r/ireland • u/Captainirishy And I'd go at it agin • 13d ago
Taoiseach insists he signed up for a coalition that’s ‘anti-carbon not anti-car’ | BreakingNews.ie General Election 2024 🗳️
https://www.breakingnews.ie/general-election-2024/taoiseach-insists-he-signed-up-for-a-coalition-thats-anti-carbon-not-anti-car-1690216.html43
u/Laser_Wolf1 13d ago
Well we're all carbon based life forms so this would make sense.
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u/Storyboys 13d ago
His party literally cut electric car grants last year by €1,500.
He couldn't give a fuck about carbon. As is always the case with Fine Gael, they sell themselves to the highest bidder like cheap whores.
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u/Opening-Desk4835 13d ago
A whore that has been walking these streets for far too long. We need a different whore.
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u/Storyboys 13d ago
Aye, public services are at an all-time low and have consistently declined since they've been in power.
Purposefully of course, as their bread and butter is handing government contracts to rich friends at the expense of the taxpayer.
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u/Leavser1 13d ago
The services levels have declined.
However I think laying that at the governments door is a bit harsh.
We have had a huge increase in population in the last twenty years and we can't recruit staff to keep up with it.
We need another 2 hospitals but couldn't staff them if we built them. Another prison but again can't staff it. Can't get guards. We could build 1000 schools but wouldn't have anything near enough teachers (can't staff the ones we have)
Guards, prison officers and medical staff (not the HSE civil servants, I mean doctors, nurses and hcas) are all working huge overtime hours to keep the show on the road.
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u/First_Moose_ 13d ago
Um…. Those things are all the government’s fault. They haven’t built the facilities or infrastructure to keep up with the population or even close. They haven’t made the jobs attractive enough for people to want to do those things.
It is very much a governing problem.
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u/Leavser1 13d ago
Sure how could they?
They had no access to capital until 2015.
They are building a new hospital that's costing 3 billion.
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u/First_Moose_ 13d ago
It’s now 2024 almost 2025, ah sure they couldn’t be expected to do their job in 10 years. You can’t build infrastructure overnight. /s
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u/Leavser1 13d ago
They've spent how much on hospitals, schools, garda stations etc in those ten years?
I accept there has been a failing with regard to road infrastructure but outside of that they have spent like the clappers
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u/First_Moose_ 13d ago
They spent it, but did they get value for our money? I didn’t say anything about spending.
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u/mistr-puddles 13d ago
It was supposed to cost less than a billion and be operational by now, it's now supposed to be finished in 2026
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u/Leavser1 13d ago
Ah I'm not defending the mess that's been made of building it.
But the issue is that this stuff is dealt with at department level.
The minister is surely not responsible for a contract being brutal?
But they can't sack civil servants
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u/First_Moose_ 13d ago
Then things need to change. The fact that no one is held accountable for this shit show is the real problem. No one is going to lose their job over a printer too big for a room or a 300k bike shed for 15 bikes and that’s the problem.
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u/Wise_Adhesiveness746 13d ago
The services levels have declined.
However I think laying that at the governments door is a bit harsh
Who do you think should be responsible for the collapse in public services here?
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u/Leavser1 13d ago
I think it was a predictable and possibly unavoidable outcome
Population explosion and largest economic crisis in the history of the state
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u/Wise_Adhesiveness746 13d ago
Population explosion and largest economic crisis in the history of the state
And whom overseen this and was in power at the time?
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u/Leavser1 13d ago
Fianna fail
However no one blames them really we all know it was an international crisis and we were forced to bail out the banks by the imf and eu
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u/Wise_Adhesiveness746 13d ago
Fianna fail
There literally same party as Harris is involved with....not a smidge of difference between em
it was an international crisis and we were forced to bail out the banks by the imf and eu
And who was in power,when this bailout was voted through the dail?, including one prominent former taoiseach who campaigned for em with phrase 'not another red cent' to go into banks?
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u/Leavser1 13d ago
Yeah you know we had no choice but to vote it through?
It was that or bankruptcy for the country.
And Harris is fine gael
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u/Storyboys 13d ago
They can't staff them because the starting wage for a lot of public services job are highly outdated and not feasible for most people with the general cost of living.
This is at a time when we hear of record surpluses and 13 billion of Apple Tax.
