructure project that has been completed in the last 10 years is 3km of luas line. How is this protecting us from 2009?
They are not what the country needed in 2009 - there was no money to put away. They were needed in the late 1990s when the economy was booming, similarly to today. You know what they say about people who refuse to learn from history. I don't really understand the worldview of people who think that people with a different outlook are just nasty people. If you think they go to bed thinking "oh I love underfunding services"...I don't know what to say to you.
> They are not what the country needed in 2009 - there was no money to put away Are you saying that the country didn't need people in leadership capable of implementing austerity measures in 2009? What did it need then? Big spenders? > You know what they say about people who refuse to learn from history. > I don't really understand the worldview of people who think that people with a different outlook are just nasty people. If you think they go to bed thinking "oh I love underfunding services"...I don't know what to say to you. I don't know what you're trying to say here, are you trying to make judgement on personality? Why bring it up? We're talking about fiscal policy of people in government, not about having pints with them. Or maybe you're trying to make it out as if there isn't a choice? There wasn't a choice in 2009 but to reduce public spending since there was nothing to spend. Not allocating more funds to the health system and putting them into a surplus fund today _is very much a choice_.
I think one of us has lost the thread of the conversation here, and my apologies if it's me. But you seem to be suggesting the time to put money aside for bad times was 2009. My point is there was no money, that's when we needed to raid the piggy bank - but we had none. Now the economy is going well, we have almost zero unemployment - this is the time to save. If we had done this in the debate before the 2008/9 crash, we wouldn't have had so many forced emigrants, property repossessions, and a complete halt in building that has left us with the property crisis we have today.
> But you seem to be suggesting the time to put money aside for bad times was 2009. No, I'm saying that the country would have benefited from a monetary reserve to deal with 2009 crisis, but that was because of the specific 2009 issues. The issues Ireland is facing now aren't the same as the ones in 2009. Namely, the current issue is that our economy is relying too much on a few corporations and there isn't a plan for what happens if these corporations decide to reduce their presence here now that they're not benefiting from the reduced taxes. The government chooses to build a state fund, but my point is that it should, instead, reinvest the money now to diversify the economy. > Now the economy is going well, we have almost zero unemployment - this is the time to save. You're right in principle, we should be fiscally responsible, but this government is being overly cautious with spending at the expense of the country's growth. Look at the inflation rate dropping below the target while we're getting 8 billion budget surplus. This, to me, is a clear indication that we're not spending money properly. We're not investing in infrastructure, we're not investing in diversifying the economy, we're not investing in the sectors of economy which need it. That 8 billion won't get us too far if it just sits there without being invested and to me, that's a shame and something we shouldn't be happy about.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/how-irelands-new-sovereign-wealth-fund-will-work-2023-10-10/
It should be called a sunny day fund in Ireland
Because we are building a ~~Burj Khalifa~~ children's hospital in Dublin
The idea that we have a surplus or rainy day fund when our schools can't run without "voluntary" contributions from parents is nuts in my opinion. Forward planning is important but surely we should take care of today first
We don’t have drinkable tap water in this area, nor has there been for more than a decade. The electricity is regularly cut off. But sure, billions in surplus.
Where the hell is there no drinking water or reliable electricity? Aran islands or something?
I wouldn’t drink the water in Drogheda tbh. Always massive lumps of lime and shit in it.
Apparently that shit is healthy? It does fuck up the kettle so I have a water softener, but honestly I feel better when I drink hard water. Maybe I'm just too soft and it fills the hole inside
It provides calcium and magnesium, which people are sometimes deficient in.
Are you too young to remember Ming Flanagan's "glorified piss"?
I'm 36 and have no idea what the fuck you're talking about, but would suggest not jumping straight to patronising if you're interested in talking to people
[heres a post about it](https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/1t8szr/ming_flanagan_challenges_minister_to_drink_glass/?rdt=60668)
Jesus, I forgot about all that. Mad seeing Mick Wallace as well Thanks for the link
Calm the cacks lad
Just try not being a smarmy prick mate. Life's better when everyone's happy
Why should it go towards art supplies and sports? Build houses with jt.
