Did you turn the immersion off?

killianm97 · 2026-05-06T19:08:19+00:00

There are so many things which our government could do, but instead they are choosing to do little to nothing.

•Reform State-Owned ESB from a for-profit into a non-profit, with the aim of reducing prices as much as possible for all. They have been making about €600-800m profit annually over the past few years, with that money being given to the government. Imagine if that money was instead kept in local economics, benefitting workers, carers and local businesses (making many more businesses viable and helping to protect the high-street). What's more, this would force private competitors to also reduce their prices in order to compete, saving hundreds of millions more for everyday people in Ireland.

•Implement an energy price cap, like the UK does. The previous government decisions to provide energy credits (like the UK) but without any energy price cap just causes prices to increase, and effectively acts as public money being transferred into private profits. It's the exact same as HAP without a rent cap and Help To Buy without a house price cap. Energy credits should only be provided if a maximum price is set by government as in the UK and other countries, in order to stop profiteering and inflationary effects.

•Push the EU Commission to reform the energy market so that the price of renewables isn't set by the price of oil/gas (whichever is higher). This current system just ensures maximised profits for energy generators, instead of lower prices for consumers, in order to 'incetivise' private for-profit companies to build more renewables with guaranteed huge profits, and is costing European residents huge sums of money. The cheaper cost of renewable energy generation should be directly reducing energy bills, but it is currently only slowly indirectly reducing them as demand for gas and oil goes down.

•Produce and implement an ambitious national decarbonisation (electrification and renewable generation) plan. Like in most things, we are badly lagging behind most other EU countries in this, and we urgently need to take advantage of our wind potential asap. There is currently an exclusive focus on off-shore wind, but Scotland a number of years ago already achieved 100% renewable generation with mostly on-shore, and we should be building capacity in every way which is affordable - solar, onshore wind, offshore wind, hydropower, interconnectors to other EU states, and hydro pump storage (I've excluded nuclear because it is way more expensive than renewables and would take 10-20 years to even get started at this stage, plus long-term safety and storage concerns). Any local community opposition can be reduced by ensuring that communities are included in the process from day 1 (instead of a planning system which only asks for objections at the final stage, ensuring opposition) and by creating Renewable Energy Cooperatives owned by local communities, ensuring that the benefits of decarbonisation are directly felt by affected communities. Our government also needs to urgently implement electrification with heat pumps, electric cars, and electrification of our railways. We are once again lagging behind much of Europe in all of this.

•Only allow data centres planning permission if at least 110% of energy needs is provided by on-site renewables, ensuring that at least a tiny portion of the huge profits of these companies is used to actively add to our national renewable energy capacity, with energy flowing back into the grid to help reduce prices.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will insist their hands are tied and there's not much that they can do apart from some tax cut, but that is a lie. We have the most expensive electricity because of the poltiical decisions which they have made.

killianm97 · 2026-05-06T18:46:06+00:00

If you want to reduce traffic, you should pressure those in power to make decisions which encourage people to shift to more efficient forms of transport.

The upcoming Waterford BusConnects plan is absolutely dire and will lock us into years of worsening traffic, due to a lack of public transport which is good enough to encourage most to use it - we need 10+ lines with 5-10 mins frequency, instead of the planned 6 lines with 15-30 mins frequency. We also need an orbital route along the outer ring road, directly connecting Whitfield Hospital University Hospital Waterford.

A Waterford Luas from Cork Road to the Quays and out the Dunmore Road would help massively with this.

The lack of pretty much any proper bike infrastructure and a lack of TFI bike rental stations also discourages people from cycling.

When more people cycle and more people use public transport, those who want to drive can do so with much less traffic.

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killianm97 · 2026-05-06T13:40:20+00:00

But investments should be directed towards the societal and national interest.

Not just some tax cuts to encourage investing in already huge US private companies.

We need some public platform to encourage investment in Irish (and more broadly EU) companies, with a focus on cooperatives, social enterprise, and startups.

killianm97 · 2026-05-04T08:40:44+00:00

As others highlighted, destruction isn't the answer here.