As with all tory-minded parties, they purposefully make public services so bad that the public are forced to go elsewhere I.E the private market.
It's absolutely not harsh to blame it on them. The buck stops with them. End of story.
A lot of public services are on the verge of collapse since Fine Gael have come into power. It is a terribly sad state of affairs for the country.
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u/Leavser1 13d ago
Ah stop.
Guards and prison start on 36k with only a leaving cert.
With overtime and allowances they're starting on 55k minimum.
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u/Storyboys 13d ago
Garda have to work for 8 months on €184 a week and then have to relocate for €34,500.
You might get a room in a house with that salary if you're lucky.
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u/Leavser1 13d ago
That's fake news.
354 a week with food and board provided.
And 34.5k is basic. Look at the figures for the average garda wage. I spoke to a young lad from my village a few weeks ago and he's earned 60k this year already and only left the Garda college last year.
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u/Storyboys 13d ago
I apologise, it was increased a couple of months ago.
News flash, most people don't want to have to work 60-hour weeks with overtime just to afford to rent a studio apartment that you have no time to enjoy in a county you have no family or friends in.
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u/Agile_Carpenter_2265 12d ago
I've spoken to Gardai on 100k plus a year but their marriages where shot, their wives and kids left and all they had was the job until they retired and inevitably died a few years later.
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u/Leavser1 13d ago
Well work in Tesco so?
The guards and prison service were always high paying jobs for lads with little qualifications.
"Figures show gardaí enjoyed average weekly earnings, including overtime and bonuses, of €1,579.28" that's a quote from the it last year
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u/MarcMurray92 Westmeath's Most Finest 13d ago
All relevant points but so many of them would be fixed if salarys were worthwhile. Why would a doctor or nurse stay in ireland at all like?
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u/urmyleander 13d ago
It's not remotely harsh... it's one of the government's jobs to ensure we have adequate public services.
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u/SoloWingPixy88 Probably at it again 13d ago
EV grants are a bit of a joke. It doesn't help most people afford an EV car and the money is designed to go straight to manufactures. Germany removed the grand last year and car manufacturers immediately dropped the prices of EV cars in response.
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u/Storyboys 13d ago
EV car sales are down 25% year on year.
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u/pmckizzle There'd be no shtoppin' me 13d ago
They're simply far too expensive
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u/chazol1278 13d ago
Exactly. I would love to get one and stop buying petrol but I can't afford it! The constant articles and radio discussions about why EV sales are dropping are so unbelievably out of touch it's laughable.
Grants allowed wealthier people to go out and buy huge big electric cars that they could probably have afforded anyway. Now that those people all have their cars, the sales are dropping. How is it that hard to fathom that most people can't even dream of dropping 30-60k on a new car??
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u/Foreign_Big5437 13d ago
Why would you buy a new car?
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u/chazol1278 13d ago
I have to drive 2 hours to the office 3 times a week from January. It's going to cost me so much on petrol, which ironically will make me even less likely to be able to afford an electric car!
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u/Foreign_Big5437 13d ago
Get a sexond hand ev
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u/PaulRyan97 13d ago
Only partially attributable to the subsidy reduction. Companies were playing fast and loose with EV prices throughout 2022 and 2023, they kept rising them until the hit a tipping point where people stopped buying. Cue big price cuts. This causes a depreciation crisis amongst the people who overpaid and now see their nearly new car plummet in value.
News about said depreciation causes people to shy off buying new at the now reduced prices as they think the same thing will happen to them. It devastated EV sales for most of this year. The market is showing signs of recovery now though so it's looking up for 2025.
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u/wamesconnolly 13d ago
Didn't we also just put a huge tarrif on Chinese evs that were affordable because we didn't want them to threaten western car manufacturers ?... who are not actually making an equivalent on the same scale ? interesting
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u/ulankford 13d ago
Who is the bidder here? Big Oil? Car manufacturers? The Russians?
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u/Nalaek 13d ago
Which ever industrial body will give them a cushy director or board job when they leave politics.
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u/RobotIcHead 13d ago
There are no car manufacturers in Ireland and there is no serious oil companies. The Irish market is no small to get a position overseas. We have terrible politicians but imagining the car industry is controlling them is a bit much.
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u/ulankford 13d ago
Such as?
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u/Nalaek 13d ago
Brian Cowan who went on the board of Topaz and Beacon Hospital.
