New Charge for Plastic Bags at Dublin Airport

Passengers taking flights out of Dublin Airport will from now on be charged another unnecessary and unfair fee, for a 'service' equally needless and useless, invented by goons to make the lives of air travellers more difficult, unpleasant and costly.
Resealable plastic bags in which passengers have now to carry all permitted liquids on board their aeroplanes (see photo) will no longer be provided free to the travelling public.

Idiotic and restrictive 'security' measures, apparently "to combat terrorism", were introduced in November 2006 after a massive (and totally unsubstantiated) hype at London's main airport Heathrow.
Since then air travellers are prohibited from carrying liquids and gels on board their aeroplanes in containers greater than 100 ml. Containers which are permitted have to be placed in a clear plastic bag for inspection by 'security' staff.

Until now the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) provided passengers with these bags free of charge, at an operational cost for the company of € 70,000 per annum.
But as air travel world-wide is becoming ever more weird, irrational and inhumane, airlines and airport operators alike are turning ever more ruthless and greedy, trying to squeeze more and more money out of the gullible air travellers who were lured into flying by an apparently "cheap flight".
After adding all the taxes, fees and levies, plus a dozen extra charges by the airlines for this and that (from having a bag to paying by credit card), the actual prices people have to pay these days for flights are quite high.

The DAA's attitude is obviously that fools who are willing to pay that much for a 'cheap' flight can easily be squeezed even a bit more, especially if there is no choice or alternative. So from now on the compulsory plastic bags will only be available from vending machines, at a cost of € 1 for two bags!
As material value and production costs of the bags are less than 5 cents per item, the DAA will be making a nice and easy 900% profit from this latest extortion idea.

The DAA says that "Dublin is one of the last airports in Europe to introduce such a charge", but this is neither an argument for it, nor an excuse.
It is just the usual way of weaseling around with words and concepts. A bit like the little boy who urinates into the public swimming pool "because all the other boys do it"...

"Passengers can avoid the expense if they plan ahead," a DAA spokeswoman said.

Well, I have an even better idea: You can avoid that expense, plus all the other extortionist charges for air travel and the many extras and add-ons it now has. Just don't fly!

I have not used an aeroplane in more than 20 years, and I am still happy and get around to any place I have to travel to.
Even on an island one has still a choice, and there are very good and reliable ferries, you know... where one is not charged for everything extra, where one is not treated by staff as if one were a cross-breed between cattle and morons, where one does not have to follow dozens of equally silly and sadistic 'security' rules, and where one does not need special plastic bags to carry tooth paste and hair tonic.

I am sure that before long, once the air-travelling masses get used to the idea of paying now for their silly plastic bags as well, the price for each bag (now set at 50 cents) will rise to € 1 and eventually € 2. And those foolish enough to travel by air will pay it, most of them even without a moment of thought or reflection. Despite all the talk of financial hardship, crisis and recession there are still way too many people with more money than brains.

But there are also those who will not be conned, milked, exploited and taken up the garden path by state-licensed street robbers and highwaymen. Among them you'll always find - yours truly -

The Emerald Islander

A Nation of Debtors and Fools

Today the Central Bank of Ireland has stated that "the number of people in personal debt is growing rapidly", and that this is being "driven by mortgage borrowings".

At an Oireachtas Committee meeting in Leinster House this morning John Kelly, the Head of Statistics at the Central Bank, declared that "the number of people in debt in Ireland is rising faster than in any other Eurozone country".

According to Mr. Kelly "the number of people in mortgage debt is three times higher in Ireland, compared to other countries in the Eurozone". He also said that the large number of mortgage holders on variable or tracker rates is positive.

Separately, the number of people presenting themselves at the offices of the Money Advice Budgeting Service (MABS) has increased substantially since 2006.
Ann Marie O'Connor of MABS told the Oireachtas Committee that the amount of debt people are in who attend the service is also increasing. She said that her organisation was also concerned about the tactics of some debt collection agencies.

Mary O'Dea from the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority said a code was now in place to offer some protection for people in mortgage arrears. But this code was criticised as not going far enough by the representatives from the Free Legal Advice Centre.