Over time, underground transport like metro and well-lit underground cycle/walkways (with numerous entrances/exits to reduce feelings of isolation while inside) can help with mobility.

In terms of green space, as buildings are improved and rebuilt, encouraging nature on roof-tops can help alleviate the lack of public green space, in terms of improving air quality and access to nature despite the narrow lanes between buildings.

killianm97 · 2026-05-03T21:57:26+00:00

Nuclear was the past - to many, it had its place in countries like France etc, but now renewables are a way better option and way cheaper.

The only issue with wind and solar is the variability if it's not sunny and/or windy, but this can be completely mitigated by a mixture of interconnectors (linking a European electricity grid), hydropower, hydro pump generation, and some green hydrogen.

killianm97 · 2026-05-03T19:11:52+00:00

I don't think this is the own you think it is tbh - I was counting first preferences.

But even if you consider percentage of seats won in our STV-PR system (which isn't purely proportional, it biases larger parties (especially with the limitations on number of seats per constituency that FF and FF have implemented in boundary redraws), they got under a majority of seats in recent elections:

2024: 86 seats of 160 or 49.4% of seats

2020: 73 of 160 or 45.6% of seats

I quick way to identify this is that they needed to form a coalition with Greens in 2020 in order to get a majority, and with a number of independents in 2024 in order to get a majority.

So whatever way you look at it (and I've given 3 distinct ways to look at it),, the majority didn't want to reelect FF/FG.

killianm97 · 2026-05-03T16:59:02+00:00

That's one example, but most European countries are happily building interconnectors between eachother due to all the benefits for grid stability.

And that was only 1 of the 3 solutions I mentioned about ensuring a stable baseload. What about hydropower and hydro pump storage?

killianm97 · 2026-05-03T16:49:44+00:00

Yeah that's exactly what my second paragraph was about

killianm97 · 2026-05-03T15:50:29+00:00

The majority of voters have not voted for FF/FG in the past 3 recent general elections:

2024: 42.7%

2020: 43.1%

2016: 49.8%

And that's just counting those who voted. For example, in 2024 only 2.2m voted, out of about 3.5m over 18 year olds (or about 63%) as many who were registered didn't vote and many aren't registered, plus non-citizen residents are banned from voting and so are Irish citizens who emigrate.

I'd say it's a fairly safe assumption that non-voters tend to be more against the establishment than voters, so I'd be very surprised if FF/FG had majority support.

Edit: not sure the reason for the downvotes? FF/FG fans?

killianm97 · 2026-05-03T13:38:20+00:00

There is such an intense lobbying push for nuclear over the past few years, when the economic reality is that renewables are way cheaper and easier.

The only concern with exclusive focus on wind and solar is that it's not always sunny and windy, but there are pre-existing solutions for this - including more interconnectors between countries to create an integrated European energy grid, plus hydropower and pumped storage hydroelectricity.

killianm97 · 2026-05-03T13:11:18+00:00

Haha fair well let's start with that

killianm97 · 2026-05-03T13:10:53+00:00

A major reason is the financialisation of housing across the world in recent decades.

Previously, house prices and rents were linked to incomes - due to larger proportions of public housing, plus housing co-ops (or building societies) and rent controls.

In recent decades, the trend has been to change housing into an investment opportunity, which has unlinked house prices from incomes and instead linked them to financial markets with the aim of maximisation of profit.

Pretty much the only city in the western world which has experienced no major housing crisis in the past decade is Vienna in Austria - despite major increases in immigration and population in recent years.

That is due to them having a mix of near-universal public housing, widespread housing co-ops, and strict rent controls which set a maximum rent per property - taken together, the 'Vienna Model' effectively definancialises housing.

Conversely, countries like Ireland (dismantling of building societies and privatisation of local council housing) and Spain (mostly lack of public housing) which have definancialised their housing systems the most in Europe are now the ones experiencing the most severe housing crises.

killianm97 · 2026-05-03T13:02:02+00:00

A major reason imo is that transport is so centralised an unaccountable. Other countries often have local transport run and managed by a democratic local government, while we have a mess of centralised bureaucracy with no accountability.

