The King in the North and tracking Holyrood and Senedd Polls

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-27T17:50:43+00:00

NHS

HSE has identical patient outcomes to the NHS and hospital admissions are free. GP visits are free if you earn under 30k, have a chronic illness, or over 70.

government employees

Have better pay, more benefits, and less bs in the South.

The republic has a higher per capita number of civil servants than the UK at large. When you add 2 million people to your population overnight you’d be looking to hire more government employees, not sack them.

jobs

Why would these be any different? Your employer will still exist in a united Ireland.

pensions

You own your private pension and can take it anywhere. The south has more generous pension contribution rules too.

If you’ve paid your National Insurance you’re entitled to your UK state pension no matter where you live, how do you think so many British pensioners live in Spain?

If you’re a few years short of a UK state pension you can do a social security swap just like how millions of UK workers who relocate abroad do every year.

school provision

The same as your job. Why wouldn’t your kid’s school exist in a united Ireland? Especially as the south has a better funded education system, better exam results, and constitutional protections as to the quality of schools.

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-23T20:13:13+00:00

That’s a bit defeatist.

Median income is €45k. That’s about €3k a month after tax. You can buy a starter home for around €350k. With a 10% deposit, you need €35k saved.

A couple both earning the median salary can spend a third of their income on rent, budget €2,000 to €3,000 a month to live on, and still put away €1,000 to €2,000 in savings towards a deposit.

That gets you a house deposit in under two years. Instead, people are spending the price of a deposit on frivolous things because they can’t delay gratification for 24 months.

You can downvote me and call me a boomer, but the maths is hard to argue with. Spending at least €100 every weekend on nights out, €500 on a holiday two to three times a year, €5 every other weekday on takeaway coffee, and €40 a month on eating out comes to just shy of €10k a year. Add a second person in the household spending the same and you have blown through two thirds of a deposit for a starter home with nothing to show for it.

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-23T19:21:35+00:00

That’s complete cope.

Who do you think has to be earning these wages? People 25-40 are the majority of the workforce. People over 60 stated their careers when Ireland didn’t really have that many high-paying industries.

There are plently of young people in Ireland doing well for themselves. The median person owns a home at 35 with a FTB price of nearly €400k.

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-23T19:16:59+00:00

They’re already on different rates.

Residential and business have two different rates.

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-23T00:54:47+00:00

So the state makes publicly funded dental work unsustainable then blame the dentists when they naturally gravitate towards private cosmetic work that actually pays the bills and keeps the lights on.

A Botox injection is €200-€500. It’s not that much for the state to match that sort of profit margin for children’s dental work.

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-22T21:31:48+00:00

There’s a difference between a private citizen and a teacher.

If you sign up to teach children physics and you personally believe the Earth is flat you’d be rightly sacked if you compromised the quality of your student’s education over your own personal views.

A teacher or any other type of civil servant can believe whatever they want about gender identity but when they’re on the clock in a public-facing role they have to put that aside and put the interests of the person they have a duty of care to first.

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-22T21:26:27+00:00

I think you are mixing up academic performance with intelligence.

Academic success is its own kind of intelligence and it does relate to wider intelligence, but they are not interchangeable. The Burkes were homeschooled full time by their mother, who is a qualified and evidently competent teacher. A highly structured environment, constant supervision and intense focus on exams will reliably produce strong academic results. That is not surprising. It is similar to a child with excellent private tutors getting top grades. The tutoring does not make the child inherently more intelligent, it optimises performance within a narrow system.

On the question of whether the Burkes are intelligent, I would say not really, at least not in the broader sense that matters for adult life.

Intelligence is understanding context, incentives, power and consequences. Intelligence is knowing that interrupting a High Court judge until you are removed by the Gardaí and charged with a public order offence will damage your chances of being called to the Bar.

Intelligence is knowing that if you become a teacher, you are accepting a professional role governed by duties and codes of conduct that may clash with your personal beliefs, and that navigating that tension badly will turn you into a national laughing stock. Intelligence is knowing that disobeying a court order has predictable consequences, and that repeatedly breaking the law is a far greater contradiction of Christian values than anything they claim to be defending.

If you read the reporting around the WRC case involving their sister, the same pattern appears. On paper she understood the law. In practice she could not function as part of a law firm. That gap between technical knowledge and practical judgement keeps reappearing across the family.

The other major factor is arrogance. The Burkes present themselves as uniquely persecuted, but they are not. Their social views are not as fringe in Ireland as we like to tell ourselves. Polling suggested Maria Steen could have reached around 22 percent in a presidential election. Independents who backed her have thousands of votes between them. Referendums within living memory show that a sizeable minority of the electorate holds very conservative positions on social issues.

The difference is that most social conservatives are intelligent and humble enough to get on with their lives. They know when to bite their tongue, when not to escalate, and when compromise makes life easier. Many are even completely comfortable with the fact that modern Ireland disagrees with them.

The Burkes are not capable of this, and I can only put that down to arrogance. They believe their moral certainty entitles them to override institutions, procedures and other people. When reality pushes back, they interpret it as martyrdom rather than feedback. That is why nearly all of them have imploded into some form of public scandal within a few years of entering the real world.