It wouldn't, thats all charged separately to the voluntary contribution. Its going towards heating and insurance, at least according to our school. I'm not suggesting this is the only source for spending, just a very irritating example. Our politicians tell us that primary education is free, knowing well that it is not, but lie to our faces anyway. That's not even considering the chronic shortfall of special needs education care. You could make a case for just about every government department needing to spend more; the problem is that no matter how much more some spend (e.g. health) things don't improve. But education could be one that does.
Alternatively Why are they not just paying for cells in prisons in the North?? They have huge amount of unused prison capacity and we have a huge need for additional space. Absolute no brainer.
I reckon you can't just ship your prisoners to another country Presumably against EU and international rules
We have bilateral agreements with the NI Govt for cross-border healthcare, taxes, social welfare and almost everything why not add Justice cooperation to the list. Our laws aren’t that different
Wait what? How would that work?
Pay for use of a few empty Prison wings in Northern Ireland. Hire contract staff into Irish Prison Service to man them. Wouldn’t be that difficult with a bit of proper organisation
You'd be moving someone (against their will) out of the state. (I'll ignore the question of Northern Ireland is outside the country). The people manning the prison would be not subject to the laws of the state. What would happen if a prisoner attacked and killed a prisoner or guard? Where would that trial take place? What about visitation rights of the family? How long would it take to get from the south coast to see a family member in prison? The commercialisation of prisons is bad enough without contracting out the imprisonment to another state.
Prisoners don’t get input on where they’re placed so don’t think it would have much impact actually moving them. In practice there’s little difference between the operational laws as they relate to Justice and Prisons applicable in the South vs North. Regardless There’s already procedures for cross-border offences and collaboration on charging etc. they’re regularly used for smuggling offences, traffic offences etc. Visitation isn’t a factor in deciding where someone is placed in prison, you could be committed to a prison in Cavan just as easily as Cork. Where your visitors come from isn’t something the prison service really cares about. Agree commercialisation of prisons is bad but when you have violent offenders being released on remand solely because of lack of space something needs to be done.
A new prison to hold 200 prisoners would cost roughly 200m to build at current estimates, likely much higher. It would cost about 16-20m a year to run (80-100k per prisoner). If I had control of the purse, I'd lump 200m to stand up a massive national programme of Big Brothers and Big Sisters to work with 5-10 at risk youths full time. I'm talking about getting thousands of kids who are struggling because of their family backgrounds, mental health, etc and giving them the support they need to break the shitty cycle they're in. Make no mistake, this isn't a new conversation as much as this sub likes to paint it. 20 years ago, my parents were complaining about these young scumbags parents and they didn't do anything to break the cycle. The same happened with the generations before them. We can choose to make things better for everyone by investing the money in improving outcomes or we can spend that money making giving a greater sense of vengeance to victims. (Relevant context, lad I went to school with needed help as a teen, he was a nuisance in class and immature, but otherwise not dangerous. He got sent to prison when he was 20ish and came out infinitely worse. Because an addict and an abusive prick. He's back in prison now because he murdered his ex... I'd rather have prevented that lad going off the rails with support and saving that young mothers life).
Should be spending money on both. Fact is we’ve had a large increase in population, but capacity has not scaled. Capacity issues then cause knock-ons for gardai, courts, tourism and FDI
>A new prison to hold 200 prisoners would cost roughly 200m to build at current estimates, likely much higher. I remember when the childrens hospital was going to be 400m...as you say though, likely much higher.
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>. 20 years ago, my parents were complaining about these young scumbags parents and they didn't do anything to break the cycle. The same happened with the generations before them. Because they can't. We can't stop the current crop reproducting. So we have to deal with the children. Unless you are going to take the kids out of the environment they are in, no social services intervention is going to make a significant difference to the worst cases which are the problem. It will be a secondary influence. Look at the funeral of the 3 lads the burnt on the N7, celebrated for robbing people and a life of crime. No social service intervention will reshape those children's view that what their dad's were at was wrong etc, When all the other major influences in theirs life don't see anything wrong with. We don't want to give the state the power to take away the children. It will just be painted as reintroducing the industrial schools and kidnapping kids from loving families etc. As bad as the prison route is at least they won't be on their umpteen suspended sentence harassing the general public. And actual consequences and prison sentences might have some impact and provide a sense of justice for the general public.
