RTE just confirmed that Dell in Limerick is laying off 1900 staff and transferring production to Eastern Europe. 1000 staff are staying, they are all high end and support staff apparently. I wonder how long before those 1000 are whittled down to a few hundred and then phased out completely. I have friends working with Dell, I hope they are ok and their jobs are safe for the moment, at least until the economy recovers and jobs become easier to...
It’s always nice when the international press pays attention to you....
In a further blow to the ailing economy, Google has decided to abandon plans to locate up to 100 software engineering jobs in Ireland because it was unable to find enough qualified candidates here.
A little over-dramatized in the Evening Herald but a very serious issue. We are not turning out enough engineers and we are not attracting enough engineers from abroad....
How sad it is to hear of the death of Tony Gregory, TD, this evening. Mr Gregory died today at St Francis’ Hospice in Raheny after fighting a long and brave battle with cancer. Cancer eventually won, like it does. Tony Gregory’s death marks the end of an era in Irish politics. The eighties were not a good time for the country, but Mr Gregory will always be remembered with fondness and affection as a good man in a bad world.Persons of a certain age will remember Tony Gregory’s vivid entry into Irish public life in 1982. Country bumpkins, such as your correspondent, An Spailpín Fánach, were always aware that there were some hard chaws in Dubbalin town but seeing some bowsie with no respect for God, man or the divil marching into Dáil Éireann with no tie on him was taking things a...
One of the many stings of the current recession is the memory of what was. The squandering and the waste of the riches that once were, and are no longer. As far as the rugby public of Ireland are concerned; you ain’t seen nothing yet.The cold hard fact of the matter is that Ireland and Italy are the only countries in the Six Nations that have not won the Championship in the past twenty-three years. And not only have England, France, Wales and Scotland won multiple championships in that time, each of them has at least one Grand Slam as well in that period. What have Ireland to show for this? A few devalued Triple Crowns and a lot of old blather about rugby in Croke Park and Paul O’Connell pyjamas.That was the good news. The bad news is that it’s about to get worse. The lack of...
One of the more notorious of RTÉ’s acts of cultural vandalism over the years is the decision to wipe all TV tape of Seán Ó Riada from the archives. Now, An Spailpín is getting worried that the damage is even more extensive than we thought.Gael Linn, as part of their policy of re-releasing Seán Ó Riada’s albums over the past few years, have released three more, as a triple CD set called Pléaráca an Riadaigh. These are three original studio recordings of Ó Riada at the height of his powers – Reacaireacht an Riadaigh, Ceol na nUasal and Ding Dong. But what’s bothering An Spailpín is a throwaway reference in the sleeve notes to a weekly radio show that Ó Riada did for RTÉ in the sixties. Reacaireacht an Riadaigh, the first of these albums to be recorded, is essentially a...
Transport is a big problem, at the personal (how will I get to work?), economic (How much is it costing to move all these people around) and environmental levels (What damage is all this movement causing?). A few interesting links:
New suburbanism is a new way of solving the environmental crisis, an alternative to ‘new urbanism’ (which basically means creating more dense urban areas). The problem with the concept is that the underlying principles (which are really assumptions) are mainly wrong. You cannot support a global population of ten billion people on this planet if they are all spread all over the place, have an attachment to their living places, are not subsistence farmers and have to travel to congregate at work or school on a regular basis.
However, there is one...
“In Poland,” said the man on the bus, “we don’t let our children put their feet on the seats.”An Spailpín was on the bus home, queuing for the next stop. Ahead of me, a man was talking to the driver. They knew each other. Perhaps they spoke in English in order to practise; perhaps the driver wasn’t Polish as well, but an immigrant from somewhere else. I don’t know.“If the children are on their own, of course, they will put up their feet – it’s the natural instinct to rebel,” the man continued. “But what I can’t understand is why they do it when they are accompanied by a parent. Why don’t the parents stop them from being so selfish?”An Spailpín has thought hard about that Polish man in the past few days since the horrific shooting of Aidan O’Kane in East...
