Comments on: Farmers have a right to beef

By: b

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:19:29 +0000

I agree with Electron. I don’t work for a multinational nor do I work as a farmer. I take the risk and if the work comes I take it.

In the past week we lost a big client and gained another one. In other times we are not so lucky. I got out of the corporate world and despite the massive swings in work and income I would never go back.

By: Electron

Electron — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:25:39 +0000

Graham, I never said that I dislike Multinationals – I merely wanted to point out the dangers on sitting back and assuming that they’ll be here for ever. They’re here for three reasons – a) access to the European Market, b) a suitable workforce force, c) favourable tax regime. Both (a) and (b) are no longer relevant in an expanded Europe and (c) remains our only card for the ones already here. Tourism is fine, but its still no substitute for the Multinationals. The government is trying to promote indigenous companies, but there is only so much that they can do – the drive has to come from the public itself and those working for multinationals are the most suitable from an experience point of view. They appear to want to sit on their qualifications and let someone else take the risks – in common language ” there’s no go in them” – They are, however, first up to make fun of farmers who take risks everyday. As for myself, I made the leap

By: graham

graham — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:22:54 +0000

Electron, my job doesn’t depend on the presence of multinationals in Ireland in any way, but thats beside the point. Complaining that multinationals are bad and touting farming as the only homegrown thing in Ireland doesn’t change the facts on the ground. You can whinge all you want about city dwellers not understanding the farming way of life, but you yourself have moved to the city. Are you a spineless city dweller now too, or does that only relate to everyone else in the city?
In case you hadn’t realised, Tourism is a vitally important source of income to our economy and we are all far more dependant on it that we may believe. Rural communities could do far better from tourism than from decentralisation, since tourism wouldn’t necessarily just target a few rural towns in specific constituencies. However, what have we seen with respect to tourism in rural Ireland? Ridiculous planning on the part of county councils, permission given to awful holiday villages which in no way reflect the realities of rural life in Ireland that tourists might want to experience and once again the contamination and destruction of important habitats.
It’s important also to remember that local and national government have been happy to turn a blind eye to this kind of destruction, in fact they have even helped to encourage it. Many of the roads and bypasses that have been built over the past decade have been built using material from illegal quarries. People, a small number admittedly, have made hundreds of millions of euro at the expense of the landscape and the taxpayer.

The rural landscape is a productive one and should not be preserved for the leisure of city dwellers. But that doesn’t mean it should be destroyed for the profits of a few well connected rural landowners either.

By: ter

ter — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:26:26 +0000

being a farmer im delighted that one of our city cousins like us

By: Niall

Niall — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:23:36 +0000

Personally, I thought decentalisation was a great idea, they just made ridiculous decisions when it came to drawing up the timetables. 10-15 years would have been realistic for complete decentralisation. It was probably a mistake and something of an injustice to locate so many civil service jobs in Dublin to begin with.

Some of the country’s most valuable real estate is occupied by departmental offices. The sooner we can move those departments to cheaper offices and sell on the sites to commercial interests the better.

By: Jer

Jer — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:57:05 +0000

Thanks for quite a detailed debate on the WTO and the future of farming. Like any other major sector in the country it needs to be supported. Of all the thinhs that we produce in this country the agri sector is king when it comes to employment and while various multi nationals may up sticks and go east the farming sector obviously cant. It will only be destroyed if we allow it and I dont think we can allow 150,000 jobs to go so easily.

By: Electron

Electron — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:10:18 +0000

Graham, no, I live in the cosy capital, but my business interests are based in the rural community of my youth. City dwellers get up my nose with their dismissive attitude towards farmers and think that the countryside should be there for their recreational use only. They don’t seem to realise that without continuous attention, the countryside would revert back to being a wilderness – in other words they’re living in a bubble and couldn’t care a damn about the fate of rural communities. McGreevy’s decentralisation was a good idea – I can’t stand his party – but I have to say, that he has the necessary eccentricity for original thought – Cowen, on the other hand, is only a follower, not an original thought in his head. Moving parts of the administration to rural areas is perfectly in tune with developments in modern communications and would have been a great boost to these struggling communities – a real distribution of the national cake. As for people moving, if they worked for large companies they would have to move, so why should it be different for civil servants.
As for dependency on multinationals – It’s an overview of our economy – if they all vanished tomorrow morning the economy would collapse – look at who’s behind our exports. You may not be employed by one, but your job effectively depends on their presence. A look at our stats. shows up the famous black hole – why is everyone just sitting around and looking at it – someone should be trying to plug it. With ten to fifteen years experience with there companies, why aren’t we trying to apply what we’ve learnt from them and do it for ourselves. No, they’d rather let it all pass by and pick on the only real home grown industry we got – farming.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:24:50 +0000

While the EU did have the subsidy system, it is now the EU that compels farmers to adopt good practice. A good reason to vote Yes?

By: graham

graham — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 18:10:34 +0000

Electron, given the way Irish rivers and land has been so badly contaminated in the past, if things don’t change quickly we’ll end up with a courtyside that’s barren and lifeless. Don’t even get me started on the poisoning of the reintroduced sea eagles.

“the concept of nation and the welfare of their fellow citizens”
Shouldn’t this be bidirectional?
Decentralisation was a ridiculous idea from the start, engineered solely to get votes in certain constituencies. Why would you expect people who have made their lives in one place to want to up and move to another? Being dependent on the whims of multinationals or a shortsighted government, I don’t see the difference.

And speaking of dependency on multinationals. Have you never left rural Ireland? Do you assume that everyone in Irish urban centres works for a multinational? There are other sources of employment!

“farmers can’t afford to entrust their future to spineless urbanites”
Many of the spineless urbanites (I don’t see why you feel the need to call people spineless, but I guess you’re angry or something) you refer to grew up in rural Ireland and only moved to the urban centres for university and work.

The problem in Ireland is that for far too long, vast regions of the country have been at the mercy of some farmers who have been only too willing to forsake the health of the environment for a quick profit.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Sat, 31 May 2008 12:20:11 +0000

“The EU directives to prevent contamination of rivers from nitrates etc has not been fully implemented and regulated in Ireland, we get fined for this every year. Every summer there is widespread poisoning of rivers throughout the country as a result.”

Good reason to vote yes! Strengthen Europe’s power to keep manners on us.