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Whereas I’d agree about decrepit environments attracting dirt and littering, this ought not to be offered as any sort of excuse for such behaviour.
Only yesterday I passed a young man walking along with an empty water bottle, and he went to the effort of bending down and making it stand upright on the ground against a wall and then walk off! Couldn’t even got to the lesser effort of putting it in one of the ample number of bins about (let alone recycling it at home).

That is correct. It may be that non-decrepit environments dont attract the litterers so much. On the howth hill walk, for instance, which is litterer free and bin free – by necessity – I have never seen any littering.

come into town and the littering will increase – particularly close to a bin which tends to be surrounded by gum. I would carry an empty plastic bottle for miles – as I am sure would most people – others would dump it on the ground two feet from a litter bin.

I believe that there were tree huggers involved, no? All Irish projects take so long because of the large amount of time spent on public consultations, and displays, and feedback – none of which stops objectors making objections at the last minute or chaining themselve to trees.

About a year , or so, ago the average person in the street thought that the corpo was vandalising trees in O’Connell street and was vehemently opposed to that sort of thing. The spire had strong opposition too. People are marching even now to keep ruined victorian baths in Dun Laoighre safe from modernity.

I would not just blame the authorities.

For starters the GAA does nothing for Ireland on the world stage – it is a regional oddity that the rest of the world has no idea about. The people of Cork may think that Setanta or Christy Ring are great spoting ledgens, but I can assure you that more Europeans are aware of who plays in midfield for Shelboure or Bohemians than have ever heard of hurling, let alone DJ Carey.

Who gives a shit? many cultures and countries have their own unique sports, including America and Australia, and others. The idea that we should follow the world’s most boring sport – except maybe at International level – is absurd. The chicken league is crap and following English soccer teams is childish nonsense, why not support the English soccer team outright? Why not support a local Brazillian tiddlywinks team.They are equally nothing to you. Rugby – a decent game – is different, as we can follow the provinces.

This begs the question, why does the government plow staggering sums of money into an organisation which does not and will never serve Ireland on the world stage? Does this funding of a regionalised idiosyncratic oddity such as the GAA rob Ireland of sportsmen and women who could bring international recognition to Ireland on the world stage if there was no GAA?

Again, who cares ( and by and large the GAA funds itself at local level, something which the incompetant FAI can’t manage).

Your real problem – and the problem of all sleveens – is that Ireland dares to be different in anything. That drives you nuts, being a atomised consumer of corporate consumerism, one of whose products is the worlds dullest games, whose low scoring insipid “play” you duly consume as expected and as advertised by cable TV; though who wins what pathetic soccer match in England should have no influence on your existance. At least supporting a county makes sense, as does supporting a country, and people who support other regional oddities ( like BaseBall) support their local teams. As do English people who would be soccer supporters if it were a “regional oddity”, and were when it was – back in the 19th century.

The world is full of “regional oddities”. It is what makes it interesting.

“Manstein, I’m not sure if you are trolling or not, but your post sounds rather odd to me. Bear in mind that many immigrants are not “less educated” for a start. “

My reading of the post was that he was talking about immigrants who were less educated, and not implying anything in general about the education of migrants, although why this entrepeneurial opportunity does not also apply to less educated Irish people is not determined. Maybe Irish people can’t cook.

“If you have a small cafe you can get a wine and beer licence. So what’s new? Is it that the cafe doesn’t have to serve the alcohol with food? Also, I would have thought that the real hurdles to opening new bars are planning permission and property prices.”

I see nothing new here. There are pubs – or at least there were – which had cafe licences, and gave free sausages out occasionally to meet the terms of the “cafe” part of the licence. Nice sausages too. And real cafes can serve alcohol already.

in fact reading the report again it seems that all they are doing to streamlining legislation and the reporter picked up on this “new” feature which isn’t.

We had – and have – a perfect opportunity to redevelop the skyline at the Grand Canal docks and Spencer Dock. While some of the stuff being built out there looks interesting enough, most of it seems to lack – with the possible future exception of the U2 tower, any real height. Quite a lost opportuinity, this was an area of the city where the liffey is quite wide. Now as I come into the City on the South Bound Dart i see a lot of tall Cranes. I think when everything is finished I may well miss the cranes, which add a temporary skyline to the city, and the stuff left behind is not at tall, and will not catch the eye.

I cleary said “racist or zenophobic” as a way to curtail debate on the issue.

Another way to curtail debate on the issue is to be “funny”, and to not deal with the issue at hand, but to see gristle of meat on you plate. HaHa.

There is hardly any doubt that immigration benefits the elites of Irish society ( the Capitalist classes and Dublin 4, for instance) at the benefit of the poor. That is why the Boss classes and their representatives in IBEC are in favour, as are the organs of elite opinion – the Irish Times and the indo, and third level institutionsm and even the Unions who represent State workers ( whose jobsa re not at risk) . And you, of course. Please disclose your class background, by the way. I am from the inner city, although my parents were lower middle class, my extened family is working class.

It is quite easy to do a thought experiment on this. Lets say that 300,000 people come to Dublin next year ( this is a thought experiment. I agree it is unlikely to happen at that level )

who benefits?

