The duality of neutrality, people say we are freeloading and people say we are paying into something we’re not receiving benefit from. Scheödinger’s neutrality
It’s not that hard to understand. The argument is that we are freeloading now. The payments are about something that could happen in the future. There is no contradiction.
I really don’t think it is. We are practically defenceless and rely on the rest of Europe having sufficient defence forces that no one dares attack it. We don’t contribute to that deterrent, despite benefiting from it. Even if a direct attack on Ireland is unlikely, large parts of Europe falling under Russian control would be bad for us, not least because of the massive disruption it would cause during the invasion.
Our best bet would be resort to guerilla tactics on any invasion force
Absolutely not. We're an island, we're in a much better position to repel an invasion rather than let one happen and then try to fight back. If we had a decent defence force any nation (except the UK) looking to invade would need to launch a massive naval invasion to stand any chance of being successful. It's really only the US that has the capability to pull it off. An invasion attempt isn't necessarily going to go in a direct line from their home country either. As it is, if a country wanted a foothold near Europe, Ireland is a good target. It's accessible from the Atlantic, and practically defenceless.
I don't think we're in danger at the moment, but being defenceless isn't good either. Nor it is good to not contribute to the defence of the continent.
It’s not freeloading to be cognizant of the fact that our position on this planet means our threat level is very low and therefore our need to be throwing money at it is much lower.
Preventing Russia from nibbling away at the Baltics, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria, and mounting cyberattacks and other unconventional warfare further west isn't really "little benefit".
The integrity of our trading and economic bloc is of huge tangible and intangible benefit to Ireland.
Most people don't have contracts to sell cars, uniforms and radios to the Gardaí, so don't see much of a direct financial return on that part of their taxes.
I think most would agree that the benefits of having a police force are worth that individual financial hit.
Little benefit aside from safety, funding our allies who are at risk and contributing to combatting threats that threaten EU citizens.
"but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"
Always weird to see fellow Irish people quoting a movie which was pretty explicitly a satirical analogy about how Ireland should have rolled over and let Britain colonise it.
Where else specifically and who will actually spend it well? We are sitting on billions and building little apart form the most expensive hospital in the world.
Train projects postponed, transport budgets reduced, building locked into fixable planning faff. If anything we have the cash to spare!
Well in return Irelands visa schemes and tax policies are awful for the rest of europe so its only fair. US tech firms settled here primarily for access to the european market and people pay to get EU citizenship faster here. They make billions from the user base and then avoid taxes in Ireland.
But sure I guess its only a problem when others do it.
Exactly. It's this type of thinking that makes the EU so weak. Every country protects its own self interest to the detriment of the bigger picture. Everyone else can see this and relish in it. In the US's case they actively support it.
I'll 100% agree that the Mercosur trade deal is absolutely awful for Ireland, and that EU trade is designed to prioritise German/French industry.
But I have no issues with us contributing to EU defence, considering the external threats Europe faces. Especially since people here scream the house down when anyone suggests we put money into our own military.
Absolutely back to front thinking here. The Mercosur trade deal is a vital trade deal for Ireland given the risks with the US market. Ireland is one of the biggest exporters in Europe and with a tiny domestic economy will benefit far more than either Germany or France from Mercosur. In fact it's bizarre to suggest France as a beneficiary when France is much more exposed to competition from South American farmers.
The deal has been subjected to a mass misiformation campaign by greedy farming lobbyists. Irish farming household incomes rose by 33% last year (base farm income hugely distorted by numbers of part time farmers). Just like hospitality lobbyists won a deal on VAT through deliberate disinformation on closures we now have the same guff being repeated which is incredibly damaging to the Irish economy.
Nevermind the fact we have special deals and exemptions from the EU onto of being a tax haven essentially cheating to raise our gdp then to have someone turn around and say "wow irelands really being screwed here by this trade deal".
In the world of give and take we have become a nation of takers with a resentment to give anything that doesn't directly benefit only us.
I'll 100% agree that the Mercosur trade deal is absolutely awful for Ireland, and that EU trade is designed to prioritise Germany/French industry.
Just another area we have to lose out on then I guess!
But I have no issues with us contributing to EU defence.
You have no issue with Ireland throwing away 7 billion and getting hardly anything in return, in order to hand that money over to a foreign defence industry.
In return for our 7 billion contribution we make 65 billion every year from taxation of exporting businesses. That's a staggering return on investment.
If Ireland is being attacked, then that 7 billion won't make a difference.
Should Ireland build itself nuclear weapons? That is the ultimate defence, and people are going on about we need to pay more to defend ourselves.
We all know that if Ireland tried something like that we'd be sanctioned straight away by these same countries (U.S., UK, France), and told not to do that, the reason why is it's not really about Ireland being able to defend itself, it's about Ireland pumping money into their defence companies.
All that spending by NATO states surrounding a small sea(Baltic Sea) and they still can't prevent cables being messed with. Ireland of course on the otherhand will if only it spends more!. Nonsense.
Our own industry like agriculture/fishery is being put out to pasture. We are losing ours while other countries are growing theirs at the expense of ours.
Where exactly are we short of money given we have exploded government spending in Ireland? 65% of the tax revenue to pay for this which comes from exporting businesses.
The Mercosur trade agreement opens huge markets for all exporting Irish businesses - Ireland would be one of the biggest beneficiaries of this deal in a time we have huge risks with the US market. In return a negligible increase in access for South American farm products to the EU market who have to meet the same standards. The usual lies coming from the incompetent and greedy IFA have no problem throwing the rest of the economy under the bus despite Irish Farm incomes increasing by 70% last year.
Where exactly are we short of money given we have exploded government spending in Ireland? 65% of the tax revenue to pay for this which comes from exporting businesses.
The government is always crying the poor mouth about how they have no money for stuff, but when it comes to this, they have no problems. The Mercosur trade agreement will make Amazon agricultural land more profitable and that'll be at the expense of forests, of which will be cut down to make way for pasture land.
We are throwing our native industry under the bus, so others can benefit. You think Germany or France would do that? Not a hope!
Maybe I am, is it true that the court can make decisions on Irish legislation if it feels that they undermine trade already in place? Is it also true that the rule ngs of the court are not necessarily allowed to be made public?
Edit, Looking into it further and some of this looks very sus to me
https://corporateeurope.org/en/international-trade/2014/11/ceta-trading-away-democracy
A private court with privately paid arbitrators and legislation that allows changes that would disadvantage Canada or EU companies to be stopped.
Can easily see how that would potentially be terrible for the people. If we had signed that before banning indoor smoking Canadian tobacco companies could have forced us to continue as before. What potential hazard might be continued in the future?
We agree to allow certain things by signing the treaty, for example if we agree in the treaty to all Canadian companies bid on on public procurement on the same terms as EU companies then we pass a law saying we give preferential treatment to EU Companies on health-related procurement. Then the Canadian companies have a right to say "hey that's not fair, that's against the agreement"
Why can't they do that in local courts? A few reasons, one who would feel a local court is fair if they are part of the state you are suing. Another is that it allows for one court to make decisions, trying to go to 27 different courts all of whom could make different conflicitjng decisions. Then there is a rule in international law, Ireland is a dualist state, meaning international treaties are not part of domestic law and you can't sue the government for breaching them unless they allow it. So Canadian companies couldn't sue in Irish courts for breaking the treaty.
PS Yes, CETA decisions in the investment court will be public (except for secret business data which would be true here too) this is very different to other investment courts
I haven't a clue, That's the problem with journalism these days, they only report on what is said to them but hardly ever ask important questions like that.
If the existence of the club we are a member of is at stake and we are not contributing to it's defence, difficult questions will be asked about the level of involvement we will have in the future.
We have been ideologically opposed to allowing foreign companies setup arms manufacturing here so it's no surprise we don't have an indigenous arms industry to benefit from this money. It is a huge opportunity if the government chooses to take it.
The thing is that we actually do have defence manufacturers operating in the state. We're just competing in some sort of ideological purity race that nobody else even knows exists.
We don't, but we could. Up in NI they have Thales building anti tank weapons among other things. Anduril just recently bought a company in Ireland, so we could see more being done there. RTX (formerly Raytheon) is down in Cork.
On the latter, rather than building an indigenous arms industry which seems pointless to me (economy does not have capacity for more growth), we should do exactly what Denmark has done and fund/buy arms from Ukraine helping build up their Arms industry which is much quicker, cheaper and much much more innovative given war time requirements. We can ask the Ukrainians to help build out a future UAV first capability to protect our seas and make us dangerous and unpredictable to future adversaries.
We get the money back in cheap defence. We got lots of money to invest in Ireland in the eighties and nineties that built our current economy. We might want to remember that our Golden Goose is as a result of the single market. You might want to invest a bit of money building a chicken coop to protect it from the foxes....
What foxes? Who do we need to defend against? Russia can’t even get out of Ukraine, and Ukraine never had much of a military to speak of. It won’t be cheap defence, we’ll be falling into the military industrial complex’s scaremongering, and there will be nothing cheap about it. Putin will be long dead before we’d even get to use a jet or a boat. Smart thing is to just stop panicking or panic buying a load of weapons we’ve no business buying. But we fall for everything so I guess we’ll be gun toting liberals like the yanks! 🦅
Ukraine on the eve of the 2022 invasion had the second largest tank fleet and second largest air defence network in Europe behind only Russia. That tank fleet was much larger than all of Europe's combined. This myth that they "never had much of a military" is copletely wrong and disrespectful of the sacrifices made by that very large force to safeguard as much of the counry as possible. If that Russian force had crossed over into the Baltics/Romania/Poland and not Ukraine in February 2022 it would have got a lot further than it did before sufficient force could mobilise to halt it.
