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Waking up to a different world! Brexit and democracy!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Waking up to a different world! Brexit and democracy!

“On Friday 24 June 2016 the world changed…” could be a line in history books of the future about what happened last night, After a very divisive and extremely negative campaign, the UK voted in a referendum against remaining in the EU and for leaving it. And this shook the world! I stayed up for a large part of the night because I was working on the “Dublin Event Guide” and I saw it happening. Tiny margins, swinging between Leave and Remain and Leave again and Remain again and then LEAVE.

I have to admit that I am shocked about the result! I am shocked about the narrowmindedness of the 17mio British people who voted “Leave”. I am shocked about the fact that the FEAR campaign and the campaign of intolerance, of arrogance, ignorance and superiority complex (“Make Great Britain great again”) won. I think – and there is no sitting on the fence for this one – it was a totally stupid and hugely damaging decision by the UK, but there is also another side.

First of all, democracy is good and democracy means that nonsensical decisions also have to be accepted. Like it or not, we have to live with it.

The other aspect is that Britain has always been a trouble maker in the EU. And now the unruly, obnoxious and difficult child on the play ground, just decided in a huff to walk away from the other kids that tried to find a way to play with each other on that play ground for a long time. Yes, the unruly kid took some toys away when he left, but on balance, I think the nice kids will still do better by getting rid of the trouble maker.

Scotland, and if in any way possible also Northern Ireland, might be back in the EU at some stage and if people in London could, they would also leave the UK,. Interesting scenario! The United Kingdom became the Divided Kingdom over night and the damage this referendum did to the British population will probably not be healed for decades.

What does it mean for Ireland? There could be a lot of good in that development for Ireland! American companies that want to open offices in the EU will NOT choose the UK anymore and companies that are already in the UK might relocate to Ireland.

The development is shocking, but let’s face it, we live in a time when we have relatively little upsets to deal with, so in that context it is HUGE. But if you compare it to the years when rebellions and wars happened, it is not the biggest problem. So we will deal with it and there is a good chance that we will look back in a few years and remember the great day when the obnoxious kid left and positive calmness and co-operation returned to the play ground.

Bye by, Divided Kingdom!

Elsewhere, , ,

BREXIT and Who are these neighbours of ours?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
BREXIT and Who are these neighbours of ours?

It is less than a week until the British voters will decide if they will stay in the EU or if they will leave and while we in Ireland have no influence over the vote, it is still interesting to look at the what Britain was before the EU discussion began and what it is now.

I love the multicultural society in Ireland and if you compare it to an Ireland from the 80s, the society has changed SIGNIFICANTLY. Not for everyone, I know and you don’t have to change anyway if you don’t want to, but for the people that like variety, they can find events from all different countries and cultural backgrounds in Dublin.

But whenever I was in the UK in the past, I was always puzzled that the UK was soooo much more multicultural and that all seems to be working quite well in the society. There are Indians&Pakistani, Africans, Asians and Caucasians and a lot more in close proximity and nobody seemed to mind in the slightest.

The favourite national dish seems to be Indian, Italians are in charge of the previous national dish: Fish & Chips and they brought Coffee and Ice Cream, Jamaicans provide the music and had a sizeable influence on youth culture in the 60s and 70s were hugely important, Black people seemed better integrated than in most other countries. All in all, it just seemed as if Britain endorsed their colonial past by accepting all different cultures in and giving them the same opportunities. I know that Irish people had to deal with a lot of subliminal or even open racism at some point, but it seemed to me that this had improved a lot as well.

Please note: No formal research went into this, it was just an impression!!

But then the Brexit discussion happened! And the “new” Britain seems to be divisive, intolerant, selfish, excluding, “we are better than they”, confrontational , bullying and Anti-European or even Anti-International. What happened??

Imagine you had a nice, friendly and tolerant neighbour who over night became an intolerant, antisocial bully. You would probably not WANT to have anything to do with the bully anymore, right? So, if the majority of British people decides for leaving the EU, I think we should be glad that they are gone and we should treat them like you would treat the anti-social bully neighbour.

By the way: I don’t think the EU is perfect and we should be grateful for all it does, BUT I do think that Ireland and many other countries have and still do benefit hugely from the EU. I also am a strong believer in co-operation and “strength in numbers” instead of doing it on your own and I think that improving the EU from the inside is the right approach. So, Brexit supporters, I don’t understand you at all!

 

Economy, Elsewhere, , ,

Renewable Energy in Ireland!?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Renewable Energy in Ireland!?

I got my Electricity Bill this week and discovered a table on the back of the page that identifies how the electricity is generated. The table says that in Ireland 34.5% of the electricity is made from renewable energy sources, the rest id from Natural Gas, Coal and Peat. Unfortunately the ESB only uses 19.4% from renewable energy sources.