What does all this information tell us?

Well, it presents us - the people of Ireland - with the blunt and uncomfortable truth that we (or at least the majority of us) have been living well beyond our means during the years of the false economic boom dubbed the 'Celtic Tiger', which was - as we now know - nothing but an artificial bubble, created by irresponsible politicians and greedy bankers, property developers, builders and estate agents.

As much as our collective anger is now directed at these people (and with all justification), we have to accept the fact that most of us were not innocent victims of the greedy buggers in suits. The vast majority of Irish people was only too willing to go along, up the metaphorical garden path, leaving all common sense and responsible behaviour behind.
We were carried away by the idea that we - little and long-suffering Ireland that was always poor and exploited by others - had now at long last found the legendary pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We were rich, really rich, we thought.
And instead of being happy with that and building a nice nest egg for an even better future, we fell collectively for the many temptations a bunch of criminals and gamblers put in front of us.

People on modest incomes, who had been happy living in a normal house, driving a normal car and going on holiday once a year, felt 'entitled' to have a lot more. So they bought a bigger house, or even two. Some even acquired an additional apartment abroad, in places like Spain, Portugal or even Bulgaria. The latter is a country without proper political structures and widely controlled by the local version of the Mafia, a group of gangs recruited mostly from the former Communist security service (Bulgaria's version of the KGB).
How on Earth would anyone even think of buying property in such a place?!

But Irish people did. Quite a lot of them, in fact. They also 'needed' a new and much larger car, preferably one of the most polluting and environmentally unfriendly four-wheel-drives known here by their American name SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle).
And not enough with that, they also had to go on exotic foreign holidays several times a year, and to keep up with the Jones' also on additional luxurious 'city breaks' to various continental places over the weekends.
And if there was not enough money in the bank to pay for all this, then they used their various credit cards. The bank would always offer more loans, new cards and many 'lucrative refinancing packages' if someone got really strapped for cash.

There is an old saying that a fool and his money are easily parted. Ireland is the living proof that this phrase is still correct.
It gives me no pleasure to say this, but the Irish have now been exposed to the whole world as a careless and feckless wannabee nation, made up of irresponsible and greedy fools, gangsters, fraudsters and drunken yahoos.

Some of us - for example David McWilliams, George Lee, a few other people with common sense and even yours truly - warned of the consequences of the financial madness and wrote page after page and column after column, but to no avail.
We were called "spoilsports", "party poopers" and "eternal pessimists" by the punch-drunk financial criminals, and completely ignored by most of the 'ordinary' people.

And even now, that the metaphorical cat is well out of the bag, there are thousands of fools in this country who cannot or will not see and accept reality. Unfortunately this group is led by our government, the worst bunch of wasters and incompetents ever assembled in the history of the state. And since ignorance still rules the roost, things will get much worse throughout this year, next year, and perhaps for many more years to come.

There is only one way Ireland can regain strength and stability: We need a new government, urgently, and a reform of our political and electoral system. Everything else will follow from that. As long as we keep the current lot and our completely broken 19th century system in place, nothing we do and no remedy we offer the economy will be of any use.

The Emerald Islander

Stay away from Ireland!

According to a survey, one in five foreign tourists coming to Ireland are dissatisfied with the cost of living here.

New research from Fáilte Ireland (our strangely named national agency for tourism) shows that 22% of tourists view the general cost of living in Ireland as a disadvantage.

This is no surprise to me. In fact, if anything does surprise me in relation to this matter, it is that only 22% of our foreign visitors are dissatisfied with the cost of living in this overpriced rip-off country. Perhaps the rest are too polite or too embarrassed to complain, or maybe too disgusted to say anything to an Irish person doing a survey on tourism.

Almost everything in Ireland is on average twice as expensive as in the other EU countries in Western Europe. And the differences with the newer EU members in Eastern Europe are even larger.
Irish customers - the natives as much as the tourists - are ripped-off systematically by those who control the means of production (as Karl Marx put it). Industrialists as well as traders are growing rich and fat on this small nation, and it has always been that way in Ireland.
When the founding fathers of our autonomous Free State (that later became our independent Republic) began to create our own national structures, they only concentrated on the State and the (Catholic) Church, but left the Economy to those who had always controlled it: the English, the Anglo-Irish ascendency and some wealthy locals who managed to fit into a few niches left by them.