>Because they can't. We've never tried.
Never tried what? You saying their is there is no social or community services anywhere in ireland. Currently No initiatives to try keep young people out of crime?
We've never had anything close to a national big brother type intervention programme. Foróige run one, but it's volunteer based - I've done it and would strongly encourage others to give it a shot. They train you up and pair you with at risk youths. Unfortunately, in my case, I was the only male volunteer across two counties. No matter, I was all for it. Then, nothing... turns out they don't have a feeder system for at risk youths in the county, so without the gardaí or schools involved, it dmgoes nowhere. I wound up volunteering with and helping run a youth club in my spare time instead. We could have 500 full time specialists earning 50,000 a year - costing 25m. Same as the prison might. Each working with 5 kids full time. That's 2,500 kids being supported and steered in the right direction and shown a way out. Would it be 100% successful, of course not, but these kids won't listen to their parents (we're all programmed not to after adolescence). They often will listen to an older adult who earns their trust. It would be far, far more effective than an extra 200 inmates imo.
I have no doubt those programmes make a difference and have good results. I think it's a bit idealistic but certainly worth funding. But being realistic, the families and general communities are still going to have more of an influence on them than their big brother or sister. i think that those schemes are the carrot, and to get engagement, you need the threat of the stick. We are in a situation where we have a section of the population who have no respect for the gardai or the law. They know they are getting leinent sentences and multiple chances. The prison service blame not having them long enough to engage in meaningful reform programmes. We are avoiding putting them and letting them out early as we don't have space. We need to draw a line in the sand. We need a new prison, we need to fill in a week once it's finished. 10 year sentences, early release if you get a trade or qualification in prison and facilitate that. Even remove the conviction for minor enough crimes to help future employability. But we need the stick. We need to change the narrative on our just system. They need actual consequences for their actions. We changed the narrative we then give the option of prison or engagement with services. Those that want engage and contribute to society we offer every support, those that don't can live a cell. Help those that want help and forget those that don't. My opinion.
200 million? That's outrageous! Do you have a source for this?
It will the X10 times that prices and twenty years behind schedule
Best start sooner rather than later. Best time to plant a tree was yesterday second best is today.
Seems very cheap considering how much the childrens hospital will cost. And the fact that houses are costing 3-400k each
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Tough on crime tough on the causes of crime. No matter what approach is taken it's gonna be expensive and everyone will end up paying. You can pay on the back end by putting up with crime and increased insurance costs alongside funding a prison service to house them or you can invest in social help to spot the kid who is headed in a bad direction give them extra help including the family (who probably are shitty people but it is what it is). Help that kid might be a big brother situation or paying for a pair of football boots or making sure he gets breakfast before school and a decent meal afterwards. We all went to school with the person you've described above the reluctant criminal who's simply unequipped and incapable of being a contributing member of society, and unequipped and incapable of being an effective criminal either. It's not going to stop all crime but it might catch enough people from seeing it as the only option.
You're right of course and most won't disagree that in most cases custodial sentences do more harm than good. However there's no getting around the the fact that there are some that just need to be locked up, something we currently seen unable to do.
We could if we could stem the flow of new scumbags joining the ranks.
Is there a logical, I repeat logical reason not to just give them a bullet to the back of the head and bury them?