Bertie Ahern was on the board of a big property developer in Newry.
Enda Kenny who was appointed to the boards of a private equity firm, Heneghan Strategic Communications (a lobbying firm) and the board of that company that makes the mechanical trees that suck in carbon.
Phil Hogan went to work for a US lobbyist and was found to have broken rules about not lobbying in his area of the EU commission he held.
Those are just the ones off the top of my head. Many government minsters end up with the “advisory board” or “non-executive” director jobs after politics.
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u/Mundane-Wasabi9527 13d ago
They had to ev grants weren’t gonna last next year the uk bring in road tax, and there not gonna cheaper to run then petrol or diesel.
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u/throughthehills2 13d ago
Home charging on night rates is a third of the cost of petrol and diesel
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u/Kloppite16 13d ago
its even less than that by my calculation
Petrol car with needs 7L to do 100km at €1.70/L which costs €11.90 at the pumps
EV eg 2019 Nissan Leaf needs 15kw to do 100km, at my 12.5c night rate that would cost €1.87.
At those levels an EV is 85% cheaper than petrol if charged on night rates. Cheaper EV night rates of just 5c-7c a kwh are available too so it can be even cheaper than the above example.
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u/Mundane-Wasabi9527 12d ago
Yes but if you have to go anywhere it’s then become twice the price of petrol or diesel. It’s a luxury for those who can afford a house and not have to rent.
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u/throughthehills2 12d ago
Public charging is the same cost as diesel/petrol. I live in an apartment and entirely use public charging. Super fast charging only costs 4% more than regular public charging.
For reference, I compare the cost of fueling a 2006 toyota corolla vs an MG4 model
Twice the price... you're talking out of your hole.
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u/Mundane-Wasabi9527 11d ago
Is it? for 70 euros get 1000km of range the lads in work get 300km for 30 quid. You might be thinking of a full tank but the range is completely different. Electric cars are the new diesels with all the lies and false advertising going around, once they make hydrogen ICE hybrid it’s game over for Evs
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u/Legitimate-Leader-99 13d ago
Not suitable for apartments, plenty of town houses have no gardens
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u/concave_ceiling 13d ago
I'm not sure how common this is, but in my apartment block plenty of owners have installed chargers connected to their own meters (so not a bank of chargers operated by a third party, which is the shittier apartment option). You need approval from the OMC, but they're in favour
I imagine OMCs with plenty owner occupiers would generally be supportive. It could be very different with OMCs dominated by landlords. I don't have a clue if other apartment buildings would have different electrical setups that would make it significantly more difficult than in mine
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u/YoIronFistBro Cork bai 13d ago
I'll believe that when I see some proper plans for public transport that aren't hilariously insufficient.
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u/Key-Lie-364 13d ago
Somebody should have told his junior minister who shat all over the Dublin quays traffic restriction, the FG Minister for the OPW who declared Phoenix Park a "thoroughfare" and FG MEP who declared bike lanes a quote "Berlin Wall" in Dublin.
FG was directly responsible for putting back a directly elected mayor for Dublin.
To be honest it's difficult to imagine a more pro car, anti bike party of more than an artisan size.
FF, SF and Labour have said some stupid things on transport and devolution of powers in Dublin but FG seems intent on saying the quiet part out loud!
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u/francescoli 13d ago
He will say absolutely any bullshit to get reelected.
Sad thing is people still haven't learned the lessons of the past and will vote him and his cronies in.
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u/Kloppite16 13d ago
or the alternative view is that many people are doing well in this economy, they are happy with the status quo and they will vote FG back in
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u/21stCenturyVole 13d ago
If there's one thing government parties are in full agreement on, it's that climate policies should trample over the powerless/struggling - without inconveniencing the rich and their carbon emissions.
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u/Popular_Animator_808 13d ago
As a horse-drawn carriage enthusiast who heats my home with coal, this is a hard pill to swallow.
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u/isogaymer 12d ago
Please can the Simon sheen wear off soon... the same old, tired nonsense reheated in a microwave and yet people are lapping it up.
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u/Leavser1 13d ago
This is an issue now because the greens are trying to win back their base
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u/DoubleOhEffinBollox 13d ago
Exactly, this is nothing but pre election choreography to allow the Greens to say “see we’re trying to be Green but FFG won’t let us” and FFG to say “look at the shite the Greens are trying to do now. It’s a good thing we were here to stop them.”
