This Country Is Really Getting More Insane By The day!

[The Libertarian]

It's not me getting older but there has definitely been an ever increasing knackerisation of Irish society in recent times!
However my post here is on our asshole so called government doing the following -
1 Introducing water charges, making it a more direct charge for you to take a shit and maybe more accurately wash your hands afterwards! This is when, you are already charged for water usage 4 times through PAYE, LPT, USC and as it was increased substantially when rates were abolished, VAT! Don't gey me started on the Irish water Quango!
You are also liable for a leak under the foundations of your house, even if you are renting! Or if there's afault in the local sewer system that comes up on your side, you may be responsible for the entire estate's sewerage!
And if your out working and a pipe bursts in your home, you may end up in the bankruptcy courts!
2 Introducing minimum pricing for alcohol, which may be thrown out in The European Court as a restriction on free trade! But this makes no sense in particular at the insane levels on the table, minimum prices - a bottle of wine around 8€, a bottle of spirits, an absurd 30€ and a tin at around 2.75€! In Scotland I think it's 5 € minimum for a bottle of wine and 1.66€ for a tin! Regular normal level drinkers will be hit and the families of chronic alcoholic gobshites will suffer severely! For an alcoholic gobshite drink is always the number 1 priority and everything else is sidetracked! OK, they may drink slightly less, but they will be rotten for the want of drink!
It will encourage black market and moonshine making!
Also there will be another effect the big stores will raise prices of other goods as they won't be able to use alcohol prices to attract customers and this is at a time when with QE, inflation is set to rise massively (which will massively impinge on low paid workers!) and exchange rates are becoming very unfavourable for € users!
It's basically a very badly thought out move!
3 The new cycling laws, from which our beloved minister for transport has said children will not be exempt! I agree that cyclists breaking red lights, cycling wrecklessly and not being visible should be spanked! However with the lack of off the road cycle paths as a lesser of 2 evils, a cyclist may have to ride on a path occasionally! Also there is no word on developing more and safer cycle paths and ring fencing these fines for cyclist safety measures! All there is happens to be a promise for even more repressive anti cyclist legislation on the cards! Essentially it seems to be about raising taxes on cyclists' backs!
4 Next most relevant to us we are about to see laws based on the insane Swedish anti sex worker model, which has been a massive failure and led to sex workers' lives been made hell on earth! Also working class male clients are the only clients who will be punished under it!
5 The talk of an average of a €3K per year on average compulsory pension contribution from private sector workers! Which of course, our lovely public sector workers will never have to pay (certainly not at that level), despite having very early retirement ages and obscene pensions and absurd working conditions for the most part!
This annual compulsory pension contribution in the demographically youngest country in the EU will also be accompanied by a retirement age of about 70!
6 Although it seems to be on the back burner for a while, compulsory health insurance for workers at massively high levels, while those that never did a tap of work in their lives will get the same benefits, without paying a cent! Such a system cannot reduce any waiting list, so everybody would be back to square one again, except for the compulsory massive charge on working class people, who would as usual in this country see absolutely no benefit for it at all!
I think in response one thing we need to do is dump forever and for all time the 2 and 1/2 political parties which have traditionally held power and severely misruled us!

[The Libertarian]

As the recent winner of Ming's vacated seat in the Roscommon By-election said, to understand the common man today, you have to know what it's like not to have a fiver in your pocket! Our politicos and senior civil/public servant rubbish and most of the established ones certainly have absolutely no concept of that!

[warmcome]

2.75 would be a big jump, as i think Aldi have tins at 79c now?
I cycle sometimes and whilst i'm not one of those obsessive cyclists,
I do assert my position on the road. Cycle lanes are crappy enough and need investment.

[Banger]

I don't care who we dump as long as we don't get the shinners instead.

[Westsidex]

3 The new cycling laws, from which our beloved minister for transport has said children will not be exempt! I agree that cyclists breaking red lights, cycling wrecklessly and not being visible should be spanked! However with the lack of off the road cycle paths as a lesser of 2 evils, a cyclist may have to ride on a path occasionally! Also there is no word on developing more and safer cycle paths and ring fencing these fines for cyclist safety measures! All there is happens to be a promise for even more repressive anti cyclist legislation on the cards! Essentially it seems to be about raising taxes on cyclists' backs!
:

hahahahhaha

ehhehehe hahhaha
Westside.