On the same day I discovered this video on Facebook www.facebook.com/greenpeace.international/videos/10153896061433300/ It is a video by Greenpeace that says that from 07-11 May Portugal powered the entire country solely from renewable energy. And in 2016 until now, about 75% of the energy was from renewable sources (Solar, wind and hydro). It continues to say that in Germany 87% of the electricity on 08 May was from renewables. And in the UK Solar power beat coal generated power for one day.

Looks like Ireland – and especially the ESB – will have a LOT of catching up to do!!

Environment

First find a woman then start your drink driving ban – Legal System in Ireland

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
First find a woman then start your drink driving ban – Legal System in Ireland

The legal system in Ireland, of which judges are a cornerstone, keeps puzzling me. I haven’t checked yet how judges are chosen, but whoever does the choosing must be some odd ball or alternatively these judges become odd balls themselves only AFTER they are appointed.

The Irish Times reported about the case of a bachelor farmer in County Kerry and the Irish Examiner had a slightly different interpretation of the story. The guy is called John O’Shea and he is 60 years of age. In July 2014 he went from Mastergeeha to Waterville (approx. 9km) to get food for his cows and drank too much when discussing football. On the way home, he drove into a ditch and was found to have nearly four (!!) times the legal alcohol limit in his blood (198mg). The penalty for that will be a a 3-year driving ban and luckily, the judge didn’t indicate that he plans to deviate from that.

The solicitor asked for the driving ban to be delayed until after the summer and here starts the oddness. It seems that the solicitor asked for the delay so that the farmer can look after the cows, but the judge seemed to have suggested the 60 year old never-married farmer should find a “nice woman” that will drive him around and – possibly seeing the opportunity – the solicitor quickly suggested that he could go to Lisdoonvarna to the matchmaking festival if he still had a car for the summer.

It seems that there is a lot of stupid-talk in court rooms in Ireland and it also could be that the solicitor just saw the opportunity that the judge provided and jumped on it without having planned to go for the “find a woman” reason for the delay.

But it really makes you wonder about the ability of Irish judges to do their job. This farmer had FOUR times the amount of alcohol in himself than he should have, so he didn’t just drink a little bit more than he knew he should have, but he filled himself up. Luckily nobody got hurt, but is it really the right message a judge should send??

Odd!!

Elsewhere, Justice, Odd, Society, , ,

New Architecture and Planing in Dublin – Getting better or worse?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
New Architecture and Planing in Dublin – Getting better or worse?

Let me start with this: I am NOT an architect, not an expert in building design and I also am not a structural engineer or a town planer, so I am not speaking from a place of trained or studied knowledge, BUT I do have an opinion.

On Friday it was announced that Hawkins House in Poolbeg Street, near Tara Station will be knocked down and replaced by a new building. The Department of Health will move out and once the building is finished some other department will move in. The Department of Health will move to the former Bank of Ireland building in Baggot Street.

TheJournal.ie had one of the best articles about this development here and they also provide some detail about the new building.

Through my day job, I know the current Hawkins House building reasonably well and I have to say that it is VERY ugly and doesn’t seem to be structurally safe anymore. Scaffolding is supporting the building in many places OR is protecting pedestrians from pieces that might come off. On the inside, Hawkins House is certainly not modern (it is from 1962), but not too bad looking. However, I can see many areas regarding comfort, but also regarding energy efficiency etc where significant improvements would be hugely beneficial.

After the announcement a good few people argued that building projects and the massive amount of money they will cost shouldn’t carried out as long as sick children can’t be looked after well and appropriately and I can empathise with this point. However, I don’t think one is directly linked to the other or simpler put, I don’t think one should exclude the other!

So with Hawkins House needing some significant work anyway, it probably makes more sense to knock it down than to patch it up.

The newspapers write about the “ugliest building in Dublin” and there are many competing for the prize. Hawkins House is a strong contender, so I was curious to see the proposal for its replacement and shockingly (but not THAT surprisingly) the replacement doesn’t look much better at all. It is a more modern ugly building, but it is questionable if any normal office building can ever look good.

I heard (but have no proof for it) that Hawkins House won some prizes when it was built in 1962 and in the same way the new building could win prizes, but in 40 years time, I would expect the new Hawkins House also being declared ugly. So now change there.

What puzzles me the most, though, is the fact that the current 11 storey building will be replaced with a 10 storey building. How does that makes sense? Liberty Hall and the Ulster Bank buildings are quite near and they are all higher than Hawkins House. And with space limitations in the City Centre, we need to make maximum use of the available space, so I would have expected an INCREASE in height, not a decrease. It should be at least 13 or 14 floors high, not 10.

And if you accept that in 30-50 years it will be declared as ugly anyway, then I also wonder if it should be attempted to make it “pretty” for today’s taste!?

Dublin, Other, ,
 
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