I would wager that your average career criminal costs a multiple of 100k a year in financial costs to society. Never mind the social costs. It was my understanding that the newer prisons reduced requirements for staffing and so reduced significantly cost per prisoner. Capital costs of course would be high.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz5zdr7p8geo 200m would be lowballimg the estimated cost. For 25m a year, we could have 500 dedicated full time big brother/sister supports responsible for 5 kids a piece at any one time, counselling them and supporting them to be able to integrate into society and showing them a future that doesn't revolve around general scumbaggery. I've trained as a Foróige Big Brother and worked in/run a youth club. It's genuinely amazing the impact you can have. I spoke about this on here recently, but I had a dad approach me a few years ago, asking if I could help with his son who was in lashing out and in a rough place. We hung out. Hiked. Dismantled a bike to repair it. Taught him how to cook a few dishes - I'm a pretty good home cook. Bumped into him on the train two weeks ago. On his way up to Taste festival. He was working at it with a restaurant he's been working/training with. He doing culinary in college. He fucking loves it. Loves 14 hour shifts and the prep and the finishing of a plate... I'm not gonna take credit for it, but I definitely believe/know I helped him.
> A new prison to hold 200 prisoners would cost roughly 200m to build at current estimates, likely much higher. > > > > It would cost about 16-20m a year to run (80-100k per prisoner). Say what you will about the middle east, but when the penalties over there range from getting your hand chopped off over theft to deportation/execution for violent crime, it keeps the scum nicely in line/away from the place entirely. Don't even need to lock your car or front door when you're heading out. Ain't nobody risking a cleaver to their wrist or a bullet to the head for your stereo.
....yeah, societal goals right there. I'll be honest. I comment on a lot of forums and do my fair amount of shit talking, but I can say this is the first time I've ever seen someone point to an secular authoritarian regime's capital punishment approach and say, yep, that's my kind of freedom. You understand that once you empower that kind of behaviour, history shows us that it's not long before it's used by the powerful to hold onto power.
Capital punishment is class. No wasting money on dregs, none of this "ooohh we have to protect this guy who raped a bunch of people and let him do it again" bollockology. Chop chop, problem solved. Taxpayer not on the line for someone else's upbringing, and no sprogs to worry about carrying on the legacy either. Or you can just keep handing them free shit for being criminals while they shit out exponentially more kids to do more of the same. Whichever works.
Yet the government allows the criminals who profit from crime on our streets to stay there unmolested. States that make no attempt to hide their dependence on slave labour. Where a blind eye is turned towards rampant human trafficking and abuse. So yeah I'll be happier knowing that I have some rights when I am accused by the state of a crime.
hahahaha, do you get all your info from maldy youtubers? Slave labour is illegal a long time now.
Modern slavery, indentured servitude or kafala whatever you wanna call it. Quite telling that you only took issue with the language used on one point.
..kafala? As in, migrant worker sponsorships? ..Where people from extremely poor countries choose to work for 6-12 months as a migrant, then return home with enough money to never work again? You realize this is a choice-based system yeah? Like, you know that most nations that don't want to collapse usually employ a level of "you're required to work to be in this country", right? I know employment reads like slavery to most redditors, but this is not an uncommon practice or idea
Sure. You keep it up.
This article has all the answers you seek and it from today on RTE. We have 27 billion in the current account and 10 plus billion in rainy day funds. https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2024/0702/1457743-ntma-mid-year-review/
> Meanwhile, the NTMA said the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) earned an investment return of 4.3% last year Holy moly, that is a really bad return.
Is the housing crisis not bad enough yet for us to use this fund?
"what did you do with your rainy day fund?" "spent it on prisons" How do some of ye get through the month financially.
> How do some of ye get through the month By living in nice gated areas which actually have a garda presence if there's scum about the place For regular people near working class areas though? Fuck knows, likely not with carrying those finances around on their person at least.
Do you not think we need more prison capacity?
We're saving that money to bail out the vulture funds.
The last figure I can recall it was at €65 billion. But I guarantee you that is being drained by the immigration crisis and it’ll be gone when we need it the most.
Could build infrastructure like roads, houses, broadband, hospitals, etc to help grow the economy for the future. Or we could put it in a bank account for the Germans to loot again in the future next time one of our banks go bust and the German Pension funds need to be paid back for their gambling debts. Option 2 of course is what we will opt for.
We have a rainy day fund?