[Petros]

3 The new cycling laws, from which our beloved minister for transport has said children will not be exempt! I agree that cyclists breaking red lights, cycling wrecklessly and not being visible should be spanked! However with the lack of off the road cycle paths as a lesser of 2 evils, a cyclist may have to ride on a path occasionally! Also there is no word on developing more and safer cycle paths and ring fencing these fines for cyclist safety measures! All there is happens to be a promise for even more repressive anti cyclist legislation on the cards! Essentially it seems to be about raising taxes on cyclists' backs!

Sorry! Cyclists NEVER have to cycle on a foot path!

I once got knocked down as I alighted from a bus by a cyclist who was riding on a foot path! I had to be carted off to hospital in an ambulance! My MacBook Pro got smashed, My jacket and jeans were only fit for the bin and I lost two weeks work - not good when one is self employed!

I am a cyclist myself and I have never had to cycle on a foot path!

[warmcome]

Sorry! Cyclists NEVER have to cycle on a foot path!

I once got knocked down as I alighted from a bus by a cyclist who was riding on a foot path! I had to be carted off to hospital in an ambulance! My MacBook Pro got smashed, My jacket and jeans were only fit for the bin and I lost two weeks work - not good when one is self employed!

I am a cyclist myself and I have never had to cycle on a foot path!

That was a bad experience, mate. When you first started cycling? Yes, our government is asking
8 year olds to use the road, with no history of cycling proficiency training in our fine State.

[Petros]

That was a bad experience, mate. When you first started cycling? Yes, our government is asking
8 year olds to use the road, with no history of cycling proficiency training in our fine State.

It is up to the childs parents to ensure their child has proficient training to be out on a bike on their own!

Imagine an elderly person walking out of their house or a shop and a child goes cycling past on the pavement? the consequences are unthinkable!

[Zealot7]

It is up to the childs parents to ensure their child has proficient training to be out on a bike on their own!

How unthinkable! Remember we don't do personal responsibility in this country - it's ALWAYS the job of the government, and by extension - the taxpayer to sort out and take responsibility for other peoples actions.

/sarc

As for the OP, I completely agree. Troubling thing though is that we're well on our way towards becoming like Venezuela or even worse North Korea if the government keeps getting taking over a bigger chunk of the economy and interfering in our lives.

[The Libertarian]

I have no time for aggressive cyclists or eejits on bikes, however mounting the path in some of our medieval cities and towns, which were never meant for cars in the first place is a necessity on occasion! My points on this are 1 It will lead to more cyclists getting severely injured and killed (as will the insane Swedish model!) 2 There is nothing to indicate that it will become anything more than a new revenue raising measure from easy fines (ala The Swedish model) imposed on vulnerable people, there is no ring fencing of fines to promote safer cycling and no policy of building the only safe type of cycle path i.e. off the road ones. i.e. on a portion of a footpath £ It's part of a disgusting pattern along with the other measures outlined! 4. Look at the gung ho suppprters of it - Blueshirts and Fake Socialists and of course Finian McGrath, Ballinasloe's finest who also gave frothing @ the mouth support to the recommendations of the anti sex worker committee of which he was a prominent member and included such beauts as trying to criminalize anybody who downloads an escort related site e.g. EI at the level of a child rapist downloading images of children being raped and abused!
Re the minimum pricing of alcohol, nobody really wins under this one at all, OK low income alcos will be able to buy less, but their families will suffer as buying the devil's buttermilk will always be more important to them than behaving like a normal human being and don't forget our minimum price for a can will be it's estimated @ €2.75 as opposed to Scotland's €1.66 (and with a declining € the Scottish price gets even cheaper in relative terms), it is also proposed for Nordieland, but, it won't be at those insane price levels either!
Mind you. I suppose, publicans, who are a very powerful lobby group and make a fortune from people with drink problems will be winners! Indeed weren't they to the forefront in having our insane off licence closing hours of 10 PM brought about!