Meanwhile most of our Economy is controlled by foreign interests, predominantly American and British. And those who control the plants, shops, hotels and restaurants are the ones who set the prices. There is no price control in Ireland, and hardly any consumer affairs agency worth the name.

So we pay through the nose, and anyone sentimental or stupid enough to come here as a tourist has to do the same. In fact, some cruel Irish fleece foreigners even more than the locals, on the basis that they don't know the ropes and have no choice but to accept what they are given and charged in a foreign place.

Last year I had to stay for some days in Dublin. When I was looking for suitable accommodation, I was truly shocked by the arrogance and greed most of our capital's hotels displayed. Not only were most of the rooms over-priced, the hotels were actually charging a further increased price for the same rooms on Fridays and Saturdays.

I have been to many countries and many hotels over the span of my life, but never experienced such blatant greed as in Dublin. Anywhere else one gets a fixed price when booking a hotel for a week. Seven days are seven days in any place and country. Only in Dublin could one not book a week in a hotel, because the Fridays and Saturdays were charged separately at a much higher price.

I did eventually find a suitable hotel for a - relatively - acceptable price. It is a family-owned business that also offers an excellent breakfast buffet (included in the room price) and the free use of a fitness centre attached to the hotel. (In all the large hotels which belong to big hotel chains there was nothing extra on offer and all one could get was rip-off and exploitation.) But I did swear to stay away from Dublin in future as much as possible and never to recommend it to my friends.

This year, as we are in economic depression and financial crisis, the Dublin hotels are falling over themselves with special offers. There are radio ads almost every day, with prices as low as € 39 for a room in a top hotel in Dublin. But don't be fooled or trapped by such obvious bait. They still find ways to make people pay more than they should and charge all sorts of things extra that one would have included in the basic price in any decent country.

As it is, I have the misfortune to live here, and thus I have little choice but pay the prices we are charged. But if I were a tourist, Ireland would be the last country on this planet (or perhaps the second-last after the USA) where I would go on holiday.
If you have any common sense and want to avoid being robbed and ripped-off by a greedy hotel and tourist industry, then stay away from Ireland!

The Emerald Islander

The most depressing Day in the Year

This morning someone on the radio made the remark that January 19th is - apparently - "the most depressing day in the year". How they come to that conclusion I do not know, and it was not really explained on the programme either. These days many radio presenters have the habit of throwing in comments, remarks and statements that they have neither researched nor cross-checked.
On the other hand, there are countless statistics nowadays, about anything and everything. So it is quite possible that there is such a statistic and that it puts a black mark on this day - January 19th.

Whatever is the case, the stock brokers in Dublin must have been listening to the programme this morning. And they took it very seriously and decided to contribute to the day appropriately. Subsequently the value of Irish bank shares has dropped to another all-time low.
As I write this, shares in Allied Irish Bank (AIB) dropped by almost 52% to 70 cents, after slumping as much as 60% earlier. Bank of Ireland is down now 20% to 60 cents per share, which is already a recovered value from earlier falls of 47%. And Irish Life & Permanent, who own the permanent tsb bank, tumbled 32% to € 1.49.

Today's falls come in the wake of market suggestions that Bank of Ireland and AIB look unlikely to be able to raise extra cash from private investors to top up a proposed state investment in the banks.

It appears that a statement I made on the BBC's "Any Questions?" programme more than seven years ago was quite correct, and every day this becomes more obvious to everyone.
What I said - back in September 2001, shortly after the airborne terror attacks on New York and Washington - was this:

"It becomes quite clear that conventional capitalism as we know it does no longer work. There are people on this planet who - for whatever reason - no longer want to live and work, inspired by the chance to gain wealth and personal comfort, but prefer instead killing themselves, if they can do serious damage to the capitalist system in the process. This means that no business and no organisation that follows the traditional capitalist system alone will be save and successful in future."