Yea exactly, it hadn’t much realistically speaking in terms of military sizes around the world, and still stopped the Russians. Do you think Russia actually wants to invade Europe? What purpose would it have to do that? European nations have a way worse track record than Russia for invading other countries and slaughtering millions, bad as Russia may be, the French, Germans, Spanish, Italian, Brussels, Britain etc etc, have wrought untold horrors on the world. Russia has been invaded by all of them, sometimes several times. Same with Japan invading Russia in the 1900s.
Is it Russia you’re worried about or who is it?
I’m just glad I have a tax free income and ye can buy whatever ye like, I won’t be paying for any of that nonsense
Did you take a moment to reflect on the comment I made?
"it hadn’t much realistically speaking in terms of military sizes around the world"
This statement is completely bogus. Do you want to list the countries that had larger tank fleets, more extensive air defence networks, or larger reservist numbers than Ukraine had in February 2022? I can promise you that list is very short. I think if Putin finds a soft spot he believes he can exploit he absolutely will grab the Balitics in an instant. He has on several occasions comapred himself to Peter the Great and voiced his mission as he sees it to rebuild the imperial project that the Russians used to rule over.
Im not sure what the relevenace of the rest of your comment is. Russia is invading a European country today and everyday for the last 11 years. Europe deciding it needs to defend itself from that is not paranoia. The whataboutism about the colonial past of those European countries is also beside the point. For the last generation, the point in time where both you and I are alive and which affects our lives. the threat between these two power blocks has come from only one sdie to the other. Its not a both sides thing here.
Also you realise that Ukraines military was all made up of ex soviet era stuff that the Russians left there? Wouldn’t call that exactly cutting edge or impressive. They didn’t built it, it was abandoned in their country. And they still beat back Russia. I wouldn’t be losing an ounce of sleep over it
They built a tonne of that soviet era arsenal in Ukraine. Your showing how little you know of defense matters or Ukraine with this comment.
The Russians were still trying to have jet engines and parts smuggled to them from the Zaphorizhia motor works after the invasion started because so much of their own weapons manufacturing relied on components from Ukraine and they just assumed they would win so quickly they didnt think how this would affect their own supply chains.
Ukraine was one of the indistrial heartlands of the USSR. They even today still have a highly educated populace and produce very many capable engineers. Dont know where you got the idea they were not involved in producing the Soviet arsenal.
Shush now lad you’re getting completely flustered. Take a deep breath. You’re like
That chicken running around telling everyone the sky is falling because an acorn fell on your head.
Anyways you are allowed feel how you like, and if giving trillions to private corporations who make weapons and war for profit, then you go and do that. I know it’s a foolish move, we could do so much more with our money here but we don’t. We never get much improvements for our tax, we give all our wealth away to foreign corporations or financial entities. All our resources, heaps of our real estate, heaps of our labour. All wasted. So yea, id advise people to wise up and learn ways of living self sustainability and not contributing to all that racket.
It’ll be grand you’re just panicking now. But panic away, it has nothing to do with me. Putin will hardly be alive for long and we’ll be on to the next cartoon then, tax payers will be forking out for the next heap of global shenanigans.
If russia actually tried to invade the balkans or come into western Europe, NATO would wipe them out. Ukraine got a handful of second hand outdated weapons and managed to beat them back. Nothing to be fussing about at all
What in my comment makes you think Im panicking? Ive stated two things:
1.) Ukraine did have a very substantial and capable standing army in 2022. You continue to want to denigrate the capabilities of the Ukrainian armed forces.
2.) I believe if Putin sees a chance he wil go for the Baltics (I didnt say the Balkans, but then its clear you dont actually read what people post.)
Believeing a thing will or is likely to happen is not the same as panicking about it and certainly I have made no statements about how I think that event will go post 2022. I only made statements about how it would have evolved pre-2022, an assessment in line with any military strategist you could care to cite.
That was autocorrect on my phone. Ukraines military, while it might have been decent enough for a country like Ukraine, it was fairly laughable. Bunch of old Cold War stuff that’s been rusting there from the times of the Soviet Union. Which is what all our junk will be doing in a few decades time. They had a pitiful military in global standards. What Europe want to do to it’s taxpayers is what America does to its. Take generations of wealth through tax to buy weapons and keep wars going. There are other ways to end wars, they just won’t do it. War is a racket, a complete racket. It’s less of it we need to be aspiring to be doing, not all this hawkish talk of building up armies and military’s. Do you think there will be less fighting if everyone buys a heap of weapons? We learn nothing. Russia is no threat, that conflict will be ended with pen and paper , not with armies. But anyways like i said, you want to contribute towards the war machine? By all means have at it, but I won’t be giving a penny towards it
Russia are constantly checking the fences. And their limitations means somewhere like Ireland could be an easy target. We have nothing, we are not part of NATO and we’re an EU country that loads of Americans see as their ancestral home. Perfect opportunity to create some havoc in the west.
This pure selfishness on the part of so many people here that we shouldn’t contribute a damn penny to wider European security while we have benefitted enormously from it just rankles me so.
Ireland was an absolutely dirt poor and destitute shithole before the EU opened the door to Europe-wide markets and free movement of people. The economic opportunities offered by the free market basically built this country from nothing. And now that the EU is in an increasingly difficult position we’re going to turn around and say nah?
How do you put a value on the freedom to live and work in around 27 different countries? How do you put a value on a tariff-free market of 500 million people? And then we’re going to gripe about spending money to help protect it?
We really do deserve our reputation as defence freeloaders.
The cognitive dissonance is staggering. People love to think of the Irish as lovely people but there are quite a few self-entitled, selfish pricks on this island that will always be small-minded and put themselves over the bigger picture. I can see why a lot of Europeans are getting annoyed at us pretending to be neutral to get out of footing the bill for European defence.
The same type of people who don’t want us contributing anything now are, and were, the same type of people who never wanted us to join the EEC in the first place.
It's really disappointing to see people repeat stupid Brexiteer talking points that can't comprehend the idea of indirect returns. That all the excess money we have is as a result of a common market built on rule of law that Russia and the US want to disband.
How do you put a value on the freedom to live and work in around 27 different countries? How do you put a value on a tariff-free market of 500 million people? And then we’re going to gripe about spending money to help protect it?
The free market is not appliable in Ireland when someone wants to bring back cheaper cigarettes from abroad, government cutting down on that recently, Neither does it apply when you want to buy a car with all the extra charges.
Shopping around and getting cheaper alcohol in shops? Too bad we'll have to bring in Minimum Unit Pricing and wipe out the competition, want to use money off vouchers on alcohol? Sorry, that's a no, The "Free market" in this sense helps businesses more than people.
The government penalises people when they actually do shop around.
The free market is not applicable in Ireland when someone wants to bring in illegal drugs either. You seem to not understand or have an extremely crude understanding of what a free market means.
The free market contributes 65% of Irish government tax take (the total amount of MNC's pay in tax along with their employees) so you'd want to wind your neck in there as it's likely your lifestyle is hugely subsidised by the Free market.
Irish people as a rule don't shop around. That's on them.
Irish people as a rule don't shop around. That's on them.
They were when it comes to buying cigarettes and cheaper alcohol in shops, the government swoops in then to put a stop to it or punish the consumer by higher prices.
It's a free market until it comes to and actually benefits the people. It's mostly for the benefit of corporations.
taxes and controls on harmful and addictive goods
If they are so harmful, then wouldn't it be better to ban them instead? Now ask yourself, why won't they ban them? Would the reason be that they bring in so much tax, and getting them cheaper elsewhere makes them miss out? Isn't the free market about being given a choice on where you want to do business? People chose, and the government decides to cripple that option or make it hardly viable.
You misunderstand the nature and origin of the free market of goods if you think it relates to your personal importation of cigarettes and alcohol from abroad. The entire point of it is to further economic activity. It concerns businesses first and foremost.
Even the free movement of people started first as the free movement of “workers” so as to spur economic activity, not so people can just pop over to Spain for a holiday. It only morphed into what we understand by free movement of people much later.
You’re still allowed to bring a certain quantity of alcohol and cigarettes, and in fact I do so on the regular. I’m just not allowed to load up a suitcase so as to deliberately circumvent business activity in my home country.
I’m just not allowed to load up a suitcase so as to deliberately circumvent business activity in my home country.
A lot of people must have been at it for them to introduce a rule against it.
i dont see why they did it unless the return of the Booze Cruise to hollyhead is actually significantly hitting the exchequer which is hard to imagine .
On a few occasions now I’ve seen people load up entire suitcases full of cartons of cigarettes and get caught for it at the airport.
I’d wager that if you worked at airports in certain EU countries you would be seeing it every single day, never mind the amount of cross border smuggling that goes on here in the continent.
to be fair it was allowed within the EU once it was for personal consumption.. hereslf used to work for germans who went back on holidays every year and brought enough cigarettes to support each smoking 20 a day for the year until they went back.
They had what ever bit of applicable legislation printed out, highlighted and laminated!
i though the new rules were just irish applicable rather than applicable to the EU as a whole?
I just had a look and I’m not sure what’s changed?
