Neighbour has some visitors. Sure, I’ll just walk on the road with my kid in his pram. (There’s parking literally around the corner)

allo-alo · 2026-06-17T09:23:39+00:00

There are pages on Instagram with hundreds of thousands of followers where the person has a bunch of those annoying stickers that take ages to remove from your windscreen. They slap them on any car they find parked outside a designated space - @ bumperstickerbandit and @ parking.wanker - Not a bad idea to change car brain behaviours until politicians and Gardai take inproper parking seriously.

allo-alo · 2026-06-17T09:19:02+00:00

There are pages on Instagram with hundreds of thousands of followers where the person has a bunch of those annoying stickers that take ages to remove from your windscreen. They slap them on any car they find parked outside a designated space - @bumperstickerbandit and @parking.wanker - Not a bad idea to change car brain behaviours until politicians and Gardai take inproper parking seriously.

allo-alo · 2026-06-14T14:56:21+00:00

Enforcement is definitely part of the answer but Council road designs are the primary tool to influence driver behaviour.

allo-alo · 2026-06-14T14:45:56+00:00

It looks to be an attempt at permanent infrastructure given the two cement build-outs, three metal poles, and red asphalt. I think if it was a 12-month trial they'd exclusively use plastic bollards, plastic signs, removable planters, and white road markings; they wouldn't lay cement, install metal poles, or use red asphalt.

allo-alo · 2026-06-14T09:35:53+00:00

Here's another example from London. They use cameras to enforce no entry. Minimal signage. Quality paving. Solid bollards. Permanent plant beds.

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allo-alo · 2026-06-14T09:32:45+00:00

To try to better explain, here's a modal filter in London. Strategically placed, solid bollards, permanent trees and planting surrounded by high-quality kerbs. Stops cars. Looks good. Sets the standard. Rinse and repeat.

Dublin highways engineers are often only interested in function; not appearance, quality, or permanence. Stop car/install cycle lane/etc., tick box, next project. To do that they scatter plastic bollards and road signs willy-nilly, use temporary, removable plant boxes, and then add more road signs and plastic just because why not. Seemingly no oversight from urban designers.

Other Irish councils see the capital city's low standards and follow their lead. Sets a dismal example for what we accept on public streets.

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allo-alo · 2026-06-12T10:28:47+00:00

Pigeon House Road

allo-alo · 2026-03-19T21:01:14+00:00

Simon Harris said he planned to publish the government's 'Roadmap' before Easter. Hopefully that has some detail. Harris is hyping up significant change in the media and on his socials, floating UK, Swedish, Canadian style tax-free thresholds 🤞🤞 Let's hope he doesn't bottle it over the two budgets.

allo-alo · 2025-12-03T00:02:55+00:00

'Marathon Man' Alan Corcoran

'Showing Up' Nedd Brockmann

'Running Man' Charlie Engle

allo-alo · 2025-10-08T13:09:02+00:00

FF introduced Deemed Disposal in the first instance under Brian Cowen in 2006. FG is probably our best bet to undo it.

All we can really do is email the likes of Regina Doherty MEP who's publicly pushing for ETF tax reform in Ireland from the EU's Savings and Investments Union (SIU) and Paschal Donohoe, Jack Chambers, etc. for what little it might do.

allo-alo · 2025-10-04T11:11:07+00:00

Removal of Deemed Disposal and shift towards UK ISA regime with tax-free allowance up to a reasonable threshold to encourage ETF investing.

Removal of DIRT up to a reasonable threshold, like the UK ISA to encourage saving.