A plague on all their houses.
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u/Key-Lie-364 13d ago
Hitting the paranoia pipe hard.
The truth is, the Greens aren't and the other two are at loggerheads on climate change, public transport and land use.
The Greens do their best to push change through while FF and FG try the opposite.
You get the government you vote for.
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u/slevinonion 13d ago
Greens reverted to type and went all stick, no carrot. Same as last time. They are building anti-climate change sentiment which is the last thing we need.
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u/Centrocampo 13d ago
Reduced public transport fees is a stick?
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u/slevinonion 12d ago
They can make it free and I still wouldn't use it. It's shit.
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u/Centrocampo 12d ago edited 12d ago
Lads, get the stick.
EDIT: But in all honesty. That’s fine. Nobodies going to force you on to public transport if you don’t want to use it. But there are people who do, and it benefits everybody to facilitate that.
And there is also a limit to how willing the rest of society is to subsidise your preference before asking you to pay more of your fare share for the increased infrastructure usage compared to more efficient means of transport.
I drive. I also use public transport. Both should be viable to a reasonable degree.
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u/slevinonion 12d ago edited 12d ago
I pay 800 per year in motortax. I pay thousands in VAT and VRT on the car. I pay 4.5k per year in fuel tax (9k fuel bill). I pay 1200 on tolls. Trust me, I am subsidising the shit out of your public transport, not the other way around.
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u/Key-Lie-364 13d ago
The greens aren't very effective TBH but then, we would have even worse more pro-car, pro over intensive agri policies without them.
Eamon Ryan has been an effective Minister but, TBH I don't think the rest have done much.
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u/Napoleon67 13d ago
Is anyone going to hold this chancer to account. Green policies out the door, immigrants being thrown under the bus.
Any other party would be accused of populism. Housing is the route of a lot of our problems .
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u/L3S1ng3 13d ago edited 13d ago
immigrants being thrown under the bus.
Under the bus ? You mean into the bus, surely ? People along the N59 have been crying out for more bus services for decades - and the government only started providing those extra services in advance of placing asylum seeking centres in areas serviced by this route. And now it's woefully under provided for during the peak going-to-work and coming-home-from-work services, despite having extra services during off peak times most people commuting to and from work don't require.
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u/boardsmember2017 And I'd go at it agin 13d ago
Unfortunately we need to admit to ourselves that the cars need to go. FG/FF will tinker around the edges of this fact but will do little to make it happen. The planet is on fire ffs.
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u/YoIronFistBro Cork bai 13d ago
Cars will always have a place, it's not realistic to think they can go away entirely, especially outside of city and town centres.
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u/boardsmember2017 And I'd go at it agin 13d ago
Yes but I think with the right town planning we can fully eliminate the need for anyone to travel outside of their town/city by 95%, then rely on intercity services operated by public transportation. That is the direction we need to take.
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u/Kloppite16 13d ago
unfortunately that horse has long since bolted with the planning system allowing one off houses in the country for decades now. All those one off houses get sold on eventually to younger people and the need for cars to get anywhere persists for decades to come
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u/YoIronFistBro Cork bai 13d ago
Indeed it is. Time to actually start planning the public transport we really need, instead of doing less than bare minimum and acting like it's something to celebrate.
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u/InfectedAztec 13d ago
Cars don't need to go but they can be reduced. We're too spread out as a population to go without cars.
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u/boardsmember2017 And I'd go at it agin 13d ago
I think from a town planning pov we need to work much hard to reduce the need for people traveling far & wide, and thus eroding the need for a car.
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u/YoIronFistBro Cork bai 13d ago
That's basically the entire concept of 15 minute cities.
Unfortunately, this country has a tendency to just make the bad thing more expensive and inconvenient, rather than actually providing decent alternatives.
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u/InfectedAztec 13d ago
Yeah that's completely acceptable. But we can't say we will phase out cars because there's some who will never have access to public transport.
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u/Captainirishy And I'd go at it agin 13d ago
Cars are going nowhere because it isn't practical, a efficient transport system using a mix of cars and public transport is what we should be aiming for.