Apparently it’s now 800 cigarettes for personal consumption but I always remember it being 200 for many, many years. At least, that was routinely the amount when I was travelling from places like Spain, Bosnia, Italy etc. Unless they’ve gone and increased the limit then 800 per shipment seems extraordinarily generous to me.
but I always remember it being 200 for many, many years
200 is still the non EU threshold.
The 800 is also guideline as to what is considered personal use. there doesnt seem to be a hard limit as regards a higher qty and the 800 is the minimum limit allowed to be applied in the EU.
Ireland seems to have adopted these as a Hard upper limit though on personal use.
while looking this up i found the reason for its introduction here too.
"with over a third of cigarettes and almost half of all roll-your-own tobacco packs consumed not being taxed in Ireland. This includes both tobacco products which have been legally purchased in another jurisdiction and brought into Ireland, and illegal tobacco products."
if you continued down the thread you would have seen i found out that there was, an amount i found surprisingly large.
i will save you the search and post my finding below.
and to answer your question, no, unfortunately i am all out of the them. you will just have to continue with your inane comments until you find some.
"with over a third of cigarettes and almost half of all roll-your-own tobacco packs consumed not being taxed in Ireland. This includes both tobacco products which have been legally purchased in another jurisdiction and brought into Ireland, and illegal tobacco products."
if you think it relates to your personal importation of cigarettes and alcohol from abroad.
I don't smoke, I'm just giving a few reasons where the government denies people using the free market to get cheaper goods. They were doing that when it came to buying alcohol, so the government helps their publican buddies by upping the price in shops and stopping vouchers being used. They are now limiting what people can import when it comes to cigarettes.
They also have extra charges like VRT when it comes to buying cars. Health insurance goes up, they tell you to shop around, but it makes no difference when they all raise them together. The "Free Market" is there mostly to benefit business and not the people.
The EU recently brought in charges against Temu and Shein because they were undercutting European business, they hide behind something like standards being upheld, when those very same products can be bought on Amazon for a much higher price, all the people were doing was cutting out the middleman and saving themselves some money and so the EU throws extra charges when people buy those goods but not on businesses.
Starting at €3, the new fee will apply once per item in cases where packages contain different products, but only once if they contain multiples of the same item, a spokesperson for the European Council told AFP.
Isn't that just penalising the user, as European companies will buy multiples of the same product, and it'll only apply once? People will buy various different items and for each they'll pay €2, but if multiple of the same product are bought they only have to pay once? It's only really re-sellers that will buy multiple of the same so they'll be better off compare to the average person.
The (enormous) benefit is that we would be paying other countries like Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania etc to protect our EU borders from invasion by putting their lives on the line. It's a fantastic offer. Just excess cash from taxing US MNC's to pay for European defence at little risk to ourselves or our people. The outcome done right will be
Far cheaper to arm the Polish Land Army than to hire and pay our own. For the price of an Irish Battalion with wheeled IFC we could probably field a armoured division of angry Polski's in Black Panther tanks.
Would stop the drumbeat of complaints about Ireland being a tax haven when we start essentially transferring US money to EU Armaments. We would go from zero to hero with the Eastern States.
All at no risk to Irish people or the negative effects of attempting to build our own army (Navy/Air Corp/Cyber investments should proceed). No reliance on Comrade Connolly either.
I'm not a bot because i question that Russia can cause no threat to the EU by invading because it wouldn't end well for them. I call out the scare tactics that are being used on people to get them to spend more money to an already extremely rich defence industry.
I could aslo limit who sees my comments and posts because i'm willing to stand over my arguments.
Russia is not invading the EU or NATO anytime soon. Anyone who says they are either blowing smoke up your arse and trying to scare you into spending more on defence. Russia is no threat to the EU or even a NATO without the U.S. the threat they have is nuclear weapons, that's it really.
The HSE was hacked by an Eastern Europe group called Conti it was full of eastern Europeans including Russians and Ukrainians among others.
A Ukrainian national accused of launching ransomware attacks on behalf of the Conti group appeared in a U.S. court on Thursday after being extradited from Ireland.
Oleksii Oleksiyovych Lytvynenko is facing several charges related to his suspected involvement with the Conti ransomware gang, which attacked hundreds of organizations globally before disbanding in 2022.
Other law enforcement agencies involved in this operation included the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), US Secret Service, US FBI, the Dutch National Police, the German State Criminal Police Office, the UK National Crime Agency, the Frankfurt General Prosecutor's Office, the Ukrainian Cyber Police, and Europol, assisted by private partners.
Its nothing to do with the EU, its to do with NATO.
The Irish left have for decades defined themselves as being anti-NATO. Whatever you think of NATO, the invasion of Ukraine has completely vindicated its existence. There is no longer a credible anti-NATO position that isnt also pro-Russian.
If you call for greater defence spending in Ireland, you are admitting Russia is a threat to Europe and by extension admitting NATO is necessary. The left in this country are too stubborn to admit they were wrong so they instead resort to conspiracy theories about how the government is manufacturing a crisis to line the pockets of arms companies or join NATO.
We dont need to join NATO, but we need to recognise its a necessary evil to deter Russian aggression against our European partners.
Ireland aren’t neutral so much as we’re defenceless. Austria are neutral but have a military. Sweden and Finland were the same before joining NATO. We have, basically nothing. If other countries are willing to be a bulwark against aggression I don’t see why we shouldn’t contribute to that effort.
You left out the part where they have their own defence industry so any money invested will actually help their economy, it's not all leaving like it would in Ireland's case.
Ireland is making money from the defence industry as it is even if it’s not widely known. Yes it would be better if we could build planes and ships etc. but we’ve saved billions over the years by spending almost nothing. Time to open the wallet and at least make an effort.
Whatever it is it'll be minimal, do you think they're getting more than they're spending? Not a chance. Ireland was given two assurances to pass the Lisbon Treaty the second time around, the first was tax and the other was defence/neutrality matters. Both of those are being chipped away at.
Ireland doesn't have to open its wallet to buy foreign weapons, neither does it have any obligations there.
I don't mind helping Ukraine, I just don't want to see this amount of money leaving our country and going into the back pockets of already very wealthy people and of which no benefit will apply to the people on the street.
I always thought Defence was primarily a national competence. Hard to see an EU budget that would fund this kind of Defence spending being passed, we're not the only country that needs agriculture subsidies and feeding Europe cheaply is one of the blocs greatest tools to maintain social stability.
They're taking the money off the farming industry because they now can import cheaper meats and less regulation from South America. They're selling the agricultural industry out so the defence and German car industry can benefit.
We lost our sugar industry, we are nearly there with the fishing, and now they're working on agricultural. Ireland seems to be losing a lot here, and yes. Food independence and security is more valuable than cars. Food should never be outsourced as it's a national security issue.
Little benefit? Its our moral OBLIGATION as a union member to contribute. Our allies in the union deserve our support just as we have the same expectation of them.
The EU should be funding our navy with contribution refunds. We are the last line of defence in the west and we have all the transatlantic cables off our coast. Helen McEntee needs to go to Brussels and demand X number of billions a year back in EU contributions to protect them.
We should but seeing as we're protecting the cables for the whole continent with nothing but a fleet of trawlers I think we should be getting help, especially as we're a net contributor with a hugely inflated GDP.
Relevance? You're arguing with yourself here, nobody is questioning our EU membership, just saying that if they really want the west periphery of the continent secured, they will have to help us build a military from scratch.
The relevance is that you are suggesting the EU bail our defence budget out when in fact we can not only afford it but our wealth is derived from being in the EU so we should pay to protect that entity. It's not difficult.
No I'm not at all, I'm saying the EU should help us build a military from scratch which will be unbelievably expensive because it's good for both parties. We have a declining education system, a world famous shite health service, a housing emergency and a large proportion of our "wealth" is a fantasy.
I agree that our 'wealth' is fantasy in that the people don't see much of it but the fact is that the tax take from that 'wealth' goes to the government who proceeds to waste it and they don't even waste it on worthwhile things. We can absolutely afford to up our defence by simply not wasting money on rubbish.
Regarding housing, every country in Europe and almost globally has some sort of housing issues going on right now. We aren't special in that
Many other economies are net contributors and have a functioning defence forces for decades. If we (the tax haven in the eyes of some EU members) decide that we won't build a national defence infrastructure (one of the most basic elements of a state) without asking the EU for even more money, while we have a surplus no less, then those EU members views on us would be correct.
And if we decide now we want no part of any EU conflict regardless of other union members being attacked, then we need to have a very serious conversation about our membership.
We are currently having our cake, eating it too and asking for seconds.
Yes but we're starting from literally nothing. It will cost a fortune. The whole world knows our GDP is nonsense.
If that's the attitude then just say nothing and wait for the inevitable to happen.
And to your last point I wouldn't stop there either, a very serious conversation needs to be had about how Europe treated us in 2008. We should be getting a haircut on that debt.
Ah yes, send money to help the paddies protect some privately owned copper. We have proven with the bike shed and children's hospital that our government are not responsible with money. Ireland was a backwards hole before the eu funding brought up the standards of living and the second we become a net contributer, people start moaning.
Lefties don't engage seriously with national defence at all. It's infuriating. I'm a leftie myself, and that comes with an understanding that we need to meaningfully defend/enforce our ideals within our borders
As am I, although what constitutes being a leftie has changed drastically in the last 10 years or so. If we can't argue for a navy to defend ourselves then surely people can see the sense of building it to protect our economic interests.