Question: Why did the pig cross the road?Irish Farmers Answer: Who knows, but thanks to traceability we are able to locate the farm the pig came from and make sure it is returned to the correct farm. Anyway only a small minority of farms lost pigs and those pigs don't do too much damage and no cars were hit by the pigs. It's all just hype really, you would need to have lots of pigs crossing the road to cause any damage or pose any real risk to passing motorists. However a far more important question is when will the government compensate all farmers for the loss of any pigs and for having to cross the road themselves to recover the...
What’s going on? CIE is talking about cutting services and 400 jobs, yet the private bus operators (like Matthews Coaches) are waiting (since last year) for official permission to run express services down the M1 and through the port tunnel.
Pump all the money into the banks that you want, behaviour like that isn’t going to get us out of this downturn....
The Celtic Tiger, such as it was, was fuelled by the Jumbo Breakfast Roll. Two scholastics from two entirely different schools, Mr David McWilliams and Mr Pat Shortt, both identified the Jumbo Breakfast Roll as the very asphodel of the Irish economic revolution.If the country were not catapulting to Hell in a handcart at a genuinely astonishing rate of knots, this would count as a delicious irony in the light of the weekend’s pork recall. Instead, the very word delicious will only serve as a goad to the memory of the fries that were not eaten this morning in Erin, and the tears return again.Bertie Ahern gloried in the nickname of the Teflon Taoiseach, as everything he touched turned to gold. Bertie’s greatest gift was his singular ability to always steer clear of disaster. His...
David McWilliams thinks that the Irish public is being a little unrealistic in its assessment of the Ryanair bid. He is right. The comments give an indication of how unrealistic the public is. But the reality is that Aer Lingus is a minnow in a world of eagles and it has to be bought by somebody if it is to avoid the disastrous fate of Alitalia and many other flag carriers before it.
It is interesting to see the perception people have of Ireland’s biggest airline. There is an assumption that because Ryanair does one particular thing well, or a particular way, that it cannot do anything else....
I’ve just tried to make a donation via the SVP website.
Unfortunately the site does not work with non IE Web browsers (such as Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome). That means about 1/4 of the people wishing to donate are being locked out.
Normally at this point I’d rant about whatever corporate decision maker let this one through. But I’m just sad - a deserving charity, always stretched for cash, is 25% down due to some simple (JavaScript) errors.
I’ve emailed the address given, but I’m likely to viewed as some random web lunatic (and maybe that’s not far from the truth). So what can I do to help? All suggestions welcome.
Update: I got a fairly quick email back from SVP acknowledging the problem - better than many commercial organisations in that...
Simon McGarr writes about adventures in the world of the European Movement. I do not think it is quite factual to say that Margot Wallstrom, the VP of the Commission (whom everyone in Ireland insisted in calling ‘Margo’ in honour of the Queen of Country) spent the evening speaking to bloggers, although a considerable amount of time was spent.
I do think that if there were another referendum (which I would not necessarily recommend) and if the campaigning followed the lines suggested at this meeting, then the result would almost certainly not be pretty from the Commission’s point of view. I think the Commissioner was a little bit surprised to hear that defiance of authority was considered a virtue in Ireland, even for loyal government supporters....
J.C Flowers is one of the companies apparently interested in investing in and restructuring Irish banks, in particular, Bank of Ireland. The same company took over Long Term Credit Bank of Japan and restructured it into Shinsei (’rebirth’) Bank which according to Joichi Ito describes as ‘an example of how legacy companies in Japan can be turned around with good management and smart methods’.
A lot of people are concerned that foreign investors will do something radical with the Irish banks. But the reality is that this is what is required. Our banking is not anything like as efficient as it could be and our bankers are nowhere near as smart as they thought they were. If the sector does not restructure itself now, it will have restructuring forced upon it by...