There might well be people who heard my statement then and made changes to their lives and to their business, as I did myself. But the vast majority did not. In fact, here in Ireland the small class of really wealthy people took no notice of it at all, as they have never listened to anyone 'on the outside' ever. They just think that their wealth gives them complete immunity from the rest of the world.
For the past ten years they created an artificial bubble of social and financial illusions that puts the well-known story of The Emperor's New Clothes well into the shadows. In the process they have not only done great damage to themselves and their companies, but to the Irish nation as a whole. Now chicken are coming home to roost on an almost daily basis, and there is for now no end in sight.

As this is supposed to be "the most depressing day in the year", I will oblige and make another statement on this matter.
Not only does conventional capitalism as we know it no longer work in the face of fundamentalist terrorism that has no concern for human lives, it does also no longer work in a globalised world that allows banks to create and gamble with artificial money that does not exist, never will exist, and has no relation to any real values.

For thousands of years people used raw materials, produced something other people wanted, and sold it to them for a price higher than the costs of production. That way they made a profit, and this is the core of old-fashioned capitalism.
Nowadays more and more manufacturing - even the production of the most basic goods - is "outsourced" to low-wage economies, mostly in the Far East. Meanwhile here in the West our apparently so bright and clever people find it more suitable to concentrate on 'financial services', which means in plain English gambling with other people's money and getting paid huge bonuses for it, just like in any casino in Las Vegas. What they really are is not bright and clever at all, but greedy and stupid

If we keep this up and do not learn our economic lessons very quickly, capitalism in any form will cease to exist. Private enterprises and public services alike will collapse, and Ireland - together with many other countries, especially in the English-speaking world - will encounter a period of absolute anarchy, violence and destruction. What ever will emerge from that after some time is anyone's guess and unpredictable, even for someone with a good track record of correct predictions.

There is still time to get things right, but not a lot of it is left. Money and time are literally running out for Ireland. The only way to turn things around is a radical change of direction, under a strong leadership.

Well, perhaps that researcher quoted on the radio this morning was right after all and this is the most depressive day of the year...

The Emerald Islander

Greedy Dublin

Yesterday I spent all day in our capital city Dublin. I had an important project meeting, which went very well, and then to select and book a hotel for another client.

There has never been a shortage of hotels in Dublin, and in recent years - as a result and by-product of our "Celtic Tiger" economic boom - many new ones have been built. So there is now rather a surplus of hotel rooms in Ireland's capital and one would assume that this might lead to more competition and fair pricing. But, as I had to learn yesterday, this is not the case.

Since I have not been in need of a hotel room in Dublin for many years, I decided to visit a number of recommended hotels, check out availability and prices, and have a personal look at the rooms on offer before I make the booking.

As I had expected, there was no shortage of rooms. But the prices most hotels were asking for surprised me greatly. If one needs a decent and modestly comfortable room with the usual facilities - such as a proper bathroom, writing table and internet access - one can no longer find it in Dublin for a decent price. The "Celtic Tiger" has obviously eaten up all common sense and decency of Dublin hoteliers, who have collectively joined the league of greedy b......s.

The only hotels that still offer relatively reasonable prices are those on the outskirts of Dublin, huge multi-storey concrete blocks far away from the city centre and all its attractions, and often wedged in by industrial estates, motorways and large building sites.
In the inner city the prices for rooms have risen well above the European average, and even in some cases above the level of London and New York. I was really and truly surprised, especially since the quality of most rooms I saw did in no way match the asked prices.
In all I visited a dozen hotels, and in most of them I found relatively small second (and even third) rate rooms with no great comfort, and often only a shower instead of a proper bath. But the prices were nevertheless first rate!

