Social Fabric

[Banjo]

What do you think the long term social effects of current economic fucked-upness will be ? There's been so many cuts and some of them will have long term effects. Cuts to the health service mean a nation not as healthy. Cuts to education mean a nation not so educated. Cuts to the Gardai mean a nation not so policed. On and on like that ....

So I'm not creating a moaning thread .... all these things are well established and moaned about already. I'd just like to know what you think the long term damage to society will be as a result of all this stagnation.

[Marko1980]

To be super positive on this, I hope we will get back in touch with our unpretentious and loveable Irish characteristics.
That we can go back to plain old salt and vinegar and not Crushed Sea-salt and Balsamic Vinegar.

We became very predictable and uncool throughout the Celtic tiger era IMO :-)

[hd7055]

Bad news first, we have at least a decade of progressively worse economic news and effects ...

Good news, hopefully we can return to what we were before all this social climbing. Two voluntary orginasitions I admire HUGELY - the S de VP and the GAA (along with so many others). We need to get involved at a community level people ...

[doodlebug]

Bad news first, we have at least a decade of progressively worse economic news and effects ...

Good news, hopefully we can return to what we were before all this social climbing. Two voluntary orginasitions I admire HUGELY - the S de VP and the GAA (along with so many others). We need to get involved at a community level people ...

I agree about the voluntary organizations, only issue is that the current policies will destroy the same organizations. I think we are heading to a country that is afraid to look forward, we are feeding our begrudgers and losing our confidence. We were not a confident nation pre Celtic tiger, but began to believe we can do things after that, the confidence is running away from us again. Positive side, we will qualify for more international soccer tournaments and excel in the music and arts world.

[ber]

What do you think the long term social effects of current economic fucked-upness will be ? There's been so many cuts and some of them will have long term effects. Cuts to the health service mean a nation not as healthy. Cuts to education mean a nation not so educated. Cuts to the Gardai mean a nation not so policed. On and on like that ....

So I'm not creating a moaning thread .... all these things are well established and moaned about already. I'd just like to know what you think the long term damage to society will be as a result of all this stagnation.

Alot of damage has been done to the Social fabric of this country that cant or wont be reversed, this is especially truer in
rural areas and small villages and towns. There has been alot of unsustainable development in these places which will remain
a blight and a reminder for years to come.
There is a rural depopulation going on which will not stop and while some of this would happen naturally anyway as a result
of "progress" the Tiger definitely accelerated it, we have a much more cosmopolitan society now than ever before and that
will change alot of the Social aspects of our country forever. The taste of the money and good times still linger and they
have left their mark, we need only drive through any village , town or city to be reminded of this.
We have to look forward not back but i think Ireland in 20 yrs will be unrecognisable from the Ireland of today and not all
will be in a good way

[Big-Paul]

Hopefully the Irish will get their heads out of their arses and get their sense of humour back, I remember the 80's there was a lot of great characters around always having a laugh or a mess. We lost those guys when the tiger arrived every one became super serious so hopefully we can get real and get on with it again.

[Curvaceous Kate]

Deviating a little, I think the fact that more people drink at home now and don't go to the pub, which used to be the hub of the community, that communities will start to break down even further than the advent of the Supermarket. You will find that there are little networks of social circles that rarely grow or mix and generally people will become more insular and the community as a whole will break down even further than it already has.

With regards to education, they ares spending too much money keeping a tight focus on their objectives and tick boxes, which is not allowing freedom of teaching to the Teachers, who know their school better than anyone else and what would stimulate their children. The budget is already spent before they have got it, so it's rigid and without flexibility learning is inhibited to a huge portion of the children who often learn better through stimulus that matters to them, ie current affairs within their local area, sports and games. Schools lacking lustre, lack learning!

I'm not sure if it is the same over in Ireland, but in the UK Supply Teacher's do not get any training while they are working within schools, so 5 years down the road, they have no idea how children are being assessed, what the government are looking for, marking systems, new methods of teaching etc, but they still spend a lot of time within schools and if a Teacher is off for a prolonged time (A lot of Teachers take time off for depression) the classes suffer. The goverment should invest more money in training ALL Teachers that work with children and not just the ones in permanent positions.

More and more children will leave school clueless and unmotivated. They need to give the reigns back to the individual School's and invest money in all Teacher's.

The NHS and public transport I don't really know enough about to comment, but I do think it is disgusting that people are made to pay for parking at A&E. I think the charges are to hefty for normal visitors too. This should be subsidised or free and more recently where I live they have made the disabled spaces payable too. It's not right.

[Banjo]

The NHS and public transport I don't really know enough about to comment, but I do think it is disgusting that people are made to pay for parking at A&E. I think the charges are to hefty for normal visitors too. This should be subsidised or free and more recently where I live they have made the disabled spaces payable too. It's not right.

I agree. I've long been disgusted by having to pay to park your car in hospital visitor car parks, never mind A&E. It just seems like such indiscriminate, immoral money grabbing and it's going into the pockets of private car park management companies, not the hospital coffers which might give some bit of redemption to having to pay. I work in the private sector and often wish I didn't because in many ways it destroys society. A lot of big corporations these days are into the whole "corporate social responsibility" thing which attempts to put a veil over the savage claws of the private company that has no problem tearing strips of flesh off the ordinary person. But that's all it is - a veil. Private interests still will stab you in the back if it means making a few quid.