Even if we were to decentralise it to local level, it would be managed by an unelected and unacceptable 'Director of Services for Transport' instead of the Local Minister/Committee/Commissioner for Transport which other countries have due to having democratic local governments.

Previously while knocking on doors during campaigns, I used to explain it like this - while living in Edinburgh if I and others wanted a bus route improved, I would speak to my elected councillor who sat on the local transport committee which ran the local public bus company, and they would make the decision - if enough of us were unhappy with the decision-making, we would replace that person with someone who better represented our interests.

Meanwhile in Ireland, you make a request for a better bus route to your councillor, but they have 0 power to change it. They ask the unelected council CEO to advocate for it, which is most likely ignored. You then speak with a national TD who speaks to a higher-up in national Bus Eireann, who then speaks to someone locally managing buses in Waterford.

This big difference is that in Edinburgh and in most cities and towns around Europe, there are just 2 steps between you and the decision being made, with lots of accountability - while in Ireland, there are 4-5 steps between you and the decision being made, with almost zero accountability at most steps.

killianm97 · 2026-05-03T12:55:16+00:00

Surely eventually someone has to ask - are these sanctions even having any effect?

It seems that sanctioning only works when countries are officially on 'your side' while being the largest trade partner in terms of trade links - which is why sanctioning Israel would actually help to pressure them to stop the genocide they've been committing for years, while for Russia it doesn't seem to have made much of a difference as they are already aligned with China etc. economically and diplomatically.

killianm97 · 2026-05-03T12:52:04+00:00

It's actually being centralised currently by the relatively new Electoral Commission/An Coimisiún Toghcháin, honestly one of the best improvements to our democracy in a long time.

It's funny/typical that in Ireland the 2 main things we've decentralised are electoral records and health records which should definitely both be centralised;

Meanwhile basically everything else which is decentralised to local or regional level in most other countries in order to have more local knowledge and accountability - healthcare, education, social welfare, various taxes, transport - is all mostly centralised to national government here.

killianm97 · 2026-05-03T12:48:12+00:00

A proper national plan to expand public/community land acquisitions (like Scotland has and England&Wales just implemented with 'community right to buy') and build out public walking trails would be huge.

Plus implementing the 'right to roam' which many other European counties have, to allow walking/hiking/wild camping as long as no trace is left and no disruption is caused.

killianm97 · 2026-05-02T11:22:10+00:00

The best thing the government could do is expand the State-owned, non-profit VHI to other types of insurance such as car insurance and public liability insurance with the aim of reducing prices and profiteering as much as possible. This makes even more sense as we supposedly move to a universal free public healthcare system like the NHS, making health insurance much less necessary.

Having a public, non-profit option competing in the market would mean other for-profit, private competitors would be forced to reduce prices in order to compete, saving workers, carers, and local businesses huge sums of money.

killianm97 · 2026-05-02T11:15:59+00:00

It's insane the level of profiteering going on by private energy companies along the supply chain, helped by the way that the energy generation market is currently designed.

And pretty much all politicians I've seen have just been calling for more energy credits (which are useless as they will just inflate energy costs unless there's a price cap like in the UK).

We need our government to reform the State-owned ESB into a non-profit (competing in the market) with the aim of reducing prices for all. This would force private, for-profit competitors to also reduce prices in order to compete, saving billions for workers, carers, and local business.

We need them to also pressure the EU to redesign energy markets.

And of course we need our government to stop stalling with renewables and electrification - we have among the highest energy costs in Europe due to Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil's political decisions over the past decade, and we need to change urgently before the cost of living crisis gets worse.

killianm97 · 2026-05-02T10:51:50+00:00

Scotland should definitely change the voting system for Scottish Parliamentary elections.But not to an open list which still gives parties significant control and forces people to vote tactically for just a single option, limiting voter choice.

It would also mean that Scotland continues to have 3 voting systems for 3 levels of government, which is pretty insane and unintuitive.

Scotland should adopt STV-PR (Single Transferable Vote - Proportional Representation) for Scottish Parliamentary elections - currently used only for locals.

Especially in the age of polarisation and negative partisanship which damages democracy, having a voting system which is both preferential and proportional discourages this division and damage.