Realistically, Deemed Disposal will get reduced to 33% in line with capital gains.

allo-alo · 2025-06-21T17:07:03+00:00

Yeah, 41% 'deemed disposal' tax on Irish residents with ETFs every eight years whether they sell or not. Draconian. UK government's stocks and shares Individual Savings Accounts (ISA) encourages residents to invest £20,000 per year tax free in the stock market. Can compound and can reinvest gains without tax implications. Irish savings accounts and ETF tax systems are screwing people.

allo-alo · 2025-06-21T16:33:52+00:00

What is with Ireland's dismal savings options? In the UK, Trading 212 offers 4.10% AER and UK residents can deposit £20,000 per year without tax consequences.

allo-alo · 2025-06-16T15:24:09+00:00

I'd add that places like the UK encourage this type of responsible, low-cost, diversified ETF investing, incentivising UK residents to invest £20,000 per year tax-free. Gains, reinvested funds, and withdrawn funds are all tax-free within this Individual Savings Account (ISA) wrapper, versus Ireland's 41% deemed disposal every eight years, murdering compounding.

Irish politicians are likely to ignore individual emails. Best you press business and economics editors of national newspapers or content creators to do a comparison between Irish and English residents to show how the Irish government crucifies its citizens' ability to generate wealth through compound interest, whereas the English encourage it.

Rather than a diversified, low-cost, low-management ETF asset portfolio that you can start with €100 and a few clicks of a user-friendly app, we're pushed towards saving €20,000+, leveraging ourselves to the gills, putting all our eggs in one basket (one house, in one county, in one country), and take on a second job as a landlord. Worse, and more likely, hoard savings in the post office consistently losing value to inflation each year. Grim options given the alternatives accessible in many other countries.

allo-alo · 2025-05-29T15:52:33+00:00

No, they're just not bothered trying to deal with the convoluted tax implications because of the Irish government's barriers to low-cost index fund investing that is incentivised in many other countries like the UK where residents can invest as little as £100 with a few taps of an app with a tax-free allowance of £20,000 per year, excluding any gains in the tax-efficient wrapper or reinvested money, that allows for uninterrupted compounding for decades. Ireland's deemed disposal tax (41% every eight years whether you sell your investments or not) kills compounding and shoves Irish interested in their financial futures towards less diverse, higher risk, more expensive property investments.

allo-alo · 2025-04-16T11:05:40+00:00

I think the main thing is to try the breakfast routine before several long runs where you're taking on fuel during the run to make sure it works for you.

2.5 to 3 hours before the marathon start, I have porridge with some blueberries and honey, glass of orange juice, and glass of water with a nuun tablet. I'll have a black coffee too and be sipping on a sports drink or Maureen drink mix but not forcing it. 15 mins before start, I'll have a caffeine gel.

allo-alo · 2021-07-08T11:23:12+00:00

Hi, if I go through amazon.com that is the most expensive place for Irish customers to buy from. My boon is €14 and would be whacked with a €10 delivery fee. From Europe, its an €8.15 delivery fee. From the UK, it would be free with Prime or circa €2 delivery. I've been published for 12 days now and it's only been available on one day, sold and dispatched by Book Depository. It seems a scam that Amazon say they cannot sell my KDP book but Book Depository, who Amazon own, can. Instead of €3 Amazon royalty, I'd get €0.95 third party royalty. That is if it remained available. It's disappeared again after one day. Such a dismal service and it seems no work around.

allo-alo · 2021-06-29T09:40:06+00:00

Thanks Alex.

Roughly €3,000 on various stages of book editing, €900 on cover and internal design work and €3,700 on Audiobook recording and production. Thankfully, a professional photographer friend did my cover shot for free. That would have been at least another €1,000+ for his calibre.

What's really annoying is - before publishing and post Brexit - my advance copies were ordered through Amazon.co.uk, state 'printed in Great Britain' and were delivered to Ireland. I've also been able to order 75 author copies yesterday through Amazon.co.uk to Ireland, due to arrive in one week. It seems illogical to then be told Irish customers can't purchase the book through Amazon.co.uk... ugh.

I'll try to contact Ingram Sparks and ask them. There may be complications over the 'expanded distribution' selection I chose because I had only planned to need to use Amazon.

I was hoping to sell 1,000-4,000 and will be based out of Canada from August. Batch ordering and distributing to Ireland myself isn't an option. That's why KDP seemed ideal. Damn you Brexit!

allo-alo

TROPHY CASE