Last week I read somewhere that there are now approx. 7,000 Electric Vehicles (EV) registered in Ireland. But the Irish government has committed to 20,000 on Irish roads by 2020 and 500,000 by 2030. :-O The 20,000 number doesn’t look reachable unless more is done to promote EVs.
In 10 years from 2020 to 2030 a lot can happen, so it is impossible at the moment to make any guesses about the reachability of that BIG goal, but the next milestone is – based on current uptake – impossible to reach.
Yes, on the coming Friday (26 October) the presidential election is taking place in Ireland and you should go and cast your vote if you have one! Only if you are an Irish citizen you get to vote and I know that MANY Dublin Event Guide Readers are not citizens in Ireland, but the rest should definitely go and vote.
You might ask WHY? Because in the end it will have absolutely no impact on your life (or anybody else’s) or on Irish politics or on your wealth or wellbeing. Yes, indeed, voting for the Irish President is a bit of a waste of time as far as real life issues are concerned. BUT using your vote, whenever you have the opportunity, is – in my opinion – a sort of duty for everyone who cares about democracy. There will be no repercussions if you don’t vote, so the “duty” element is just a “moral duty”, but nevertheless it is relevant to keep democracy alive/working.
If you want to know my opinion about who people should vote for – and yes, it is a bit controversial – you will find it at www.joergsteegmueller.com/2018/10/19/presidential-election-anyone-but-miggeldy/
By the way, you will ALSO have a vote about a referendum on that Friday. The referendum will decide if the Blasphemy article will stay in the constitution or not. (Blasphemy is the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence to a deity, or sacred things.) Total nonsense in a secular society that does not depend on any church (anymore). And in the Irish version, the Blasphemy article even only covers the Christian definition of a “God” and ignores all other religions. Even more a reason to get rid of this silly article from 1935.
Dublin City had planned to pedestrianise the College Green area from the TCD front to approx. where H&M and Starbucks are and turn this new City Centre Plaza into a public amenity. (An article is here.) It would have been the first and only City Centre event space and in my opinion it is the perfect location for a PROPER Christmas Market in Dublin.
But the planning authority, An Bord Pleanala, was not in favour of it because it would have a negative effect on traffic and would cause unacceptable conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians.
At the moment College Green can only be used by buses and taxis and getting taxis out of this area would – in my opinion – be a good thing.
By the way: The only chance a Christmas Market has in Dublin if it a) is in a central location and b) is organised and run by Dublin City, NOT an event management company and definitely not by DublinTown.
The next steps that Dublin City will take regarding this, have not been revealed yet.
The Presidential Election in Ireland is coming closer. On 26 October all Irish citizens in Ireland will be asked to vote for a new President. There are six candidates (including the current president) and the term is a very long 7 years.
The candidates are Sean Gallagher, Gavin Duffy, Peter Casey, Joan Freeman, Liadh Ní Riada and the current president Michael D. Higgins (a.k.a Miggeldy Higins, after a primary school’s child answer to the question “Who is the President of Ireland?”).
None of the candidates is any better than another, considering that the Irish President has virtually NO political power. But none of them is unsuitable either. So who should you vote for?
In my opinion you can’t do ANYTHING wrong, no matter who you vote for, so if – for whatever reason – you feel passionate about one of them, go ahead and vote for him or her. But if you are not sure and care about my opinion, then I would suggest to vote for anyone but Michael D. Higgins!
Why so? There are two reasons: 1) Age and 2) Arrogance
We have a minimum age for a President. For some reason it has been decided that anybody that is younger than 35 years of age is not eligible to be voted as a President. In the same way, it also would make sense to have an upper age limit. It can’t make sense that an over 80 year old is the President of a country unless we are super desperate and absolutely can’t find anyone else! Higgins will be 84 when the next term ends and there is no good reason for that. Aras an Uachterain should NOT be a retirement home!
And the point about arrogance? I know he took part in the debate on Virgin Media One on Thursday, but his refusal to take part in previous debates is an arrogance that no candidate should be allowed to get away with. And Sean Gallagher, who also refused because Higgins refused, doesn’t get any stars for this from me either.
Speaking about debates: The Virgin Media One debate was really interesting, because it showed that Michael D. Higgins is not at all an impressive candidate, actually he is surprisingly weak, considering that he was in that position already for 7 years. (So don’t expect anything impressive from him in the next 7 years!) But it also showed, that there is no outstanding other candidate.
And finally, what would I do…if you care? The one that I would probably vote for is Gavin Duffy! Seven years ago, it would have been Sean Gallagher, but this time around I am not convinced about him.
For me, the biggest surprise of the evening was that Pat Kenny did a really good job in probing the candidates!
On Tuesday 09 Oct, the Budget for Ireland for 2019 will be announced. In previous years the media was whipping their readers into a frenzy about what will be increased and what will be decreased and lots of interest groups warned the government about the terrible consequences of the new budget unless they turn it around in time before Tuesday.
But it seems to me that this year the Budget Day is coming on soft slippers. There seems to be a lot less noise about the announcement on Tuesday than in previous years. It could be that it is just my perception, but it also could be that it is quieter because everyone knows that we can’t expect much (good) from the budget, but that it also won’t be tooo bad.
Yes, Cigarettes prices will most likely go up again. Not for health reasons, but just to get taxes.
Petrol and Diesel prices will probably go up as well (and you should fill up your car before midnight on Tuesday if you want to avoid the price hike for the last time).
The 9% VAT rate for the hopsitality sector (hotels and restaurants) will probably go up and that will have a definite bad effect on your pocket if you ever eat out! The restaurants will ALL increase their prices the moment the VAT increase takes effect and the increase will never be limited to the actual VAT increase, but will be generously rounded up. (A 2% increase of that VAT rate should increase a EUR 20 dinner only by 40 cent, but I bet most restaurants will add at least EUR 1 to the price!)
Income tax might fall a bit, but the other tax increases will most likely eat all the savings so that you end up with just a handful of Euro more in your pocket.
DIRT (Deposit Interest Retention Tax), that’s the tax on the interest you earn for your savings, will go down, but that is just part of a many year plan of reducing it, so nothing new. And the Property Tax might go down a tiny bit.
Nothing overly exciting! Maybe that is the reason for the reduced media hype!?