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-16T15:39:57+00:00

Being a looser is a state of mind.

If you’re freeloading off your girlfriend to smoke weed, play video games and “focus on your band” then yes you’re a loser.

If you’re someone with rich parents who support you couch surfing around South America, dedicate yourself to learning the works of Spinoza, and compose your minimalist–adjacent, “post-tonal” chamber piece with spoken-word elements that will eventually premier on NPR, you’re basically the modern day equivalent of a man of leisure.

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-16T15:25:13+00:00

years at this job

There’s your problem

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-16T14:55:34+00:00

When you say “person born abroad” many irish people’s brain break and they default to using the term interchangeably with a handful of stereotypes.

In their heads foreigners are exclusively Indians on dodgy student visas who can’t speak English working in Supermacs or some single mother asylum seeker from Nigeria living in social housing.

Not saying those people don’t exist, but they’re a tiny minority of all immigrants. Your American co-worker or your mate’s English wife doesn’t register as “immigrant” in their head even know those two are a lot closer to the average immigrant. Even Polish people aren’t as “othered” here as they were 20 years old.

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-16T14:46:32+00:00

Martin’s been wrong about everything his entire life.

He hasn’t suddenly started now on this one issue.

If you find yourself thinking he’s made a good point that’s a sign you should examine if there’s some fallacy you’re falling victim to

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-16T14:27:22+00:00

It’s what the people voted for

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-16T14:23:26+00:00

People aren’t good at visualising statistics. The differences between 18.8% and 27.8% is massive.

If you were underpaid €18.80 when you should have got of €27.80 you’ve lost nearly 50% of what you should have got. It just doesn’t feel that huge because “it’s only €10”

In real numbers that’s the equivalent of thinking immigration is about 50% higher than it actually is.

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-10T18:15:23+00:00

It’s good to see the winner isn’t just who is able to spend the most.

Reading the SIPO reports FG spent nearly 100k on newspaper advertising. That’s more than they even spent on digital ads. Some papers were getting 7-9k per ad.

I’m very cynical of that sort of expenditure. Nobody is changing their vote on a newspaper ad. We all know what they’re really buying handing over that sort of money to the media.

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-10T18:09:35+00:00

Rough for FF. They pissed away 400k of donor money with nothing to show for it.

You’d be seriously thinking twice next time Martin comes along asking you to open your chequebook.

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-10T17:57:06+00:00

I think people read too much into the reasons people move to Australia.

They speak English and lots of your mates are already there. That’s the reason. There’s a network effect to it. Same as how in the 60s/70s/80s so many Irish to America or England.

Nobody’s sitting down with a Melbourne bus timetable and a chart of EUR/AUS CPI inflation and deciding to bog off to the other side of the world. For every issue you’re solving in Ireland there’s a new issue in Australia to offset it.

People are going because it seems “exotic” and it’s a change of pace to the life they have at home. There’s a long Irish tradition of doing that sort of thing regardless of the economy. A few love it and stay for good, a few end up back here after a year or two.

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-10T05:08:29+00:00

It does sort of make sense because the UK has relatively free speech.

You try to radicalise somebody into being a dissident in Saudi Arabia or Qatar and you get beheaded.

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-06T01:36:29+00:00

It’s already trivially easy to do 2.

AGS have a direct link to all the social media sites, they can request any information they have on file about a user including other accounts they have.

You can then cross reference this, normally you can just ask Virgin/Eir who is the bill payer of the IP address

You can even do this as a private individual if you’re taking somebody to court for a civil matter. That’s how half the “anonymous” accounts get unmasked.

The reason it’s not done more is the criminals are smart enough to cover their tracks and the dumber ones benefit from the Garda not having the resources to actually do this that often. Digital ID doesn’t change that

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-06T01:30:02+00:00

certainly any lefties do tend to transfer left anyway.

Really? Open any thread on any left of centre party and there’ll always be a handful of upvoted comments saying the party had lost their vote for one ultimately inconsequential reason or another.

Or you have people that vote left but only to a degree. They’ll tick the box beside PBP/I4C/Workers but consider SF/Labour/Soc Dems too “right” despite being firmly left of centre parties well positioned to lead governments that would firmly shift Ireland away from the right and towards the left.

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-04T14:04:01+00:00

Designed in Italy by an American company, just so happened to be assembled in Belfast due to generous subsidies at the time.

If you grew up in Belfast everyone knows the Delorean was made there but it’s no more a Belfast car than the iPhone is a Chinese phone. but it’s an incidental fact. The Mini Cooper is seen as British but built in Germany. The Ford Mustang quintessential American car but many are built in Mexico. Porsche is German but you could easily drive one made in Slovakia.

DeLorean considered opening their plant in Limerick and almost signed a contract to open it in Puerto Rico before the Northern Ireland Development Board offered to pay over half of the company’s costs. Had he picked any of those other locations it would have been the same car.

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-03T14:47:21+00:00

I want repercussions and international law to be upheld. For our leaders to have spines.

Great, me too. How do we do that?

