On this point again. The government is to blame; they have created and maintained a very equal society though a very generous welfare system and very low taxes on low and middle income earners. If we had more inequality we'd have lower costs. There are no right wing political parties in Ireland so the current consensus is unlikely to change.
Ireland has the highest consumer prices in the EU
- Thread starter joe sod
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Console yourself that per capita the State is spending massively more providing your household with services such as electricity, broadband and roads than those in urban areas.
T McGibney
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Talk about a sweeping statement...
A secondary road costs the same per Km whether there's 10 houses on it or 100. The same for other services. There are economies of scale in the provision of services and infrastructure. The State spends more per capita to provide basic services to people on areas with lower population densities.Talk about a sweeping statement...
That's always the way it's been and that's the way it should be, unless we want everyone to live in large towns and cities and rural areas to be deserted. I've no problem with that, if anything I think we should be spending more on rural areas, especially smaller towns and larger villages, in order to keep them viable economically and socially.
T McGibney
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All true but nothing to do with the barb you directed at @Marsupial. I pay for the roads you drive on. You pay for the roads I drive on. If a particular road in say West Cork or West Dublin is badly maintained, it's just as likely to damage your car as mine, and mine as yours. The people who live on or near it have neither title nor claim to it.
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I don't have any of those. But I do have a popular community TD who tops the poll by constantly moaning about those eejits up in Dublin who haven't a clue about what goes on in the countryside! (Would you have any idea who he may be referring to?)
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My nearest road is used by the dairy tankers and cattle trucks who collect milk and livestock that, after processing, is delivered to the sophisticated urbanites who think that meat and dairy produce grow on trees! (It is also used by urbanites and tourists who like to commune with nature in the local hotels, campsites and watering holes in this scenic part of the country!) Oh and our local rural link bus also travels along it, 10 times a week!
My local electricity infrastructure takes the power generated by the local wind farm and puts it into a wire which magically transfers it 300 km to the homes of the sophisticated urbanites who think that electricity is generated mainly by converting the hot air that they generate into AC current!
And so on!
Aren't energy standing charges higher for rural customers?
I don't know.
They mustn't be that sophisticated if they are stupid enough to think that. Console yourself that most of the income the beef farmers get if from handouts from the EU.
That's also heavily subsidised.
Again, they mustn't be that sophisticated if they are stupid enough to think that. Console yourself with the fact that the grants given to the power companies to put up the wind farms come from taxes generated in urban areas. Nobody's looking that bright if the rural dwellers think they have anything to do with the wind farms or indeed if they think the wind farms are a core part of our electricity generation capacity.
And so onAnd so on!
It's not a barb, it's a friendly dry comment. I'm in favour of water charges, the fact that 10% of the population pay for their own water is inequitable; everyone should pay for it.
Yep, but if someone chooses to live up the side of a mountain should the State have to run a paved road and electricity wires to their house? Sure we can all drive on it but the residents are the ones that need it.
T McGibney
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Indeed they should, but we are where we are.
I'd wager there's a vanishingly small number of people nationwide in that category. The population numbers in places like Connemara are absolutely tiny when we exclude those living in villages and towns.
No, everyone needs not just the roads they drive on, but the entire network. I haven't driven the Port Tunnel for years but its existence and use by others makes my driving around Dublin all the safer and more convenient.
We are indeed.
True, but the cost of provision to villages is more expensive per capita than it is to towns etc.
The Port Tunnel has a national economic impact, as does the Jack Lynch Tunnel and the M50 and the M8.
The road to a few gaffs down a side road doesn't. The fewer gaffs per Km the more expensive it is per capita. That's all.
T McGibney
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You were arguing about mountainsides earlier, now it's villages?
There are very few villages not on the road to somewhere else.
Obviously there are economies of scale in larger settlements but the additional cost to connect a new home in a village shouldn't differ much to one in a city.
Measuring respective costs per capita is a weird concept when nobody lives on the Port Tunnel.
OK - they are for electricity at least:
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Thank you, that's the point I was making. That's all.
They are getting subsidised all the time by our high electricity prices. The wind farms are getting paid top dollar for power they generate at 3am in the morning through the feed in tariffs whereby they still get paid even if the power is no good to the grid and is essentially dumped. They also don't bare the cost of switching on the generators and gas turbines when the wind is not blowing at peak electric demand nor the cost of maintaining all those generators. That is all borne by you and me through the highest electric prices in Europe.
And I forgot Eamon Ryan has decreed that we don't need to bring our oil and gas reserves to market and has refused a drilling licence for same. We will just pay the Saudis and Norwegians and even the British for theirs
They are.
Yep, @ClubMan posted the details. Does the higher charge reflect the full extent of the higher cost?
Not forgetting that Barryroe Offshore Energy may well win any case that it takes against Ryan in the Four Courts whereupon the taxpayer - rather than the Green Fool - will have to pick up the tab.