I absolutely agree we should build up a reasonable defence force to defend ourselves but why should the people of Germany and Poland have to pay for it? They have enough going on over there that I'm sure you don't want to pay for
The cables are a very important piece of infrastructure for the whole continent. Didn't say Germany or Poland should pay for it, we should pay for it with a few billion in contribution refunds.
Probably simpler to invest in better naval ports in places like Limerick and Cork, and allow the other EU navies to base themselves there for patrols. At least that way the money supports local development rather than going to a foreign shipyard.
Not entirely against that but worth mentioning that we have very differing views on the world than our EU neighbours. When you invite foreign military to your country you always invite all sorts of other things like military intelligence.
They always go on about the cables but hardly a mention that they're owned by private corporations and yet no contributions from them? They probably already get a great deal on tax.
Lots of these private companies that own this cables pay little or low tax, their data centre electrical consumption is being subsidized by the people, and now we need to pay more to defend their own infrastructure? Aren't we great, No wonder the government said "Ireland is great for business" because they can take advantage while also causing problems worldwide with their social media companies.
You’re still not seeing the wood for the trees. The tech sector (not just cable owners or data centres) alone is about 15% GDP. How many other sectors are multinationals relying on access to systems outside of the country? Quite a few i bet. Let’s remember there are electronic international banking systems as well. Or small businesses buying materials, consumers buying products, etc.
You’d rather risk economic collapse than pay a small amount towards mitigating that risk?
You have to be a bot my man are you actually suggesting we delegate the security of infrastructure in our territory to private corporations?
You are essentially advocating for amazon running PMCs in Irish waters so that we YET AGAIN don't have to spend a penny on defence.
I hope it's just ignorance. If not next time someone robs your iPhone you shouldn't go to the guards, you should go to Tim Apple and see how you get on asking him to protect your things.
My account is much older than yours. Just because I disagree on certain issues and speak my mind and give my thoughts, that doesn't make me a bot.
You have to be a bot my man are you actually suggesting we delegate the security of infrastructure in our territory to private corporations?
No, They can give the government some extra money to put towards defence if they want us to protect their cables.
What I want is that billions to stay in this country to benefit the people here instead of going into the bank accounts of already rich and wealthy people.
The government always cries the poor mouth when it comes to funding and yet here they are, willing to throw millions/billions just so they can get a pat on the head and look like good little boys and girls in Europe.
Never have bought an Apple product in my life or will. I like products that I have somewhat a control of instead of being totally locked down by the company that made them.
Rugged af, rough seas, plus any invader would be ruined on logistics running ship all the way here, yet our allies are a stones throw away. Impracticality is our defense.
Cables , do you know where they are first? Out of them all, the french one is probs the only vulnerable in any sense, and the still sea conditions dont aid sabotage, waterways has loads of traffic,, etc etc, and overall, why bother with neutral Ireland . We'd waste more money patrolling it then repairing it, and then, it would lead to more monitoring and intercepting of russian vessels
Drones yea, anything cheap and small like this, i will agree, to easy for any actor to use. Defense on that needed
EU: Hey Ireland could you maybe pay for a few ships and actually uphold your neutrality instead of letting us take care of it for you? Everyone's other nation in the union manages to do this even the neutral ones.
Ireland: NO! YOU PAY FOR IT, we are a weak spot for you do you have no choice.
One of the most fundamental axioms to national sovereignty is the ability to defend yourself, we complain and complain and complain about the EU "taking our sovereignty" as if we have any practical way of defending ourselves and happily give up our sovereignty to the UK (who aren't even in the umion) because..... it's too expensive?
I cant wait for the new ID verification my god half these comments and posts have to be from misinfo bots, the only people who benefit from a nation having no defence is it's prospective enemies.
Inb4 "we don't have any enemies": we are part of the European Union and have aligned ourselves with the Americans for the past 30 years. You can scream and shout all you like that "we have no quarrel with russia, China, etc. I can guarantee you they do not see it the same way.
Wow, well done bro, easily one of the most unhinged rants I've ever heard on here. "Can't wait for these ID verifications", is this Mossad I'm talking to? Lmaooo
We hide behind a nato defense alliance it could be said.
Literally they surround us and in some mad scenario where we got sea invaded from the atlantic. In a day, a NATO/UN intervention force would come.
So I still say this is cheap because we still dont need to go through the bother of funding our own force. Also we swindled off the EU by being the tax haven back door, we made our economy off the bloc, sending some change for military equipment, hardly a big deal
A popular delusion here is to equate neutrality with being unarmed. We could benefit the EU defence funds as there are defense manufacturers operating in the state. It's just that nobody wants to talk about or acknowledge it, they merely want to pretend that we have some sort of moral high ground or something.
That's a distinction without a difference. Everything is made up of components that are assembled someplace else, and not all military equipment is composed purely of weapons.
just guarantees we get nothing back while farm funding gets cut.
2000 years ago they were urging people to turn their swords into ploughshares. Sadly we still haven't learned. In another 2000 years we will be having the same debate.
Some people think that Ireland will be different when it comes to other countries when spending on defence but like all others it will take from other areas and put into defence for hardly any benefit to the people of this country unless you're a share/stockholder in defence companies or a lobbyist.
Seems like what some people were saying all along.
"The internal presentation, given by expert economic advisors, warns that this will see the State contribute €7.3bn to defence but with little in return because Ireland does not participate in projects that benefit from central EU defence funding. "
All that money leaving Ireland for no benefit of the people here. Other states that were neutral before had their own defence industry, so stood to gain from any increase in defence spending.
It does seem pretty inevitable though. It's entirely logical that europe has to focus on defense, when it's being attacked on one side and abandoned on the other.
And it's entirely logical that having near-zero defense industry means we see near-zero of defense spending.
We're seeing no profit in a market that we've tried very hard to pretend doesn't exist. News at 11 I guess?
I think if Ireland is going to throw away €7 billion and hardly benefit, then that needs to be called out and challenged. I am pro-eu and don't want to leave, but in saying that lately there are a few things about the EU and what it is doing is turning me off them.
And yet at any hint of developing a domestic defense industry or spending on the defence forces the left screams about warmongering and killing babies. What exactly are you looking for other than an excuse to be perpetually outraged?
Well, some of those people in government are well paid and when they leave their jobs in the future they'll have their own home and be well cushioned and set up for life. It's the rest of us and our infrastructure and money that is being thrown away.
EU needs to step up its defense spending given the way the US and Russia are behaving. Ireland will benefit indirectly by being part of an EU that is capable of resisting Russian aggression and not being reliant on the US where it uses its military as leverage undermining the EU’s ability to advance its own economic interests
Seeing as Ireland barely has any military to speak of, yeah, letting other EU countries strengthen their militaries sounds fairly logical.
I still cannot fathom how shitty Irish defences really are. Honestly, and don't give me that BS about the UK protecting Ireland, they clearly aren't providing enough protection considering some incidents recently.
The duality of neutrality, people say we are freeloading and people say we are paying into something we’re not receiving benefit from. Scheödinger’s neutrality
Right? The benefit is presumably.. mutual defense.
This is very true
Nothing to do with Schrödinger, All you had To do was read the article
It’s a passing remark about the various things people say about neutrality
It’s not that hard to understand. The argument is that we are freeloading now. The payments are about something that could happen in the future. There is no contradiction.
The argument that we are freeloading is ridiculous in any case
I really don’t think it is. We are practically defenceless and rely on the rest of Europe having sufficient defence forces that no one dares attack it. We don’t contribute to that deterrent, despite benefiting from it. Even if a direct attack on Ireland is unlikely, large parts of Europe falling under Russian control would be bad for us, not least because of the massive disruption it would cause during the invasion.
To be fair we could spend billions, even trillions on equipment for our armed forces and would still get steam rolled by a county 100x our population.
Our best bet would be resort to guerilla tactics on any invasion force. Or what we do with NATO.
From a geographic standpoint it kind of doesn't or didn't make sense.
Europe to the east and USA to the west are allied.
Middle east, Asian nations would have to come via Europe.
Africa and South America.. probably would go for Spain and or portugal first?
Australia, Korea and oceanic are opposite side of the world.
Absolutely not. We're an island, we're in a much better position to repel an invasion rather than let one happen and then try to fight back. If we had a decent defence force any nation (except the UK) looking to invade would need to launch a massive naval invasion to stand any chance of being successful. It's really only the US that has the capability to pull it off. An invasion attempt isn't necessarily going to go in a direct line from their home country either. As it is, if a country wanted a foothold near Europe, Ireland is a good target. It's accessible from the Atlantic, and practically defenceless.
I don't think we're in danger at the moment, but being defenceless isn't good either. Nor it is good to not contribute to the defence of the continent.
It’s not freeloading to be cognizant of the fact that our position on this planet means our threat level is very low and therefore our need to be throwing money at it is much lower.
It is when the fact that the threat level is lower is due to the efforts of others.
Was our threat level lower from the Roman empire due to the efforts of others or is it just our geography
Do you want to try again with a relevant comparison that actually makes sense?
Not when you want to talk condescendingly, no
Preventing Russia from nibbling away at the Baltics, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria, and mounting cyberattacks and other unconventional warfare further west isn't really "little benefit".
The integrity of our trading and economic bloc is of huge tangible and intangible benefit to Ireland.
Most people don't have contracts to sell cars, uniforms and radios to the Gardaí, so don't see much of a direct financial return on that part of their taxes.
I think most would agree that the benefits of having a police force are worth that individual financial hit.
Little benefit aside from safety, funding our allies who are at risk and contributing to combatting threats that threaten EU citizens.