1) Capitalists can employ more labour cheaper. Supply and Demand.They already admit this happens, a recent IBEC whinge was that they could not employ Irish people at the rates they emply foreigners. Part time female workers in the Inner city are getting screwed as it is.So wages fall as labour supply increases. Economics 101.
2) Housing prices goes through the roof as demand for beds accelerate. Rent too. Supply and demand again. This advances the class interests of the rich, property owning Middle class, rentier classes, and speculators. It is not the only reason why prices go up, but is a major factor. Immigration works against the interests of everyone hoping to buy a home, and is a major reason prices are now rising – since we are building plenty of houses.
3) Beyond that everyone who drives to work, or who takes public transport suffers,as the resources ( roads and rail) remain static and the demand increases.

Feel free to answer that argument rationally.

You may also want to ponder why you expect working class communities to work in your class interests, it is in their class interests to have controlled immigration (and I certainly do not support none), and your class interests to have unlimited migration, since whatever class you belong too probably has barriers to entry not available to the under skilled working class ( and if your answer here is that you do not believe in unlimited migration then name the figure you are happy with, and the issue between us is one of numbers.)

The present rise in Dublin city houses prices is 10% a year. Houses are built at the rate of 80,000 a year, yet that does not meet demand. Immigration must be a factor.

The price increase means anyone with more than 300K in equity ( and there are people with far more than that ) sees a net worth gain greater than the average industrial wage, and, of course, no one on that wage, and more, can expect to buy a house. That screws half the population, and more.

If we are to have mass migration, then we should immediately impose a massive property tax on people with 400K, or more, equity in their houses, to fund the resources needed to rezone land, and to fund public transport.

Now tell me why you think the elites are not the main beneficiaries of mass immigration, looking at gristle on your plate will not do.

(And while we are at it, name a property speculator opposed to mass immigration)

I think the most awful thing about Ireland is the way we gone for – much moreso than the British – American values, not just in the environment but in everything – just look at that new ryan turbidy chat show…the opening & sets are straight from Letterman or Leno! I think it’s outrageous that we feel we have to do this.

WE don’t. Turbidy is copying The Live Mike. ( Of course the real American ideology that both Ireland and Britain are copying is multi-culturalism and the politics of mass immigration – which is seemingly, the elephant in the dining room which no one wants to mention, and is the primary cause for the pull on resources we are seeing, and prob. house prices rises as well).

Devoid of mentioning the fact that mass migration is the reason we have this issue ( and doesn’t help the environemnt either). we fall back on the Paddy attitude of blaming Paddy. Paddy bashing galore. Aren’t we crap? British paper said, so it must be true.

The only sensible defence against this ridiculously unballanced article is to point out that we have a very centralized state in direct copy of the UK model ( and unlike the US whom – unfortunately we don’t copy on this issue) , and to relieve the pressure on the major city, due to mass migration, we need a properly defined spatial strategy, which means good roads and good train services. And some eggs will be broken in the making of that omelette.

The Tara road seems necessary, is following the route of an already existing road, and is nowhere near Tara, and – for fucks sake, most Irish castles are in Towns or right beside them. This fetishisation of empty space is anti-humanist, it considers culture to be empty grasslands, and dead stone, rather than the people who live in the area, and have historically done so ( and who may want once off housing too , so sod off Dublin 4).

Dublin is not like an American city. I worked in a job which took me to those “hole in the center” American cities, and I have been to about 30 american cities, and the comparison is absurd. Beyond absurd. totally crap.

Dublin is crowded with people who do most of their shopping in the centre, and socialize there too.

We have a few, very minor shopping centres on the outskirts of town, which is good for the people living there. However, even in Blanch they shop, and socialize in town as much, or more, than the Blancherdstown centre. And frankly, I have never been to any other “edge city” which had one, or two malls, but dozens to hundreds depending on what you called a mall. Rubbish. You cold drop blanchardstown into the Bay Area and they wouldn’t notice.

Here in Raheny I have to go miles to shop, and the easiest place is town.

And London is a sprawl, which has bog all to do with Thatcher, it’s been sprawling since the 19th century.

I didn’t deny that it told the truth, in some repects. I denied that it was balanced. It was typical Guardian, come to Ireland and talk to curmudgeons and get soundbites, adn return to England to give the Guardian “liberals” what they want to hear. The article would have been a bit more nuanced if it had mentioned the massive rise in inward migration, the obvious building sites in the centre of town, the new proposals for an Itnerconnector for Public transport from IE, the debate over high rise building. It presented a litany of woes without context, and with no regard to the actual debated going on, not least on these boards, and elsewhere.

In fact it would be fair to write the same article , with the same facts and start something like this: “Dulbin, a city which has traditionally sprawled, at least since the foundation of the Irish State – when slums were cleared and large suburbs created on the outskirts of town – continues to sprawl, but there is a genuine attempt to move people back to the city centre which is obvious in the large building projects in the Docklands area, which have any number of cranes. It looks llike London in the Eighties”

Seems he missed the cranes in the Grand Canal, and Spencer dock pre-development, the entire plan for the city centre, the new housing density regulations. And so on.

Jailing him would be good.

Sue,

People “walked faster” becuase of differences in frame rates, which are responsible for old films looking jerky. The frame rate for filming was 18fps and when played back at 24fps the action appears to speed up.