But what annoyed me most of all is the practice of Dublin hotels to charge massively more for a room on Fridays and Saturdays. It is not unusual that room prices are higher for a weekend booking, but in all hotels I have stayed so far - in many different cities and countries - booking a whole week gives one a general price for the seven days. Not so in Dublin, where visitors are charged extra weekend prices, even if they are staying in the hotel for a much longer time. The difference between the regular price for a room and the price charged for Friday and Saturday ranges between 20% and more than 100% extra!
As I said, I would not be surprised to encounter higher rates when booking only for a weekend, since there are often large sporting events that bring more people into Dublin. The city is also popular with young British visitors for extended drinking sessions, apparently more attractive to them than the pubs and clubs they can find at home. And they also come only for a weekend.
But when one books a hotel room for a week or even longer, it is usual to be given a fair price that does not change on certain days, only because some other visitors might come to watch a Rugby match or get senselessly drunk.

But the hotels of Dublin are obviously on a greed trip, out to milk visitors as much as possible, and with no thoughts or regards to image and reputation. "Grab as many Euros as you can get from each customer" has replaced "Cead Mile Failte" (A hundred thousand welcomes, the old Irish phrase used by the Irish Tourist Board) as the motto for the Irish capital.
This scandalous display of greed might bring in a few extra millions for a while, but on the long run it can and surely will deplete the influx of visitors, especially as there are now many more options for interesting weekend breaks all over Europe (and to many cities that have a lot more culture and attractions to offer than Dublin, and for much lower prices).

Another observation I made during my reconnaissance of Dublin hotels is the lack of Irish staff. Of the 12 hotels I visited yesterday, only one had an Irish receptionist on duty. Almost all staff I encountered was foreign, with a high proportion of Polish women in reception and Pakistani men in the role of hotel porters. The waiter who served me dinner was Russian, and several of the hotel managers I spoke with came from South Africa. Where are all the Irish gone? I really like to know, since we are no longer a country of emigrants.

Eventually, after hours of searching and arguing, I found a hotel that could offer my client a fair deal. The price for the room is still higher than it should be, but of all the available options it is the most attractive, with the largest and best-furnished rooms, and additional facilities not offered by anyone else. So my search was in the end successful for my client, and his visit to Dublin will - hopefully - be pleasant and successful as well. But I left the city with a generally bad feeling and will in future be very hesitant to recommend to anyone a stay in Dublin, if it can be avoided.
After all, there are many more Irish cities with plenty of hotels and other accommodation. And they, as far as I am aware, have not (yet) joined the Dublin gravy train of greed.

Glad to back at home again, I remain for now

The Emerald Islander

Them and us

Another very cold day in Ireland led me to my local fuel merchant to order some more peat for the weekend. I still had some left in the house, but the current temperatures - combined with forecast of more cold weather - made me to stock up, just to be on the safe side. As my house is very old, it does not have the modern conveniences of proper insulation. So the only way to keep it warm is to have a fire burning in the fireplace all day. And that, of course, uses up my supplies of peat and fire wood. Yesterday I received a delivery of the latter, which is supplied to by a dear farmer from the county each week. So all I needed was more peat.
No problem with that, since it is - besides wood - Ireland's only naturally occurring type of fuel and still available in large quantities. But I was surprised to learn that the price for a bail of peat logs had gone up once again. This time last year I paid 3.20 Euros for a bail, in Autumn the price rose to 3.60, and now it has reached a full 4 Euros! Though I am not happy with it, I have no choice but to pay it, as the alternative would be sitting cold and unhappy in an unheated house.

The massive increase of fuel prices is only one element of a general trend here. Being already a quite expensive country for many years, with everything - from basic food to the cost of housing and transport - between 50% and 100% higher priced than on the European continent, it is not always easy to make ends meet in Ireland. But now we also have the highest rate of inflation in the EU and the cost of living is rising in all areas with amazing speed.
A pound of butter, until recently available in all major supermarkets for 1.42 Euros, is now 1.76, and the price for a particular type of simple tea cake has risen in one leap from 2.49 to 2.99. As many things get more expensive over time almost everywhere, an increase of prices is not such a great surprise in general. But what is shocking for many people in Ireland - myself included - is the frequency and in particular the rate of increase, which is often well above the inflation rate and thus drives it higher and higher all the time.

Sadly there is no equivalent increase in most people's income, so the costs for simply living and surviving becomes more and more problematic, especially for those in the lower income bracket. People working in the private sector, and especially the self-employed and owners of small and medium-size businesses, have not seen much increase of earnings in recent times, while costs of running a business have increased as well as the costs of living.