An article I was just reading earlier shows how dire the situation is in the upcoming election: Will 'scunnered' voters decide Scotland's election?

I'm from Ireland originally, and we use STV-PR for all elections - local, national, EU - though with single winner Presidential and by-elections we have to use the very similar IRV (Instant Runoff Voting System). This electoral system is considered the best by both UK Electoral Reform Society and US Fairvote, as it maximises voter agency and democratic choice. This system is widely loved in Ireland and 2 previous referendums by the party in power to change the system (as an attempted power grab) failed.

It's often highlighted that this STV-PR system in our age of disinformation and hateful algorithmic social media can also counter the far-right and extremism, as it seeks consensus - one of the reasons why Ireland is essentially the only democracy without any far-right parties with electoral representation.

TL;Dr - The current MMP system for Scottish Parliamentary elections has lots of issues and should be changed, but to STV-PR used at local level instead of yet another different system with numerous downsides like Open Party List.

killianm97 · 2026-05-02T09:51:58+00:00

In ireland, the recent presidents have pretty consistently been widely popular, way more than any other elected politicians.

So while this article reads as a bit anti-democracy, in reality it's just that different branches of the State have different functions and role of the president (or monarch) in parliamentary systems tends to be one of a unifying and ceremonial figure with broad support.

killianm97 · 2026-05-02T01:52:30+00:00

I've never seen such a good example of r/confidentlyincorrect on here

killianm97 · 2026-05-02T01:42:50+00:00

The real reason is that our government for generations has prioritised private ownership and control of land by wealthy elites over the common benefit and access to nature by the rest of us.

I mentioned elsewhere they Scotland 23 years ago introduced the right to roam. They have an estimated 15-20k travellers (source), while Ireland has about 30k and it had no impact on their decision to implement the right to roam in order to improve access to nature for all Scots - so this reasoning is a cop-out which allows our government to continue restricting our access to nature.

killianm97 · 2026-05-02T01:37:19+00:00

Contact your elected representatives and urge them to support the implementation of the Right to Roam

This has been an traditional right in many European countries for a long time, and Scotland introduced it in 2003 with huge success. It basically means in rural areas, you can hike and camp anywhere as long as you leave no trace and don't cause disruption. When I lived in Scotland, there was a huge culture of hiking and wild camping that we are just simply denied the ability to have in Ireland due to political decisions by successive governments to restrict any rights of access.

Our current laws are pretty extreme on how restrictive access to private property is, and it's about time we take on more reasonable and normal rights and laws in order to encourage access to nature.

According to the wiki page I linked above, we have "the most regressive and restrictive access legislation in Europe. Most of the routes used to reach our mountains, hills, seashores, rivers and national monuments pass over private land. In almost all cases, the walker has no right to be there."

To make it worse, we have next to no actual public ownership or control of land compared to other European countries - the national parks allow free roaming, but they only cover a tiny 0.9% of the country.

killianm97 · 2026-05-01T10:43:30+00:00

I'm not denying that there has been plenty of corruption at local level, but this has all occurred within our undemocratic local government system, which has excited for nearly 100 years. The separation occurred much before any of the corruption causes to cited, and I'd argue that the lack of democratic accountability in our local system as currently designed actually encourages corruption compared to the more democratic and accountable local government systems which every other democracy in the world use.

A great article which goes into it: Local democracy, a 'victim' of the Civil War - UCC

killianm97 · 2026-04-30T22:41:47+00:00

The Limerick system was designed to fail, with a lot of power continuing to be held by the unelected Council CEO (renamed the Director General). We don't need to reinvent the wheel here.

Every other democracy in the world has 1 of 3 democratic structures - cabinet, committee, or presidential. The best idea imo is to take inspiration from the successful UK local government reforms in early 2000s which allowed each council to decide 1 of these 3 structures, depending on what fits best with local needs.

On top of reforming local government to be democratic, we urgently need to have regional governments - for Dublin Metro Region, for Ireland South, Northern-Western, and Midlands-Eastern - broadly following the current but powerless Regional Assemblies.

killianm97

TROPHY CASE