A partial and patchy ‘recovery’ and more… January 30, 2017
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
Ciara Walsh (26) finds it’s difficult to believe political claims of economic recovery when she goes home to Limerick.
“Everything outside Dublin just feels underfunded, underdeveloped and forgotten.”
She feels a sense of loyalty to her home city and hates how Limerick is “misrepresented” by the media.
“It’s just gangland and drug issues but that’s not all we have to offer. There’s a massive community spirit and sense of pride. With very little resources they’ve created so many events.”
However, the “mass exodus” of school and college graduates to Dublin and abroad has left a notable gap in the city and surrounding areas, she says.
And:
TJ Butler (23) [from Lucan originally] agrees that the economy’s “magical recovery” has only touched the lives of those in the cities, while many living in rural areas and smaller towns continue to struggle.
“There’s a huge distinction between Dublin and the rest of the country in terms of the recovery. The only place that’s really felt is the major cities and even then it’s only in Dublin.”
Meanwhile, what of this reference to a near Zelig-like figure in contemporary Irish politics…
“I remember Councillor Gary Gannon from the north inner city saying that we’re not apathetic, it’s just that we don’t like the politicians in power. We’re not connected to what they’re doing and saying.”
Following the results of the 2016 general election, TJ Butler decided to turn this disillusionment with the Irish political system into action, by joining Labour Youth. To his dismay, he discovered he was one of only a tiny number of students involved with the centre-left party.
“People our age are constantly giving out about what’s right and wrong with this country and how we think it should change. But very few people actually get involved with the system.
“I originally would have joined the Social Democrats but that party hasn’t really come to anything so I joined Labour Youth. We’re constantly giving out that this old man’s club is setting the rules but none of us actually try to get in.”
Out of the frying pan into the fire.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
TJ will be old soon enough
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TJ obviously doesn’t recognise a sinking ship when he sees one.
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That pretty much corresponds to my impression of the RoI when I go back now -Dublin surprisingly upbeat ish and the rest of the country running at 50%of what it was before the latest crisis of capitalism.
If that.
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In a taxi this evening – work related – the driver was telling me that the number of people from outside Dublin who are surprised by how busy the place is compared to where they are. Just one straw in the wind but…
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Bru Na Boinne is arguably Ireland’s premier tourist attraction. Drogheda is the town closest to it and would garner a fair bit of the passing trade. One part of the Main Street looks like utterly decrepit, nearly every building boarded up and covered in graffiti. A comparable town in Italy, France etc would be spruced up. I think large parts of Ireland are going backwards, the hangover from 2008-2014 is still affecting millions. Sad really.
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My impression would be that outside of larger urban centres, improvements in the West have been minimal . In some cases, things have continued to get worse.
In the end, no spin can get around the fact that massive amounts of businesses shut, large numbers immigrated or just migrated and many communities will never recover from the crash. The “keep the recovery going” narrative was such a spectacular failure in part because the destruction is still very much visible in many parts of the country – the boarded up shops, the empty pubs at weekends, the empty and decaying houses owned by the bank, closed post offices, closed Garda stations, closed hotels, sports teams struggling to get the right number of players together etc.
Only bloody idiots could have thought they could so blatantly piss on people and expect them to believe it was raining.
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and the exiles
many still exiled?
and so, not relevant
the story remains the same
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Same story in England, and as good an explanation for the Brexit vote as any. Stray out of the south east and it’s high streets full of charity shops, bookies and pawn brokers
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Even in the South East: I was in Crawley last year for work (one stop from Gatwick) and it’s charity shops, bookies, and the rest. There are a lot of towns like that once you get outside the M25.
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And there’s this
“Austerity was not main cause of Ireland’s economic recovery, book says
Ireland should not be held up as a success story for economic austerity as its recovery was also driven by other factors that could not be replicated elsewhere, a new book says.
These factors include the export performance of multinational firms trading in international markets; a pragmatic approach to the bailout from Irish policymakers; a lack of political and social dissent to austerity measures and Ireland’s distinctive corporate tax policies.
The book, with 17 chapters from 24 leading academics also highlights the lack of transformative reform and how Ireland remains vulnerable to changes to the forces underlying its recovery.”
Rest of press release here: http://www.ucd.ie/newsandopinion/news/2017/jan/31/austeritywasnotmaincauseofirisheconomicrecoverybooksays/
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