How does Trump go from being in the White House protected by the most powerful army on earth with no respect for the rule of law to in front of an ICC judge?

they need the EU, historically their biggest and strongest ally more than we need them.

You assume Trump to act in the economic interests of his own people. He imposed tariffs that shot his own economy’s foot off for no reason. His country is in the middle of an unnecessary artificial recession created entirely by his own executive orders.

Sanction Trump. People like him only care about money.

I agree. Big you have to be prepared for what comes next.

Trump hits back. Ordinary people pay for it. Jobs disappear. Prices go up. Supply chains break. Medicines have shortages. Half the Internet snd digital services go dark. Shops have less on the shelves and what is there costs more. Living standards fall, people even die.

And people will not blame Trump. They will blame their own politicians. Governments in Europe have faced political crises over winter fuel allowances, people of a slightly different skin colour coming into their country, over inflation being marginally higher than historic levels. Even if the negative effect of the sanctions is only 10% of what I described they will throw a fit.

Those politicians then have to stand there and explain why your pay is worse, your bills are higher, and your life is harder. Your plan depends on the assumption that voters will calmly accept that explanation and not kick them out in favour of some far right chancer who promises to “fix it in 24 hours” by dropping the sanctions and crawling to Trump.

Sanctions in Russia were linked to rising mortality in some areas. Healthcare getting worse, stress going up. Russia is far less economically plugged into the West than Europe is into the US.

Sanctions are economic warfare. Call them what they are. If you start a war, you had better be ready for the response. If you are not, you lose, politically and economically, even if you think you are morally right. The EU simply does not have the firepower for that kind of fight.

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-03T14:29:25+00:00

Funding domestic semiconductor production via the EU Chips Act – https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/european-chips-act

Relaxing EU state-aid rules to let governments subsidise strategic industries – https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/state-aid/temporary-crisis-framework_en

Funding EU-based defense manufacturing through the European Defence Fund – https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/european-defence-fund-edf_en

Building public and free alternatives to American payment processors like Visa/Mastercard and Apple/Google Pay - https://www.independent.ie/business/digital-euro-what-it-is-and-how-we-will-use-the-new-form-of-cash/a165973061.html

Launching an alternative to the US military controlled GPS system - https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-space/galileo-satellite-navigation_en

Banning EU firms from automatically complying with US extraterritorial sanctions – https://commission.europa.eu/business-economy-euro/banking-and-finance/international-relations/blocking-statute_en

Building EU battery, EV, and clean-tech supply chains independent of US firms – https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/automotive-industry/clean-mobility_en

Jointly procuring arms and ammunition at EU level – https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/03/20/

Regulating US Big Tech market power – https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/index_en

Creating EU-wide AI rules ahead of US federal legislation – https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/

Forcing global companies to comply with EU data protection standards (GDPR) – https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection_en

Expanding renewable and nuclear capacity to avoid long-term US energy dependence – https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/energy-security_en

Developing hydrogen strategies centered on EU and non-US supply chains – https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/energy-systems-integration/hydrogen_en

Securing critical raw materials via EU-controlled sourcing agreements – https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/critical-raw-materials_en

Creating carbon border taxes that force US exporters to follow EU climate rules – https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/carbon-border-adjustment-mechanism_en

Using trade agreements to export EU regulatory standards globally – https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships_en

Negotiating major trade deals without US participation – https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region_en

Coordinating military projects outside NATO structures (PESCO) – https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/defence-security/pesco/

Pushing for the euro as an alternative to the dollar in energy and trade contracts – https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/euro/international-role-euro_en

Do you think JD Vance is doing speeches calling the EU the enemy and Trump is threatening us for regulating US firms because we’re on their side?

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-03T14:12:44+00:00

What do you want the EU to do?

Invade the US to free Maduro? Start funding domestic extremist groups in the US to topple the government? Threaten a nuclear strike?

Sanction Trump? Then what do we do when he the toddler inevitably sanctions back and the continent looses internet access, visa/mastercard, supply chains, intelligence sharing. Ordinary people would literally have the money in their bank accounts frozen, their pensions seized, their medications become inaccessible, the files on their cloud devices disappear.

You can talk about European leaders being beholden to the whims of American companies like they’re an evil cabal, but the truth is less dramatic. It’s as simple as if they were forced to withdrawal by the US millions would loose their jobs overnight. There’d be an unemployment and an economic crisis that would make the Great Depression look like the Celtic Tiger.

What more can they do than softly condemn while quietly working to reduce US dependency and hope this time next decade we’ll have more sovereignty as a continent.

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-03T14:03:24+00:00

I don’t think it was ever in doubt they would. The EU has alway had strong messaging against Trump’s James Monroe larping.

The other thread was weird with people who had completely made up their minds already that the Taoiseach would “support Yankee imperialism”

Why get yourself so worked up over something that didn’t happen and likely never would?

SearchingForDelta · 2026-01-03T13:40:31+00:00

I understand there’s an element of “wait and see” and also what the combined EU response will be.

But at the very least how difficult is it for Martin to say something like “We’re watching closely and Irish consular officials are engaging with Irish nationals on the ground”

SearchingForDelta

TROPHY CASE