"but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"
“What have the Romans ever done for us?”: Give us good plunder?
Always weird to see fellow Irish people quoting a movie which was pretty explicitly a satirical analogy about how Ireland should have rolled over and let Britain colonise it.
Money being taken that could be used elsewhere. We'll also have the Mercosur trade agreement working against Ireland to help the German car industry.
Where else specifically and who will actually spend it well? We are sitting on billions and building little apart form the most expensive hospital in the world.
Train projects postponed, transport budgets reduced, building locked into fixable planning faff. If anything we have the cash to spare!
Well in return Irelands visa schemes and tax policies are awful for the rest of europe so its only fair. US tech firms settled here primarily for access to the european market and people pay to get EU citizenship faster here. They make billions from the user base and then avoid taxes in Ireland.
But sure I guess its only a problem when others do it.
Exactly. It's this type of thinking that makes the EU so weak. Every country protects its own self interest to the detriment of the bigger picture. Everyone else can see this and relish in it. In the US's case they actively support it.
Germany benefits a lot from the euro when it comes to them exporting, there is a lot of other countries that benefit as well.
I'll 100% agree that the Mercosur trade deal is absolutely awful for Ireland, and that EU trade is designed to prioritise German/French industry.
But I have no issues with us contributing to EU defence, considering the external threats Europe faces. Especially since people here scream the house down when anyone suggests we put money into our own military.
Aren't the French the biggest opponents of this deal?
Absolutely back to front thinking here. The Mercosur trade deal is a vital trade deal for Ireland given the risks with the US market. Ireland is one of the biggest exporters in Europe and with a tiny domestic economy will benefit far more than either Germany or France from Mercosur. In fact it's bizarre to suggest France as a beneficiary when France is much more exposed to competition from South American farmers.
The deal has been subjected to a mass misiformation campaign by greedy farming lobbyists. Irish farming household incomes rose by 33% last year (base farm income hugely distorted by numbers of part time farmers). Just like hospitality lobbyists won a deal on VAT through deliberate disinformation on closures we now have the same guff being repeated which is incredibly damaging to the Irish economy.
Nevermind the fact we have special deals and exemptions from the EU onto of being a tax haven essentially cheating to raise our gdp then to have someone turn around and say "wow irelands really being screwed here by this trade deal".
In the world of give and take we have become a nation of takers with a resentment to give anything that doesn't directly benefit only us.
Just another area we have to lose out on then I guess!
You have no issue with Ireland throwing away 7 billion and getting hardly anything in return, in order to hand that money over to a foreign defence industry.
In return for our 7 billion contribution we make 65 billion every year from taxation of exporting businesses. That's a staggering return on investment.
You think we'll be grand, and there will be no impact on us (economic or otherwise) if war erupts in Europe?
If Ireland is being attacked, then that 7 billion won't make a difference.
Should Ireland build itself nuclear weapons? That is the ultimate defence, and people are going on about we need to pay more to defend ourselves.
We all know that if Ireland tried something like that we'd be sanctioned straight away by these same countries (U.S., UK, France), and told not to do that, the reason why is it's not really about Ireland being able to defend itself, it's about Ireland pumping money into their defence companies.
All that spending by NATO states surrounding a small sea(Baltic Sea) and they still can't prevent cables being messed with. Ireland of course on the otherhand will if only it spends more!. Nonsense.
Ireland doesn't have to be attacked through a traditional invasion to be impacted. This is one of the most inane comments I've ever read.
Do you know what's lame? Hiding your comment and profile history, at least I leave my open and stand by my words.
Bingo
The European defence industry which is indirectly ours due to the common market. Plus it’s an investment in moving the Union away from US dependence.
Our own industry like agriculture/fishery is being put out to pasture. We are losing ours while other countries are growing theirs at the expense of ours.
Absolute rot.
Where exactly are we short of money given we have exploded government spending in Ireland? 65% of the tax revenue to pay for this which comes from exporting businesses.
The Mercosur trade agreement opens huge markets for all exporting Irish businesses - Ireland would be one of the biggest beneficiaries of this deal in a time we have huge risks with the US market. In return a negligible increase in access for South American farm products to the EU market who have to meet the same standards. The usual lies coming from the incompetent and greedy IFA have no problem throwing the rest of the economy under the bus despite Irish Farm incomes increasing by 70% last year.
The government is always crying the poor mouth about how they have no money for stuff, but when it comes to this, they have no problems. The Mercosur trade agreement will make Amazon agricultural land more profitable and that'll be at the expense of forests, of which will be cut down to make way for pasture land.
We are throwing our native industry under the bus, so others can benefit. You think Germany or France would do that? Not a hope!
I'm.a bit behind on mercosur. Would that have a secret trade court that supercedes our supreme court just like CETA?
Is this the secret trade court that you are posting about publicly and is mentioned in the public text of the agreement, that secret court?
You are misinformed about how this court works or you are deliberately spreading misinformation.
Maybe I am, is it true that the court can make decisions on Irish legislation if it feels that they undermine trade already in place? Is it also true that the rule ngs of the court are not necessarily allowed to be made public? Edit, Looking into it further and some of this looks very sus to me https://corporateeurope.org/en/international-trade/2014/11/ceta-trading-away-democracy A private court with privately paid arbitrators and legislation that allows changes that would disadvantage Canada or EU companies to be stopped. Can easily see how that would potentially be terrible for the people. If we had signed that before banning indoor smoking Canadian tobacco companies could have forced us to continue as before. What potential hazard might be continued in the future?
We agree to allow certain things by signing the treaty, for example if we agree in the treaty to all Canadian companies bid on on public procurement on the same terms as EU companies then we pass a law saying we give preferential treatment to EU Companies on health-related procurement. Then the Canadian companies have a right to say "hey that's not fair, that's against the agreement"
Why can't they do that in local courts? A few reasons, one who would feel a local court is fair if they are part of the state you are suing. Another is that it allows for one court to make decisions, trying to go to 27 different courts all of whom could make different conflicitjng decisions. Then there is a rule in international law, Ireland is a dualist state, meaning international treaties are not part of domestic law and you can't sue the government for breaching them unless they allow it. So Canadian companies couldn't sue in Irish courts for breaking the treaty.
PS Yes, CETA decisions in the investment court will be public (except for secret business data which would be true here too) this is very different to other investment courts
No.
No details on who wrote the briefing.
I haven't a clue, That's the problem with journalism these days, they only report on what is said to them but hardly ever ask important questions like that.
It was probably Ivan Kalasnikov or something like that
Little benefit? I think having a lot of well armed strong countries backing us up in todays increasingly insane world is a good thing
If the existence of the club we are a member of is at stake and we are not contributing to it's defence, difficult questions will be asked about the level of involvement we will have in the future.
We have been ideologically opposed to allowing foreign companies setup arms manufacturing here so it's no surprise we don't have an indigenous arms industry to benefit from this money. It is a huge opportunity if the government chooses to take it.
The thing is that we actually do have defence manufacturers operating in the state. We're just competing in some sort of ideological purity race that nobody else even knows exists.
The tech / software / chip business sells to military
Yep, we're up to our eyeballs in it.
Yes I agree, but we don't have any heavy metal or kinetic arms manufacturers.
We don't, but we could. Up in NI they have Thales building anti tank weapons among other things. Anduril just recently bought a company in Ireland, so we could see more being done there. RTX (formerly Raytheon) is down in Cork.
Yep, they also build portable anti aircraft missiles too.
On the latter, rather than building an indigenous arms industry which seems pointless to me (economy does not have capacity for more growth), we should do exactly what Denmark has done and fund/buy arms from Ukraine helping build up their Arms industry which is much quicker, cheaper and much much more innovative given war time requirements. We can ask the Ukrainians to help build out a future UAV first capability to protect our seas and make us dangerous and unpredictable to future adversaries.
I'd disagree. It makes sense to have indigenous manufacturing for defence.
Why not pay Ukrainians to develop drone factories in Ireland under license of Ukrainian designs?
Czechia is a small country with a large armaments industry.
No reason Ireland couldn't manufacture drones or artillery shells for export.
If we got to manufacture them here it would be worth it. If we’re forking over billions to other countries, it’s money we will never get back
We get the money back in cheap defence. We got lots of money to invest in Ireland in the eighties and nineties that built our current economy. We might want to remember that our Golden Goose is as a result of the single market. You might want to invest a bit of money building a chicken coop to protect it from the foxes....
What foxes? Who do we need to defend against? Russia can’t even get out of Ukraine, and Ukraine never had much of a military to speak of. It won’t be cheap defence, we’ll be falling into the military industrial complex’s scaremongering, and there will be nothing cheap about it. Putin will be long dead before we’d even get to use a jet or a boat. Smart thing is to just stop panicking or panic buying a load of weapons we’ve no business buying. But we fall for everything so I guess we’ll be gun toting liberals like the yanks! 🦅
But honestly, who are you afraid of?
Ukraine on the eve of the 2022 invasion had the second largest tank fleet and second largest air defence network in Europe behind only Russia. That tank fleet was much larger than all of Europe's combined. This myth that they "never had much of a military" is copletely wrong and disrespectful of the sacrifices made by that very large force to safeguard as much of the counry as possible. If that Russian force had crossed over into the Baltics/Romania/Poland and not Ukraine in February 2022 it would have got a lot further than it did before sufficient force could mobilise to halt it.