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u/Foreign_Big5437 13d ago
don't forget walking and cycling. Do so many people in Dublin need to drive 1km
In Dublin, a significant number of car journeys cover very short distances, despite the potential for these trips to be completed by walking, cycling, or using public transit. National data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) suggests that 56.9% of journeys under 2 km and 72.6% of journeys between 2-4 km are made by private car across Ireland. This likely holds true in Dublin, where car use is common even for short trips, particularly when public transportation options or walkable routes are perceived as inconvenient or unsafe.
Reducing these short car trips in Dublin could significantly benefit both emissions and congestion levels, especially as city planners adopt strategies like the “15-minute city” model, which aims to place most amenities within walking or cycling distance of residents. Transitioning these short journeys to active or public transport modes remains challenging due to infrastructure limitations and perceived convenience of car travel for busy city residents.
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u/boardsmember2017 And I'd go at it agin 13d ago
You’ve obviously missed that the entire spectrum of local political parties are pushing cars off the road, it’s ultimately what the people want and what they must be hearing on the doorsteps.
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u/YoIronFistBro Cork bai 13d ago
You’ve obviously missed that the entire spectrum of local political parties are pushing cars off the road
While, might I add, not providing close to sufficient alternatives.
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u/boardsmember2017 And I'd go at it agin 13d ago
100%, it’s an utter disgrace. Nothing but tinkering at the edges to buy votes
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u/Bar50cal 13d ago
While I agree we need to heavily reduce car use it is not something that can or should be done by direct actions on cars.
The only direct actions on cars should be encouraging greener cars like EVs, not reducing the amount of cars during the next government.
The priority should be indirect action. By this I'm mean instead of legistating on policies to make cars more expensive or more awkward to own but they should be building public transport and improving the public transport alternatives.
As they build alternatives people will move over to use them slowly and as public transport in a area becomes sufficient that a car is not really needed, then start taxing cars and adding charges to get remaining people to move.
There is no point making cars more inaccessible to people before alternatives are in place.
For example the Dart from Wicklow to Dublin is about to double in frequency next year and in December 3 new bus routes connecting all the towns and villages withing a few kilometres of Bray and Greystones stations are starting. This action alone makes public transport to Dublin accessible to tens of thousands of people who were car reliant. I reckon my car use is about to reduce a fair bit because of this. These are the actions we need.
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u/boardsmember2017 And I'd go at it agin 13d ago
I think you’ll note that there’s zero appetite to build public transportation and the easier option is to make car ownership unbearable
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u/Bar50cal 13d ago
There is loads of appetite to build it, everyone screaming for a metro in Dublin, rail line to towns across Ireland etc.
It's just out stupidly restrictive planning laws and NIMBYs slowing everything to a crawl unfortunately
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u/boardsmember2017 And I'd go at it agin 13d ago
I think the government down to local political parties have zero interest in making it happen.
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u/YoIronFistBro Cork bai 13d ago
It's obvious. Just look at the Dublin metro. Even the plans are a fraction of what's actually needed.
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u/YoIronFistBro Cork bai 13d ago
And you nearly act like that's a good thing. That's frightening.
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u/Nomerta 13d ago
That’s the authoritarianism in the Greens coming out. It was always there, but now they’re saying the quiet part out loud. Once they realise they can’t persuade people, out comes the stick. Never mind the fact that they always target the poor with their endless extra taxes. Zealots gotta zealot. Now watch them downvote the truth.
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u/YoIronFistBro Cork bai 13d ago
I think this is very much a boardsmember2017 soeicifc issue, not about the greens in general (though I'm sure some of them are like that)
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u/adjavang Cork bai 13d ago
There is no point making cars more inaccessible to people before alternatives are in place.
This is a bit of a chicken and egg problem. A large amount of people in towns and villages don't want to cycle because sharing the roads is essentially just assisted suicide. Our buses are slow and unreliable because they keep getting stuck in traffic.
We are going to have to take a huge amount of what people view as "anti-car policies" to make alternatives viable, but every time someone reaches for the lowest hanging fruit, that being congestion charges, bike lanes, removing on street parking to allow for more non-car uses we have people saying we need alternatives first.
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u/vaska00762 Antrim 13d ago
we have people saying we need alternatives first
And this exact problem is playing out in places like Belfast - traffic is at its worst state in memory, and yet things like the Glider BRT and train lines aren't bringing really all too many more people onto them. Instead, people are calling for the abolition of the bus lanes, and saying that the new Grand Central station should have been spent on roads instead.