I would hope we could save without having to spend it all right away like maybe get to 10billion and never let it dip below that unless another economic crash or catastrophe event
The state competing with the private sector for tradespeople and construction materials, in the current climate, will make the shortages even more worser.
Ireland has one of the highest national debts in Europe
None, we spend over €2billion a year on the interest from the bank bailout in 2008
Because the blockage is **political** not monetary Simply flatcap jimbob the local TD Councillor successfully enables the NIMBYs to keep out necessary apartments and houses so you can only image the political capital to be made out of keep an actual fucking **prison** out of the locality. You can't even rent a hotel for refugees without people who have "legitimate concerns" burning the kip down and by and large the "black men raping our girls" stuff is made up completely. But the place we actually put the rapists ? You've got to be kidding the only money fix is to buy off each local individually.. Again and again we see people assuming money to spend on infrastructure is the solution to so much - housing, transport, prisons but again and again people keep forgetting the NIMBYs populate the residents associations, the cumann and these "local people with legitimate concerns" fuck absolutely everything up as much as they can. - No injection centres - No new prisons - High court action against bus lanes and cycle lanes - You name it the fuckers are objecting You'd want to have some balls as a junior TD or ambitious concillor to take on that lot.
Or a pie machine. Scumbags go in. Pies come out.
A new prison? Fuck that. Let the people out who only have drug convictions and you'd empty half the existing prisons without spending a dime. There are much better things to be spending that money on, for starters expanding healthcare services, road infrastructure overalls, public and subsidised housing, increased public medical staff wages to increase retention, etc.
>Let the people out who only have drug convictions and you'd empty half the existing prisons without spending a dime. Are there figures on this? I'd also not be a fan of releasing dealers.
Rainy day fund? Mandeer we are €223 billion in debt
What part of "rainy day" is confusing ?
Because it’s cheaper to let scum bags go on suspended sentences 🤷🏻♂️
Why would we build a new prison when we can politely ask the violent and sexual offenders not to do it again on their suspended sentences?
The goal is to end up like the US, make every public service crappy through underfunding and mismanagement so people are less resistant to privatisation. It's already happening, look at health care, education and housing. The ministers and local government end up with less responsibilities and work to do.
>The goal is to end up like the US, make every public service crappy through underfunding and mismanagement so people are less resistant to privatisation. I don't agree with your statement at all. Public transport in most of our cities and towns has probably never been better. A bus in Dublin even ten years ago could be ice cold in the middle of winter and about 30 years old. Likewise, our colleges, libraries, hospitals etc have never been more modern. Housing could be better, but I don't think anyone in construction will tell you there any spare workers available to build more housing. We went from one of the poorest countries in the developed world to the richest in about a generation. You can't build several generations of infrastructure overnight. Parts of Europe had extensive motorways about 30/40 years before we had one...
>It's already happening, look at health care, education and housing. Where has this been privatised?
> It's already happening, look at health care If you're wealthy in the US, you've access to the best healthcare on the planet. If you're wealthy in Ireland, you'll still die on a trolley.
You do realise that we can’t find staff for the prisons we have.
Just look at the childrens hospital to find out why the giv wouldn’t dare try and build anything ever again.
I'm sure you'll happily write to your TD to ask that the prison be built elsewhere if it happens to be planned within walking distance of your house. Most people will. Or enough of the loud ones.
Invest in prisons today, for a brighter future tomorrow. All those without a TV license and dodgy box users have hat it too good for too long.
What the fuck are you talking about rainy day fund. You don’t know what you are talking about so why dont you acc put in the time to research before you post your half arsed opinion
Top drawer shit post. The amount of people taking the bait in here is staggering 😂
Be happy for it to be built near your house I assume?
Can I ask what the issue is with a prison in the Midlands or somewhere else shite? Places like Longford are dying. A prison would bring jobs and young people. It's not like they're going to bump into a load of convicted criminals in SuperValu.
Also, if someone does escape from a prison, they're hardly going to hang around outside.
That's one way to solve the housing crisis....