Yea exactly, it hadn’t much realistically speaking in terms of military sizes around the world, and still stopped the Russians. Do you think Russia actually wants to invade Europe? What purpose would it have to do that? European nations have a way worse track record than Russia for invading other countries and slaughtering millions, bad as Russia may be, the French, Germans, Spanish, Italian, Brussels, Britain etc etc, have wrought untold horrors on the world. Russia has been invaded by all of them, sometimes several times. Same with Japan invading Russia in the 1900s.
Is it Russia you’re worried about or who is it?
I’m just glad I have a tax free income and ye can buy whatever ye like, I won’t be paying for any of that nonsense
Did you take a moment to reflect on the comment I made?
"it hadn’t much realistically speaking in terms of military sizes around the world"
This statement is completely bogus. Do you want to list the countries that had larger tank fleets, more extensive air defence networks, or larger reservist numbers than Ukraine had in February 2022? I can promise you that list is very short. I think if Putin finds a soft spot he believes he can exploit he absolutely will grab the Balitics in an instant. He has on several occasions comapred himself to Peter the Great and voiced his mission as he sees it to rebuild the imperial project that the Russians used to rule over.
Im not sure what the relevenace of the rest of your comment is. Russia is invading a European country today and everyday for the last 11 years. Europe deciding it needs to defend itself from that is not paranoia. The whataboutism about the colonial past of those European countries is also beside the point. For the last generation, the point in time where both you and I are alive and which affects our lives. the threat between these two power blocks has come from only one sdie to the other. Its not a both sides thing here.
Also you realise that Ukraines military was all made up of ex soviet era stuff that the Russians left there? Wouldn’t call that exactly cutting edge or impressive. They didn’t built it, it was abandoned in their country. And they still beat back Russia. I wouldn’t be losing an ounce of sleep over it
They built a tonne of that soviet era arsenal in Ukraine. Your showing how little you know of defense matters or Ukraine with this comment.
The Russians were still trying to have jet engines and parts smuggled to them from the Zaphorizhia motor works after the invasion started because so much of their own weapons manufacturing relied on components from Ukraine and they just assumed they would win so quickly they didnt think how this would affect their own supply chains.
Ukraine was one of the indistrial heartlands of the USSR. They even today still have a highly educated populace and produce very many capable engineers. Dont know where you got the idea they were not involved in producing the Soviet arsenal.
Shush now lad you’re getting completely flustered. Take a deep breath. You’re like That chicken running around telling everyone the sky is falling because an acorn fell on your head.
Anyways you are allowed feel how you like, and if giving trillions to private corporations who make weapons and war for profit, then you go and do that. I know it’s a foolish move, we could do so much more with our money here but we don’t. We never get much improvements for our tax, we give all our wealth away to foreign corporations or financial entities. All our resources, heaps of our real estate, heaps of our labour. All wasted. So yea, id advise people to wise up and learn ways of living self sustainability and not contributing to all that racket.
It’ll be grand you’re just panicking now. But panic away, it has nothing to do with me. Putin will hardly be alive for long and we’ll be on to the next cartoon then, tax payers will be forking out for the next heap of global shenanigans.
If russia actually tried to invade the balkans or come into western Europe, NATO would wipe them out. Ukraine got a handful of second hand outdated weapons and managed to beat them back. Nothing to be fussing about at all
What in my comment makes you think Im panicking? Ive stated two things:
1.) Ukraine did have a very substantial and capable standing army in 2022. You continue to want to denigrate the capabilities of the Ukrainian armed forces.
2.) I believe if Putin sees a chance he wil go for the Baltics (I didnt say the Balkans, but then its clear you dont actually read what people post.)
Believeing a thing will or is likely to happen is not the same as panicking about it and certainly I have made no statements about how I think that event will go post 2022. I only made statements about how it would have evolved pre-2022, an assessment in line with any military strategist you could care to cite.
That was autocorrect on my phone. Ukraines military, while it might have been decent enough for a country like Ukraine, it was fairly laughable. Bunch of old Cold War stuff that’s been rusting there from the times of the Soviet Union. Which is what all our junk will be doing in a few decades time. They had a pitiful military in global standards. What Europe want to do to it’s taxpayers is what America does to its. Take generations of wealth through tax to buy weapons and keep wars going. There are other ways to end wars, they just won’t do it. War is a racket, a complete racket. It’s less of it we need to be aspiring to be doing, not all this hawkish talk of building up armies and military’s. Do you think there will be less fighting if everyone buys a heap of weapons? We learn nothing. Russia is no threat, that conflict will be ended with pen and paper , not with armies. But anyways like i said, you want to contribute towards the war machine? By all means have at it, but I won’t be giving a penny towards it
There's no "panicking" you're woefully uneducated about national security.
No im not. I’m not one bit worried about our national security. What are you worried is going to happen?
Russia are constantly checking the fences. And their limitations means somewhere like Ireland could be an easy target. We have nothing, we are not part of NATO and we’re an EU country that loads of Americans see as their ancestral home. Perfect opportunity to create some havoc in the west.
This pure selfishness on the part of so many people here that we shouldn’t contribute a damn penny to wider European security while we have benefitted enormously from it just rankles me so.
Ireland was an absolutely dirt poor and destitute shithole before the EU opened the door to Europe-wide markets and free movement of people. The economic opportunities offered by the free market basically built this country from nothing. And now that the EU is in an increasingly difficult position we’re going to turn around and say nah?
How do you put a value on the freedom to live and work in around 27 different countries? How do you put a value on a tariff-free market of 500 million people? And then we’re going to gripe about spending money to help protect it?
We really do deserve our reputation as defence freeloaders.
The cognitive dissonance is staggering. People love to think of the Irish as lovely people but there are quite a few self-entitled, selfish pricks on this island that will always be small-minded and put themselves over the bigger picture. I can see why a lot of Europeans are getting annoyed at us pretending to be neutral to get out of footing the bill for European defence.
You should keep insulting them, that'll work wonders changing their mind.
Nah Irish people seriously need a reality check about our "neutrality".
I don't agree that I need to pander to someone like a child to get them to see their faults.
Good for you not.......pandering to whoever? And in what way do we need a reality check?
The same type of people who don’t want us contributing anything now are, and were, the same type of people who never wanted us to join the EEC in the first place.
It's really disappointing to see people repeat stupid Brexiteer talking points that can't comprehend the idea of indirect returns. That all the excess money we have is as a result of a common market built on rule of law that Russia and the US want to disband.
Couldn’t have put it better tbh. Bit flabbergasted at some of the attitudes here.
The free market is not appliable in Ireland when someone wants to bring back cheaper cigarettes from abroad, government cutting down on that recently, Neither does it apply when you want to buy a car with all the extra charges.
Shopping around and getting cheaper alcohol in shops? Too bad we'll have to bring in Minimum Unit Pricing and wipe out the competition, want to use money off vouchers on alcohol? Sorry, that's a no, The "Free market" in this sense helps businesses more than people.
The government penalises people when they actually do shop around.
The free market is not applicable in Ireland when someone wants to bring in illegal drugs either. You seem to not understand or have an extremely crude understanding of what a free market means.
The free market contributes 65% of Irish government tax take (the total amount of MNC's pay in tax along with their employees) so you'd want to wind your neck in there as it's likely your lifestyle is hugely subsidised by the Free market.
Irish people as a rule don't shop around. That's on them.
They were when it comes to buying cigarettes and cheaper alcohol in shops, the government swoops in then to put a stop to it or punish the consumer by higher prices.
If you don't understand why governments (globally) put taxes and controls on harmful and addictive goods I can't help you...
It's a free market until it comes to and actually benefits the people. It's mostly for the benefit of corporations.
If they are so harmful, then wouldn't it be better to ban them instead? Now ask yourself, why won't they ban them? Would the reason be that they bring in so much tax, and getting them cheaper elsewhere makes them miss out? Isn't the free market about being given a choice on where you want to do business? People chose, and the government decides to cripple that option or make it hardly viable.
You misunderstand the nature and origin of the free market of goods if you think it relates to your personal importation of cigarettes and alcohol from abroad. The entire point of it is to further economic activity. It concerns businesses first and foremost.
Even the free movement of people started first as the free movement of “workers” so as to spur economic activity, not so people can just pop over to Spain for a holiday. It only morphed into what we understand by free movement of people much later.
You’re still allowed to bring a certain quantity of alcohol and cigarettes, and in fact I do so on the regular. I’m just not allowed to load up a suitcase so as to deliberately circumvent business activity in my home country.
A lot of people must have been at it for them to introduce a rule against it.
i dont see why they did it unless the return of the Booze Cruise to hollyhead is actually significantly hitting the exchequer which is hard to imagine .
On a few occasions now I’ve seen people load up entire suitcases full of cartons of cigarettes and get caught for it at the airport.
I’d wager that if you worked at airports in certain EU countries you would be seeing it every single day, never mind the amount of cross border smuggling that goes on here in the continent.
to be fair it was allowed within the EU once it was for personal consumption.. hereslf used to work for germans who went back on holidays every year and brought enough cigarettes to support each smoking 20 a day for the year until they went back.
They had what ever bit of applicable legislation printed out, highlighted and laminated!
i though the new rules were just irish applicable rather than applicable to the EU as a whole?
I just had a look and I’m not sure what’s changed?
Apparently it’s now 800 cigarettes for personal consumption but I always remember it being 200 for many, many years. At least, that was routinely the amount when I was travelling from places like Spain, Bosnia, Italy etc. Unless they’ve gone and increased the limit then 800 per shipment seems extraordinarily generous to me.