Is there anything that the Mayo County Board will not do for money? It was to be hoped, if there were any good to be gained from the continuing reality check the nation is currently enduring, that the current financial crisis would have reminded people of the value of money.The news that the Mayo County Board are seeking to hawk the naming rights of McHale Park, currently under-going a process of development and refurbishment, to the highest bidder would suggest that we have learned nothing at all.Mr Seán Feeney, Secretary of the Mayo County Board, remarks in an interview in the Mayo News last week that “the money has to come from somewhere.” He is correct in this regard, but he is mistaken if he thinks that there is that much available for naming rights. There’s a recession on –...
Just watching the X-Factor (long story) and it hit me - the solution for Irish Democracy (or at least getting people to vote) is to merge it with the TV Show.
Even if the vote doesn’t go the way of the experts, the Judges get to save one option for the next week.
We get to vote every week on more or less the same topic.
People pay to cast their vote by premium text line, SMS or Website.
The X-Factor is incredibly popular in the UK , so there must be something to it. What do you think - Is fact stranger than fiction?...
There’s a chill wind a blowin’ through the Irish blogosphere as the Recession Christmas looms. Sarah Carey is gone. Irish Flirty Something is gone. Twenty Major, awarded the prize for the Best Blog at the Irish Blog Awards since what seems like forever, is gone.An Spailpín Fánach, however, is going exactly nowhere. I’m staying right here. Don’t all cheer at once.An Spailpín Fánach got an idea of his influence when Jo’Burger in Rathmines won the award for best restaurant this year. The same Jo’Burger to which An Spailpín devoted a 642 word hammering in these pages back in August. It’s like driving a DeLorean, or drinking that white porter. A man feels so out of step.But just because people are looking down snouts at you doesn’t mean you should stop doing what you’re...
I’ve written loads about postcodes before. GPS Ireland have published a concept for a postcode system, and Garmin have implemented it in a limited way on their devices. Good for them for publishing their idea.
However, there are a number of big issues with implementing such a system.
- The problem is that it is not much help in and of itself to actually deliver anything, except maybe by helicopter. You need to cross-reference the code against a map database to have any idea of how to effect the delivery or to estimate how long the delivery might take. This means that you are in a proprietary situation right away. There is no free road map database of Ireland.
- Packets and parcels with the code (and packets and parcels will represent 80 percent of delivery items within 20 years)...
Read this plan for an intercity coach system based on Motorways, conceived for the UK, but very applicable to Ireland....
This article in the Irish Times (now free) is an important description of the problems with the National Consumer Agency and other bodies by Michael Casey, a former assistant director of the Central Bank of Ireland.
UPDATE: Ann FitzGerald of the National Consumer Agency responds.
In my view and experience, Casey is right and FitzGerald is wrong. My experience is that the NCA is reluctant to intervene on behalf of consumers even in straightforward matters. They are much slower to act than the predecessor organization, the Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs. It takes months of calls and emails to get them to even respond on a simple issue. They have a load of powers, but don’t seem to be bothered to even write a letter to try to enforce the rules.
Their call centre is 150...
The government has already bailed out Irish banks. Now it has to do so again. The reason for this is that it wasn’t done properly the first time. The guarantee was simply no help. Although it provided liquidity (i.e., so that the banks could get a few euros on tick to carry on trading) it did nothing to deal with the losses that have resulted from the fall in the value of property and the resulting fall in value of the loans secured on property. The banks need capital invested in order to cover this.
Until they get the money, they won’t be able to lend money to businesses, and that will result in unnecessary bankruptcies and undermine whatever growth there is in the economy.. I am just after hearing about a business that can’t raise a ten thousand euro overdraft - the...
According to a report in the Tribune, Dublin Bus has 4 percent fewer trips this year compared to last year. This amounts to tens of thousands fewer trips per day, and a great deal of lost revenue. This reduction in numbers is despite the fact that petrol prices have never been higher in the last year, and despite the fact that parking charges in the city centre are growing ever higher.
The most likely explanation is that Dublin Bus is feeling the effect of migrant workers leaving Ireland. The increase in bus passenger numbers in recent years was the result of immigrants, not the result of people leaving their cars behind.