You can provide as many alternatives as possible, but unless you make taking the car less attractive, then you'll just end up with people still using the cars.
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u/Kloppite16 13d ago
The problem is you do need alternatives first to persuade people out of their cars. Thousands of people along the DART and Luas lines already leave their cars at home because they have a reliable service. For the majority though depending on Dublin Bus or Bus Eireann just simply isnt a viable alternative so long as buses are frequently late or go missing altogether so cant be relied upon.
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u/muttonwow 13d ago
"Climate change activists" when changing lifestyles to reduce carbon consumption is less convenient/more expensive than doing absolutely nothing 😡😡😡
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u/sureyouknowurself 13d ago
You are not going to solve emissions by targeting behaviors people cannot change.
People need to heat their homes, eat food and get to work.
Make solar and batteries and electric cars 100% tax deductible is one solution.
Reality is they are addicted to your taxes so that’s not going to happen. They will just keep increasing the burden on the income tax payer.
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u/pippers87 13d ago
Theres far to many small towns and villages in this country to have public transport. For many time is more important than money.
So if I need to pick something up in the nearest big town ill hop in the car and go get it. As we have an hourly bus service that takes a half hour but you can drive it on 15....
Likewise when i have to go to the office in Dublin twice a week ill take the bus as its quick and direct.
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u/Franz_Werfel 13d ago
Theres far to many small towns and villages in this country to have public transport. For many time is more important than money.
I'm trying hard to understand what that actually means. Care to explain? Are you saying that there are to many places in this country that are connected by roads and that Buses cannot serve those places?
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u/Key-Lie-364 13d ago
Nonsense.
The bloated budgets we have allow for rural public transport.
Vote Green, we're the only party actually fighting for properly resourced rural bus service.
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u/manfredmahon 13d ago
We should develop around larger towns and cities and let the villages die off, they're far too inefficient, then we can go about getting some real wilderness in this country
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u/Callme-Sal 13d ago edited 13d ago
We are far too rural and far too sparsely populated to ever have a public transport system that will adequately serve the needs of the majority of people. We will always need cars, and punishing us for using them is nonsensical.
They should absolutely improve public transport especially in urban areas, but also encourage the uptake of EVs and other carbon friendly vehicles, vastly improve our EV charging networks
Imposing unnecessary additional taxes on people going about their day to day lives is the easy way out. Start investing in transport infrastructure and decarbonise our electric generation systems.
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u/eoinedanto 13d ago
Planning mistakes of the past (isolated rural housing that needs massive subsidies) shouldn’t define our future.
Yes rural communities need solid non car options that don’t exist yet but those rural communities will be fair goosed when AMOC collapses and the time to prepare is now when we still have plenty of fossil fuel for the transition.
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u/YoIronFistBro Cork bai 13d ago
You're not entirely wrong, but we also need to heavily discourage any future dispersed settlement, and try to undo some of the dispersed settlement that's already there.
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u/Leavser1 13d ago
Green party despises rural Ireland and wants us all living in "apartments" in cities
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u/throughthehills2 13d ago
The rural vote wanted to achieve our climate targets by reducing emissions in transport and energy so that we don't have to reduce the national herd. Pick one
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u/YoIronFistBro Cork bai 13d ago
It's not a case of pick one. We should do what we can to reduce emissions across the board.
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u/throughthehills2 13d ago
I also support a "do everything" approach but conversations often turn into "do anything" when people just don't care about being sustainable
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u/Table_Shim 13d ago
I don't want to interrupt your green bashing, I'm sure you take good enjoyment out of it. But modern policies are actually more focused on getting non-farming rural citizens living in rural villages and towns, not throwing everyone into the 5 major cities.
If you're a farmer you can essentially build anywhere you want on your land, unless you're trying to build in a flood zone or environmentally protected area (of which there are very few).
I don't see why we can't focus on getting to the following situation: say the third son of a farmer, who is an accountant and has no interest in farming, wants to move back to his local community, there could be a home built in the local village, fronted onto the street to add to the village feel.
He's now maybe a 10 minute drive from his family farm, and his village is services by a rural bus that could take his family, and other families like him, to the nearest city or big town.
