Ireland does not exemplify point writer trying to make
Alex Orr notes that “it is amazing what smaller nations can achieve when they have full control over their economic affairs.”
He may well be right, but Ireland hardly exemplifies the point he is making. By any reckoning the country’s economy is largely in hock to the giant US corporates that have flocked to the country – not out of love for the Irish, but out of love for the money they save by basing themselves in a tax-haven.
Predictably, their presence has created quite extraordinary economic distortions. Ireland’s broadcaster Telefis Eireann points out that when Apple moved its intellectual property assets to its Irish base in 2015 it drove the country’s Gross Domestic Product up by 25 per cent, prompting Nobel laureate Paul Krugman to comment on “leprechaun economics.”
The percentage added by Google, Pfizer and other ‘visitors’ can only be guessed at, but visitors they are and true to form they will all disappear like snow off a dyke as soon as a more attractive haven appears on the horizon. Ireland has no control over when this might happen. It cannot forever ignore the demands of its EEC partners to raise its corporation tax rate closer to theirs. Neither can President Biden ignore the vast sums America’s largest corporates are handing over to the Dublin government at a time when the White House is struggling with an unprecedented budget deficit.
I do not begrudge Ireland its unearned riches but it is sad to to note that just one mile north of Silicon Docks (Dublin’s wealth creating epicentre) lies a city district identified as one of the most deprived anywhere in Europe. And in a survey conducted last year, Ireland’s household disposable income came bottom in a list of 17 European and North American countries, confirming that a grossly inflated GDP is doing little to improve the lives of ordinary people. The acute and worsening housing crisis is another factor that might explain why seven out of 10 people aged 18-24 years olds are considering leaving the country permanently.
But enough! There is obviously much good news coming out of Ireland – it’s just that it has been won at a cost that we in Scotland wouldn’t necessarily want to incur.
With regard to Independence, I am surprised we are still debating it, given that its leading proponents have squandered most of their political capital campaigning for it instead of actually preparing for it. Had they united the country and pushed us up to the top of the UK league tables in terms of industrial output, improved social services and all the other metrics used to confirm administrative competence I would see the point.
Alas they haven’t and I don’t.
Andrew McIntyre, by email.
Spread of ‘green’ energy is not all good for communities
As the invasive tentacles of Big ‘green’ Energy and its devastating infrastructure spread across rural Scotland we are regularly subjected to the politicians’ and industry’s ‘buzz words’ to persuade us that succumbing to the industrialisation of where we live is for the ‘greater good’. Greater good for whom?
Not Scotland and certainly not the people who are steamrollered out of the way by multinational companies with no connection or love for the areas they spear their industrial junk in to. ‘Green’ electricity doesn’t exist if it is produced at the expense of the environment, wildlife, communities and their peace and enjoyment of living in their homes.
‘Clean’ generation can’t exist if it relies on fossil fuels and massively increases demand for metal and rare earth mining, much of it unregulated and highly polluting, for its manufacture, construction, operation and back up.
Communities ‘hosting’ these massive ‘green’ power stations insinuates they were invited to do so and happily accepted. In the natural world hosts are needed by parasites who feed off them to survive. As rural people feel in despair, helpless and downtrodden by the Scottish Government backed ‘green’ invaders it is understandable where the word ‘host’ came from.
The phrases ‘just transition’ and ‘wind parks’ are about as ludicrous as they can be. Where is the ‘just transmission’ in areas where vast pylon lines and substations are threatened? Where is the amenity and pleasure in seeing monstrous rotating cash machines slicing through once peaceful and undisturbed vistas?
‘Net Zero’ is bandied about with no figures or data to back up what it means to us financially or environmentally. How much more industrialisation does Scotland need on its hills, mountains and in its rural communities and glens before we reach this elusive target?
Can our elected representatives just be honest and tell us the facts? We are not stupid and it is time they stopped treating us like we are.
The faux ‘green’ movement has been allowed to become all powerful and seemingly without accountability. They are in government, shaping policies and the beneficiaries of their actions are filling their shareholders’ bank accounts while our land and oceans are sacrificed on their warped altar of ‘sustainability’.
The deceptive cloak of ‘green’ attempts to hide the inconvenient truth of what is fast being revealed as anything but by those who are prepared to stand up and say no to the immoral and destructive policies being forced on them.
Our politicians need to pick a side. They are either with us or against us.
Lyndsey Ward, spokeswoman for Communities B4 Power Companies, Beauly.
Fort William bank closure
It’s sad the Fort William branch of Virgin Money is closing this month. This was a great bank in it’s day. Many of us could never have built our own home if it hadn’t been for local manager Iain Nicolson’s confidence in our ability to pay it back over 30 years!
The staff today are a credit to the bank – sensitively guiding me through my recent bereavements and successfully addressing an earlier attempt to scam me. We’ll miss them all.
One solution, put to me by a friend, could be for a number of the local banks to work together, purchase or rent one of our many empty High Street shops, and have their own individual desks/counters in a private partitioned area within the premises – but with a combined cash dispenser.
Ken Johnston, Fort William.