200 is still the non EU threshold.
The 800 is also guideline as to what is considered personal use. there doesnt seem to be a hard limit as regards a higher qty and the 800 is the minimum limit allowed to be applied in the EU.
Ireland seems to have adopted these as a Hard upper limit though on personal use.
while looking this up i found the reason for its introduction here too.
"with over a third of cigarettes and almost half of all roll-your-own tobacco packs consumed not being taxed in Ireland. This includes both tobacco products which have been legally purchased in another jurisdiction and brought into Ireland, and illegal tobacco products."
A lot of people were at it for them to introduce a rule against it. Any more asinine comments?
if you continued down the thread you would have seen i found out that there was, an amount i found surprisingly large.
i will save you the search and post my finding below.
and to answer your question, no, unfortunately i am all out of the them. you will just have to continue with your inane comments until you find some.
"with over a third of cigarettes and almost half of all roll-your-own tobacco packs consumed not being taxed in Ireland. This includes both tobacco products which have been legally purchased in another jurisdiction and brought into Ireland, and illegal tobacco products."
I don't smoke, I'm just giving a few reasons where the government denies people using the free market to get cheaper goods. They were doing that when it came to buying alcohol, so the government helps their publican buddies by upping the price in shops and stopping vouchers being used. They are now limiting what people can import when it comes to cigarettes.
They also have extra charges like VRT when it comes to buying cars. Health insurance goes up, they tell you to shop around, but it makes no difference when they all raise them together. The "Free Market" is there mostly to benefit business and not the people.
The EU recently brought in charges against Temu and Shein because they were undercutting European business, they hide behind something like standards being upheld, when those very same products can be bought on Amazon for a much higher price, all the people were doing was cutting out the middleman and saving themselves some money and so the EU throws extra charges when people buy those goods but not on businesses.
https://www.thejournal.ie/eu-to-impose-e3-duty-on-low-value-imports-6902151-Dec2025/
Isn't that just penalising the user, as European companies will buy multiples of the same product, and it'll only apply once? People will buy various different items and for each they'll pay €2, but if multiple of the same product are bought they only have to pay once? It's only really re-sellers that will buy multiple of the same so they'll be better off compare to the average person.
This comment is so embarrassing. You're literally just shitting out random words and hoping something sticks.
Absolutely clueless.
Pick out what you think is wrong and tell me why it's wrong?
The (enormous) benefit is that we would be paying other countries like Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania etc to protect our EU borders from invasion by putting their lives on the line. It's a fantastic offer. Just excess cash from taxing US MNC's to pay for European defence at little risk to ourselves or our people. The outcome done right will be
Far cheaper to arm the Polish Land Army than to hire and pay our own. For the price of an Irish Battalion with wheeled IFC we could probably field a armoured division of angry Polski's in Black Panther tanks.
Would stop the drumbeat of complaints about Ireland being a tax haven when we start essentially transferring US money to EU Armaments. We would go from zero to hero with the Eastern States.
All at no risk to Irish people or the negative effects of attempting to build our own army (Navy/Air Corp/Cyber investments should proceed). No reliance on Comrade Connolly either.
I'm not a bot because i question that Russia can cause no threat to the EU by invading because it wouldn't end well for them. I call out the scare tactics that are being used on people to get them to spend more money to an already extremely rich defence industry.
I could aslo limit who sees my comments and posts because i'm willing to stand over my arguments.
This is the dumbest stuff i have ever read in my life.
How is Russia no threat to EU when Russia is literally a threat to Europe and even Ireland.
You are aware that Russia is taking active aggressive stance against Ireland and is waging Cyberterror war against us ?
Or do you think that Academia, HSE and other institutions are doing Hacking, Ransomware attacks and other stuff on it's own ?
Anyone who would side with Russia either is Russian bot or has fallen in to deep propaganda. This is MAGA level stupidity.
Russia is not invading the EU or NATO anytime soon. Anyone who says they are either blowing smoke up your arse and trying to scare you into spending more on defence. Russia is no threat to the EU or even a NATO without the U.S. the threat they have is nuclear weapons, that's it really.
The HSE was hacked by an Eastern Europe group called Conti it was full of eastern Europeans including Russians and Ukrainians among others.
Alleged Conti ransomware gang affiliate appears in Tennessee court after Ireland extradition
Gardaí part of joint operation including FBI that targeted cybercriminals, dark web leaks
Its nothing to do with the EU, its to do with NATO.
The Irish left have for decades defined themselves as being anti-NATO. Whatever you think of NATO, the invasion of Ukraine has completely vindicated its existence. There is no longer a credible anti-NATO position that isnt also pro-Russian.
If you call for greater defence spending in Ireland, you are admitting Russia is a threat to Europe and by extension admitting NATO is necessary. The left in this country are too stubborn to admit they were wrong so they instead resort to conspiracy theories about how the government is manufacturing a crisis to line the pockets of arms companies or join NATO.
We dont need to join NATO, but we need to recognise its a necessary evil to deter Russian aggression against our European partners.
Doesn't hold the same opinions as the newspapers = bot now apparently. Consider there are people out there who don't think like you.
Russia is not a risk.. I though no one would be so dumb to say something like that, so bot was the most likely alternative.
Apparently I was wrong.
We need to get rid of this notion of neutrality. We aren't neutral, we are aligned politically and economically with the rest of the EU
Perhaps we could get to work on developing some kind of bipedal tank capable of launching nukes? We could make it out of Metal, and Gears.
That sounds amazing, but then could you imagine if someone built a weapon to surpass it?
A weapon to surpass Micheál Gear?
Should we instead spend trillions to fund our own military? This seems divisive rhetoric that will lead to nothing.
Ireland aren’t neutral so much as we’re defenceless. Austria are neutral but have a military. Sweden and Finland were the same before joining NATO. We have, basically nothing. If other countries are willing to be a bulwark against aggression I don’t see why we shouldn’t contribute to that effort.
You left out the part where they have their own defence industry so any money invested will actually help their economy, it's not all leaving like it would in Ireland's case.
Ireland is making money from the defence industry as it is even if it’s not widely known. Yes it would be better if we could build planes and ships etc. but we’ve saved billions over the years by spending almost nothing. Time to open the wallet and at least make an effort.
Whatever it is it'll be minimal, do you think they're getting more than they're spending? Not a chance. Ireland was given two assurances to pass the Lisbon Treaty the second time around, the first was tax and the other was defence/neutrality matters. Both of those are being chipped away at.
Ireland doesn't have to open its wallet to buy foreign weapons, neither does it have any obligations there.
No, it doesn’t. But we’re back to my initial point. Ireland isn’t merely neutral, it is defenceless.
It will be a benefit if the Americans decide Europe is the enemy, Ireland would make a grand staging post to attack Europe from America.
And if that day ever came, all that spending is not going to make a difference whatsoever.
I'd rather a few billion go directly to Ukraine rather than in the hands of our government to piss away.
I don't mind helping Ukraine, I just don't want to see this amount of money leaving our country and going into the back pockets of already very wealthy people and of which no benefit will apply to the people on the street.
Supporting allies isn't little benefit
I always thought Defence was primarily a national competence. Hard to see an EU budget that would fund this kind of Defence spending being passed, we're not the only country that needs agriculture subsidies and feeding Europe cheaply is one of the blocs greatest tools to maintain social stability.
They're taking the money off the farming industry because they now can import cheaper meats and less regulation from South America. They're selling the agricultural industry out so the defence and German car industry can benefit.
We lost our sugar industry, we are nearly there with the fishing, and now they're working on agricultural. Ireland seems to be losing a lot here, and yes. Food independence and security is more valuable than cars. Food should never be outsourced as it's a national security issue.
Finally someone gets it. I'd add energy security to this too.
Grand with it.
Little benefit? Its our moral OBLIGATION as a union member to contribute. Our allies in the union deserve our support just as we have the same expectation of them.
Ireland does contribute, it pays in more than it takes out when it comes to the EU.
It has no obligations to buy defence equipment from foreign contractors.
The EU should be funding our navy with contribution refunds. We are the last line of defence in the west and we have all the transatlantic cables off our coast. Helen McEntee needs to go to Brussels and demand X number of billions a year back in EU contributions to protect them.
Perhaps we should be funding our navy instead of relying on the Eu to make us do things
We should but seeing as we're protecting the cables for the whole continent with nothing but a fleet of trawlers I think we should be getting help, especially as we're a net contributor with a hugely inflated GDP.
We've also a hugely inflated tax take. 65% of our tax take. Entirely due to our membership of the EU.
Relevance? You're arguing with yourself here, nobody is questioning our EU membership, just saying that if they really want the west periphery of the continent secured, they will have to help us build a military from scratch.
The relevance is that you are suggesting the EU bail our defence budget out when in fact we can not only afford it but our wealth is derived from being in the EU so we should pay to protect that entity. It's not difficult.
No I'm not at all, I'm saying the EU should help us build a military from scratch which will be unbelievably expensive because it's good for both parties. We have a declining education system, a world famous shite health service, a housing emergency and a large proportion of our "wealth" is a fantasy.
I agree that our 'wealth' is fantasy in that the people don't see much of it but the fact is that the tax take from that 'wealth' goes to the government who proceeds to waste it and they don't even waste it on worthwhile things. We can absolutely afford to up our defence by simply not wasting money on rubbish.