The Department of Transport, which pays a large subsidy to Dublin Bus now has to accept that despite extensive marketing efforts, Dublin Bus management largely failed to...
One of Ireland’s leading journalists was a member of the panel on Marion Finucane's radio show this morning. The discussion was about the US Presidential election, and the leading Irish journalist expressed her joy and relief that Sarah Palin did not become Vice-President of the USA.A guest made the point that, while Palin had her flaws, she was a thrilling public speaker, second only to Obama himself. The leading Irish journalist conceded this point, but went on to accuse Sarah Palin of covert racism in her speeches. The leading Irish journalist went to on say that she heard vox pops after Sarah Palin’s speeches and the people would make comments like “I don’t want no baby-killer in the White House,” or “I don’t want no terrorist in the White House.”Three points struck...
The picture above was taken in Smyth's toy store in Blanchardstown last night. It was on a display of Podge and Rodge toys, and it reads (for anyone with monitor issues):"Podge and Rodge ProductsCustomers please note that due to strong language this item may not be suitable for younger children."An Spailpín is curious to know at what age exactly are soft toys and strong language both appropriate for children. An Spailpín hopes never to meet such horrors, whoever they are. And I want to meet their parents even less. Technorati Tags: Ireland, culture, shopping, Christmas, Podge,...
We have the good fortune to have Brian Caulfield on the board at PutPlace.com. At a board meeting yesterday Brian gave a chilling analysis of the state of VC across the globe. Afterwards he sent me a bunch of links supporting his analysis.
In short whatever problems you have raising money for your startup, the VCs are seeing those problems double.
VC’s raise money from what are called Limited Partners (LPs). When a VC announces the closure of a round what they have actually got is a commitment from the LPs to provide funds to support investments over the 10 year lifetime of a typical VC fund.
As the VC makes investments they make cash calls on the VCs to support those investments (so Enterprise Ireland’s 175m is still sitting in a government account somewhere, even though most...
Shot this video on the 26-Oct-08 after several days of rain, pretty spectacular for a small town in the West of Ireland. Especially as this is right in the Centre of Ennistimon....
As the Cork hurling nightmare drags painfully on An Spailpín Fánach can’t help but notice that there is an issue of nomenclature that is being overlooked in the dispute. An issue of nomenclature that, if resolved, could see a radical change of perspective and quick resolution of the dispute.This is the issue: the group of thirty or so men who like issuing press releases to the Examiner newspaper are referred to in all media as “the Cork hurlers.” And this is plainly not the case.The question of who hurls for Cork, or for any county, is at the discretion of the manager of that county team. Just because one has hurled for Cork in the past does not mean that one will do so again. In fact, because this is now the off-season, you could argue that there are no Cork hurlers as Cork...
Yesterday Mary Harney announced the decision to halt the provision of the HPV vaccination to girls aged 12 years, a reversal of a decision made last August. This vaccine has the potential to prevent cervical cancer. I believe this is a mistake and this morning a listener on the Ray D’Arcy show suggested a way to let Mary Harney know what we thought: what if we all sent emails to the Minister with photos of their daughters expressing our dismay over this decision to deny these girls a vaccine which may prevent them getting cervical cancer in later years?
The Ray D’Arcy show has a link where you can send an email directly and it will only take a second. You can do it here: Today FM. Or if you’d like to send a photo of your daughter, the address is...
Brian Lenihan swung his axe yesterday, and the steel bit home into an Ireland that had been living beyond its means. Worst of all, this is not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning. The future looks bleak for quite some time. Fast forward four years and seven weeks, to the Late Late Show of December 1st, 2012...The titles roll as the owl takes his customary flight over the credits. The cameras go live to studio 4, where host Pat Kenny comes out to the cheers of the studio audience. The lights are flickering slightly, and Kenny doesn’t look quite as well groomed as is his wont; during the show, he keeps tugging at the collar of his suit jacket, as if it itches.PAT KENNY: Hello and welcome to the Late Late Show, sponsored by Lidl – remember folks, turnips are only five...