Archive for the ‘Ireland’ Category
Saturday Statement #7
“Dublin Bus drivers would have a far better case to go on strike if they tried working to their timetables every so often.”
Discuss.
Banking. Again
First of all, apologies for my apparent absence from the world for the last couple of days – between Comm Day stuff hitting full swing and a website that needed doing, the DramSoc Swing Ball on Friday night (which was great), being at the glorious rugby game on Saturday (Allez les verts! Now let’s not let this Grand Slam talk get too out of hand…) and two issues of the University Observer to get online – as well as blogs to set up for some of their contributors, it’s been a manically busy couple of days. So sorry for not blogging, and to the few commenters from the last post on third-level fees, I’ll get back to you shortly, I swear.
(Shameless plug: being on GTalk on Friday night led to me spending a few hours setting up IJustGotAText.com for my friend Carla. Plug plug plug.)
But no matter how far away from the world-at-large you can run, some things you just can’t escape. Today – getting back on the rungs of college life – we put on Morning Ireland to wake us up and ease us into the world outside of the house. We might as well not have bothered.
First news – banking. Second news – unemployment. Third news – unemployment. Fourth news – banking. Main feature – how Wexford is faring in the economic climate.
Christ. Whatever. We get it. Ireland is fucked. Fine. Let’s get on with it! I understand that people are losing their jobs, and it’s shocking and regrettable and sad but it’s been like that for a few months now. Anglo Irish was nationalised. Fine. That happened a month ago. Why is it still in the news? The country was frustrated before today that people were losing jobs, having pension levies, seeing education funding cut, and all of that, before it came today. People are short of money at the moment – the people already know that. They don’t need Morning Ireland to tell them when the world is getting better – they’ll know themselves when they can afford the odd mild luxury again.
An honest question to anyone: isn’t there a serious market right now for a news outlet that sidesteps financial news completely?
This F**k The Recession lark might catch on, you know.
Broadband!
It’s coming! To all of Ireland! Except…
- It’s being provided by 3 Ireland, the most unreliable mobile broadband provider of the three main mobile networks, with 386 pages of complaints on a megathread on Boards.ie
- Everyone in the country is expected to use a USB dongle. No, seriously. A USB dongle.
- the National Broadband Scheme now apparently only covers the “last 10% of the Irish population”, and so the Government saw fit to seek tenders instead of letting the market go after the other 400,000 peeople – without even seeing if takeup would be good enough?
- 3 will have to spend 21 months doing building at 390 locations, “160 of which are new”. To provide basic high-speed mobile services for 400,000 people?!
- 3 are committed to getting it done “within the 21 month deadline”, but are forgetting “a requirement for planning permission and scope for possible delays if appeals are lodged”
If anything positive has come from it, it looks like we may at least have a new telecommunications saviour in our midst.
Labour described the schme as underwhelming, with Senator Alan Kelly criticising the speeds provided under the plan. He described Minister Ryan’s moves as ‘a hodge-podge of wireless, satellite and land line solutions and that will leave Ireland in the technological dark ages’.
Frankly, when my parents’ house is still struggling to get a phone line 26 months after moving in, I couldn’t give a monkeys if 3 are going to spend millions so that we have can have a shitty USB dongle when we already have a shitty O2 one in the first place.
Sometimes I wonder if the Green Party have a bet on somewhere, with an underground bookies in Angola, seeing if they can become the world’s worst Government party of all time. Here’s a tip: put money on Eamon Ryan getting whipped across the face with a USB dongle if he comes within twenty paces of me.
Old Dogs and Very Old Tricks
Well, that seemed to blow over quite quickly. Suddenly, does anyone care about Beverley Flynn’s €41k problem? With Patrick Neary just jumping ship as the Financial Regulator, the chances are that the analysis part of the story are going to be swallowed by Neary news in the weekend news cycles.
To summarise the affair: after losing a libel case against RTE earlier in the decade, over news that Flynn (when working with National Irish Bank) had actively assisted customers in setting up offshore bank accounts, Beverly Flynn was kicked out of the Fianna Fáil party. Nonetheless, she fought the 2007 General Election as an independent candidate, and retained her seat. This is where the curious stuff comes to light: as an Independent TD, Bev was entitled to an annual allowance of €41k, meant to assist her in her duties in lieu of the assistance of a party structure. Of course, Flynn worked her way back into FF after the election – and that’s where the dispute arises.
21st Century Travel
A short one today, as I’m abroad for the day and won’t get much time to write a full entry.
I’ll be brief: recall if you will my earlier post on public transport and how a national policy – in Ireland at the very least – very rarely seems to be properly co-ordinated as well as it should.
Well, the proof is in the pudding. Right now on IrishRail.ie I can’t even find a fare to get from Dublin to Cork – but I know from experience that a return fare to Kerry is about €65 return. Last August the missus and I had to get off to a family wedding down south – so we flew. It was €45 (even including Ryanair’s rape of a handling charge) and we got there in 25 minutes. Carbon footprint, how are ya.