The only group of people in Ireland whose income has steadily (and often quite significantly) risen over the years and will continue to do so are our politicians, civil servants and employees of public bodies and institutions. They all benefit from a system known as Benchmarking, which gives them an automatic wage increase based on the national average. The system, probably not unique to Ireland, but also not very common elsewhere, was introduced as a result of a special good will agreement between the government and the public service unions, ending a long period of frequent and often devastating strikes that hampered Ireland's economy for decades.
I still remember with some horror a series of strike actions in the early 1990s, where within a few months the bank clerks went on strike twice and the post office employees once. For some weeks there was not only no mail, but it was almost impossible to conduct any normal financial transactions. It did a lot of damage to many businesses, and once again the smaller enterprises were suffering the most.

Such impediments have disappeared from Irish life since Benchmarking was introduced, and in general everyone was happy with it. But during the period commonly referred to as the "Celtic Tiger", which brought a massive and unexpected economic boom to Ireland for about ten years, the beneficiaries of Benchmarking received a massive increase of earnings that created - perhaps without intention - a new class system in Ireland. While everyone working in the many areas of the private sector had to negotiate increases of wages and benefits (either personally or through their trade unions), those included in the Benchmarking system received theirs without having even to ask for it.
Thus Ireland is now a country of them (who are benchmarked) and us (the majority of people).
The most scandalous part of it is a vastly unproportionate pay-increase for leading politicians, who basically award it to themselves (even though now there is officially a commission, set up by the government, that makes "suitable recommendations" for the increase in politicians' pay).

Based on this commission's report our Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern has just raised his own salary by a staggering 38,000 Euros per annum, which is more than most Irish people earn in a year. It makes Mr. Ahern the highest paid leader in the world, even though Ireland is a quite small and unsignificant country with a population of only four million. Cabinet ministers got an increase of 25,000 Euros (which is still more than the annual income of most workers) and in line with that lower ranking officials were also rewarded handsomely in proportion.

All this happens at a moment in time when it is obvious that the great economic boom is over. In a global situation of insecurity (mainly created by the USA, but effecting every country on the planet) and massively rising prices for oil, steel, minerals and even food Ireland is no longer as competitive as it once was. So the government is telling everyone to expect a slow-down or even recession, with necessary reductions of personal income and lifestyle. However, at the same time our leaders exclude themselves from such predicted hardship and make sure that they are safe, sound and extremely well remunerated (which also includes enormous provisions for the pension plans of politicians).
Meanwhile even the once so secure civil servants and public employees are beginning to feel a bit of a pinch, as the recently announced Benchmarking figures show little or no increase of pay for the majority of them. Only the top grades will still receive their by now usual top-ups.

The mood among many people in Ireland is therefore quite gloomy right now, and the very cold weather does not help either. But the question is if our people will eventually do anything about the unfair system of them and us. In most other countries I know there would already by some social action, with demonstrations and signals of unrest. But not so in Ireland. Irish people love to grumble and complain, but when it comes to action they remain lazy and complacent. This is the main reason for the scandalous way ordinary Irish people are treated by our government for years. Now, with the Green Party being in government as a junior coalition partner, we also see an increase in bureaucracy and restrictive regulations, pretending to improve the environment. In reality they change very little, except that they make our lives ever more complicated, regulated and expensive.

As long as Irish people cannot be bothered to stand up for their own interests, this unfortunate situation will continue, perhaps until we are once again a poor and neglected country from which all those with the interest of finding a good job have to emigrate (as it was the norm for more than two centuries). Even though all signs and signals are pointing already in this direction, I am somehow still in hope that one day a great awakening will come and our people will act to rectify the appalling conditions. What we need is one nation of Irish people, working together for the common good, instead of the unfair class system we inherited from the British and augmented with the greed of our politicians and civil servants. It need not to involve another Post Office, a simple series of public demonstrations against the government would be more than enough.

Widely disappointed and disillusioned, but still carrying a small ember of hope, I remain

The Emerald Islander