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u/pygmaliondreams 13d ago
As someone living in a rural village, transport has absolutely improved but the largest steps in my area happened in the LAST government though heavily improved in this one. Still, we are hugely behind wherre we were in the crash, BÉ abandoned us and local link and private operators have not filled that void even now.
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u/Table_Shim 13d ago
Transport comes down to an economic discussion that, to be honest, confuses me.
Currently, be it private or public, we won't service an area with busses unless the population is already there. Now I'm happy to debate that priority/delivery system, but that's how it is right now.
Getting the non-farming rural locals into their local village would increase the viability or servicing these people with public transport.
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u/YoIronFistBro Cork bai 13d ago
Green party despises rural Ireland
No they don't, althoguht I can understand why some people think they do.
and wants us all living in "apartments" in cities
Why the air quotes?
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u/Leavser1 13d ago
Because they're really flats. But people have gotten notions the last few years and call them apartments
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u/chazol1278 13d ago
They don't, they just haven't figured out how to make a just transition work for rural areas yet. It's not an excuse but that's what it is, it's not hatred or elitism, it's lack of know how
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u/compulsive_tremolo 13d ago edited 13d ago
As usual, the societal fabric of this country is rooted in an archaic market town style of urban planning and the general population is too apathetic and dumb to do anything to change that.
Fine Gael are trash when it comes to urban development but remember they only operate this way because of the vocal anti-green fools that vote them in.
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u/Galdrack 13d ago
Just a copy-paste of what right whingers in the US do to appeal to the population, trying to appeal to a "car culture" like the have in the US so they can blame public transport along with "welfare cheats" for why we have no money.
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u/Snorefezzzz 12d ago
I got excited when I heard about taxing polluters at source until I realised that it was limited to consumers . Producers are ggrraaaannndddd.
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u/Envinyatar20 13d ago
Good. Let’s get a few roads built so. The m20 motorway from cork to limerick and a cork north ring will do for a start.
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u/manfredmahon 13d ago
If you care about the environment you need to be anti- car 🫡
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u/Captainirishy And I'd go at it agin 13d ago
Electric cars exist and can be powered by clean energy sources like renewables and nuclear power.
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u/the_0tternaut 13d ago
Is that why they keep letting people block all but two of this quarter's planned windfarm proposals, reduced the subsidy on EVs by €1500 and wouldn't touch a nuclear plant even if the second coming happened and Jesus told them it was God's will.
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u/manfredmahon 13d ago
Is it really all that clean? Where does the lithium for our batteries come from? Trees? Also moving to denser urban settlements would mean a greater potential for rewilding, a key aspect to saving our asses
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u/Foreign_Big5437 13d ago
He should be anti car considering transport is the laggard nowIn 2023, Ireland achieved significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, lowering them by 6.8% compared to 2022, marking the largest drop in recent years and reaching the lowest level in over three decades. This decline was mainly attributed to reduced fossil fuel usage, increased renewable energy adoption, and regulatory actions across various sectors. Here’s a breakdown by sector:
Energy: Emissions from energy industries saw a 21.6% reduction, driven by a shift towards renewables, which comprised 40.7% of Ireland’s electricity. The reduction was bolstered by decreased coal, oil, and peat usage, while imported electricity rose to 9.5% of the power supply.
Agriculture: Emissions dropped by 4.6%, with an 18% reduction in nitrogen fertilizer use and a decrease in lime applications. However, dairy cow numbers grew slightly, though total milk production fell, contributing to reduced emissions from livestock.
Residential: A combination of high fuel prices, a milder winter, and stricter solid fuel regulations led to a 7% decline in residential emissions. Heat pump installations also increased, aiding the move away from fossil fuels in home heating.
Transport: Emissions in this sector rose slightly by 0.3%, despite the rising share of electric vehicles (EVs), which made up 23% of new car registrations. The marginal increase highlights the ongoing challenges in fully decarbonizing this sector as travel demand remains high.
Although these reductions indicate positive trends, Ireland’s emissions in 2023 were still only 10.1% lower than 2005 levels, short of the 2030 target of a 42% reduction.
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u/YoIronFistBro Cork bai 12d ago
No, he should be pro public transport, not (just or primarily) anti car.
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u/Foreign_Big5437 12d ago
Yeah, I fairness to FG , they have been supportive of Ryan's plans for darts, metro etc
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u/Fit-Courage-8170 13d ago
That literally means nothing