Regarding housing, every country in Europe and almost globally has some sort of housing issues going on right now. We aren't special in that
Many other economies are net contributors and have a functioning defence forces for decades. If we (the tax haven in the eyes of some EU members) decide that we won't build a national defence infrastructure (one of the most basic elements of a state) without asking the EU for even more money, while we have a surplus no less, then those EU members views on us would be correct.
And if we decide now we want no part of any EU conflict regardless of other union members being attacked, then we need to have a very serious conversation about our membership.
We are currently having our cake, eating it too and asking for seconds.
Yes but we're starting from literally nothing. It will cost a fortune. The whole world knows our GDP is nonsense. If that's the attitude then just say nothing and wait for the inevitable to happen. And to your last point I wouldn't stop there either, a very serious conversation needs to be had about how Europe treated us in 2008. We should be getting a haircut on that debt.
Ah yes, send money to help the paddies protect some privately owned copper. We have proven with the bike shed and children's hospital that our government are not responsible with money. Ireland was a backwards hole before the eu funding brought up the standards of living and the second we become a net contributer, people start moaning.
"Some privately owned copper", christ, no point carrying on with this.
Lefties don't engage seriously with national defence at all. It's infuriating. I'm a leftie myself, and that comes with an understanding that we need to meaningfully defend/enforce our ideals within our borders
As am I, although what constitutes being a leftie has changed drastically in the last 10 years or so. If we can't argue for a navy to defend ourselves then surely people can see the sense of building it to protect our economic interests.
I absolutely agree we should build up a reasonable defence force to defend ourselves but why should the people of Germany and Poland have to pay for it? They have enough going on over there that I'm sure you don't want to pay for
The cables are a very important piece of infrastructure for the whole continent. Didn't say Germany or Poland should pay for it, we should pay for it with a few billion in contribution refunds.
Probably simpler to invest in better naval ports in places like Limerick and Cork, and allow the other EU navies to base themselves there for patrols. At least that way the money supports local development rather than going to a foreign shipyard.
Not entirely against that but worth mentioning that we have very differing views on the world than our EU neighbours. When you invite foreign military to your country you always invite all sorts of other things like military intelligence.
They always go on about the cables but hardly a mention that they're owned by private corporations and yet no contributions from them? They probably already get a great deal on tax.
It’s irrelevant. How much of Ireland’s economy do you think relies on access to electricity and the internet?
How much do those data centres rely on the people paying more for electricity? They probably get sweet deals on taxes as well, it's a win for them.
Data centres are inconsequential. What about the rest of the economy?
Lots of these private companies that own this cables pay little or low tax, their data centre electrical consumption is being subsidized by the people, and now we need to pay more to defend their own infrastructure? Aren't we great, No wonder the government said "Ireland is great for business" because they can take advantage while also causing problems worldwide with their social media companies.
You’re still not seeing the wood for the trees. The tech sector (not just cable owners or data centres) alone is about 15% GDP. How many other sectors are multinationals relying on access to systems outside of the country? Quite a few i bet. Let’s remember there are electronic international banking systems as well. Or small businesses buying materials, consumers buying products, etc.
You’d rather risk economic collapse than pay a small amount towards mitigating that risk?
What? The underwater cable tax?
Stop playing stupid, these are privately owned assets. It is not all on Ireland to protect these.
You have to be a bot my man are you actually suggesting we delegate the security of infrastructure in our territory to private corporations?
You are essentially advocating for amazon running PMCs in Irish waters so that we YET AGAIN don't have to spend a penny on defence.
I hope it's just ignorance. If not next time someone robs your iPhone you shouldn't go to the guards, you should go to Tim Apple and see how you get on asking him to protect your things.
My account is much older than yours. Just because I disagree on certain issues and speak my mind and give my thoughts, that doesn't make me a bot.
No, They can give the government some extra money to put towards defence if they want us to protect their cables.
What I want is that billions to stay in this country to benefit the people here instead of going into the bank accounts of already rich and wealthy people.
The government always cries the poor mouth when it comes to funding and yet here they are, willing to throw millions/billions just so they can get a pat on the head and look like good little boys and girls in Europe.
Never have bought an Apple product in my life or will. I like products that I have somewhat a control of instead of being totally locked down by the company that made them.
ok shore line is grand in a military sense.
Rugged af, rough seas, plus any invader would be ruined on logistics running ship all the way here, yet our allies are a stones throw away. Impracticality is our defense.
Saying that, monitoring tech we need probs
Russia has already shown a willingness and ability to damage the cables. Important to develop coastal defences to intercept drones and aircraft too.
Cables , do you know where they are first? Out of them all, the french one is probs the only vulnerable in any sense, and the still sea conditions dont aid sabotage, waterways has loads of traffic,, etc etc, and overall, why bother with neutral Ireland . We'd waste more money patrolling it then repairing it, and then, it would lead to more monitoring and intercepting of russian vessels
Drones yea, anything cheap and small like this, i will agree, to easy for any actor to use. Defense on that needed
EU: Hey Ireland could you maybe pay for a few ships and actually uphold your neutrality instead of letting us take care of it for you? Everyone's other nation in the union manages to do this even the neutral ones.
Ireland: NO! YOU PAY FOR IT, we are a weak spot for you do you have no choice.
One of the most fundamental axioms to national sovereignty is the ability to defend yourself, we complain and complain and complain about the EU "taking our sovereignty" as if we have any practical way of defending ourselves and happily give up our sovereignty to the UK (who aren't even in the umion) because..... it's too expensive?
I cant wait for the new ID verification my god half these comments and posts have to be from misinfo bots, the only people who benefit from a nation having no defence is it's prospective enemies.
Inb4 "we don't have any enemies": we are part of the European Union and have aligned ourselves with the Americans for the past 30 years. You can scream and shout all you like that "we have no quarrel with russia, China, etc. I can guarantee you they do not see it the same way.
Wow, well done bro, easily one of the most unhinged rants I've ever heard on here. "Can't wait for these ID verifications", is this Mossad I'm talking to? Lmaooo
Are you Margaret Thatcher? Ireland doesn't ask for rebates like Brexit Britain.
Am I Margaret Thatcher? What? At least 5 current EU nations receive rebates on their contributions for varying reasons.
Little benefit? What a bunch of clowns.
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We hide behind a nato defense alliance it could be said.
Literally they surround us and in some mad scenario where we got sea invaded from the atlantic. In a day, a NATO/UN intervention force would come.
So I still say this is cheap because we still dont need to go through the bother of funding our own force. Also we swindled off the EU by being the tax haven back door, we made our economy off the bloc, sending some change for military equipment, hardly a big deal
A popular delusion here is to equate neutrality with being unarmed. We could benefit the EU defence funds as there are defense manufacturers operating in the state. It's just that nobody wants to talk about or acknowledge it, they merely want to pretend that we have some sort of moral high ground or something.
Isn't it only components that are made here not actual weapons ?
That's a distinction without a difference. Everything is made up of components that are assembled someplace else, and not all military equipment is composed purely of weapons.
2000 years ago they were urging people to turn their swords into ploughshares. Sadly we still haven't learned. In another 2000 years we will be having the same debate.
Some people think that Ireland will be different when it comes to other countries when spending on defence but like all others it will take from other areas and put into defence for hardly any benefit to the people of this country unless you're a share/stockholder in defence companies or a lobbyist.
Seems like what some people were saying all along.
All that money leaving Ireland for no benefit of the people here. Other states that were neutral before had their own defence industry, so stood to gain from any increase in defence spending.
It does seem pretty inevitable though. It's entirely logical that europe has to focus on defense, when it's being attacked on one side and abandoned on the other.
And it's entirely logical that having near-zero defense industry means we see near-zero of defense spending.
We're seeing no profit in a market that we've tried very hard to pretend doesn't exist. News at 11 I guess?
Ireland is hardly going to or wanting to create a war industry of its own. Imagine what that 7 billion can do for the people here.
This is the same logic that brexiters were using while writing slogans about funding the NHS with the money they were spending on the EU.
How well did it work out for them?
I think if Ireland is going to throw away €7 billion and hardly benefit, then that needs to be called out and challenged. I am pro-eu and don't want to leave, but in saying that lately there are a few things about the EU and what it is doing is turning me off them.
The Irish government loves sending public money abroad rather than focusing on issues here.
Nothing new, unfortunately.
And yet at any hint of developing a domestic defense industry or spending on the defence forces the left screams about warmongering and killing babies. What exactly are you looking for other than an excuse to be perpetually outraged?
That money to be use in Ireland for the benefit of the people here.
Ireland wasting money again ... Shocked
Well, some of those people in government are well paid and when they leave their jobs in the future they'll have their own home and be well cushioned and set up for life. It's the rest of us and our infrastructure and money that is being thrown away.
Government squandering billions is not much of a story anymore. Need accountability
So it turns out Uncle Sam was up to now freeing EU money for part time farmers and in previous eras milk lakes, beef mountains wine lakes.
EU needs to step up its defense spending given the way the US and Russia are behaving. Ireland will benefit indirectly by being part of an EU that is capable of resisting Russian aggression and not being reliant on the US where it uses its military as leverage undermining the EU’s ability to advance its own economic interests
But a Bike shed, on the other hand….
Seeing as Ireland barely has any military to speak of, yeah, letting other EU countries strengthen their militaries sounds fairly logical.
I still cannot fathom how shitty Irish defences really are. Honestly, and don't give me that BS about the UK protecting Ireland, they clearly aren't providing enough protection considering some incidents recently.
Like seriously lads, get your shit together..
In other news water is wet