We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
CENTRE-LEFT POLITICAL PARTIES must put aside their differences and collaborate if they want to form a Government in the near future, Labour Party MEP Aodhán Ó Ríordáin has said.
Last week, the Labour Party pulled out of a “progressive alliance” between left-leaning parties on Dublin City Council and decided to make an agreement with the Green Party, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil instead.
Though the decision was met with some backlash by those on the left in the council, Ó Ríordáin told The Journal today that the parties need to offer some type of change, adding that politicians cannot have “an alliance for the sake”.
“Politics isn’t performance art. It’s about doing stuff,” the newly-elected MEP said. “It’s about helping people’s lives. It’s about helping people’s lives improve.”
“What is the point of having a collection of center-left parties, who are pretending every general election that there’s a massive gulf in their policy platform, when there isn’t,” he added.
Ó Ríordáin said the decision to not support the progressive alliance in Dublin City Council came down to the opposition the alliance had to raising the property tax, something he claims to be the “litmus test” for left-leaning parties.
The agreement between the current Government coalition parties and Labour in the Dublin local authority is likely to see local property tax paid by residents of the capital increase, raising an additional €60 million for the city over the next five years.
The coalition is also calling for an introduction of a hotel tourist tax.
In the progressive alliance, Sinn Féin insisted their annual property tax bill be instead reduced by 15%, what led Labour to crash out of the agreement.
“The local property tax is an article of faith when it comes to the Labour Party. A property tax is a wealth tax – people don’t like admitting it, but it’s true. Sinn Féin don’t accept that and People Before Profit don’t only accept,” Ó Ríordáin said.
“The local property tax and your attitude towards it shows the difference, whether you are posturing or genuinely progressive.”
He added: “It’s just a nonsenses suggestion that we could have a progressive alliance that throws the local property tax under the bus and doesn’t invest in people’s services.”
The former drugs minister said that cutting property tax would be akin to flushing €60 million “down the toilet” and argued that it can later help fund public services, street cleaning, playgrounds, work facilities, libraries and repair housing stock.
“That’s the litmus test, so if you’re gonna go with that – if your idea of a left-wing alliance includes Sinn Féin, who wants to have tax cuts for the wealthy over investments in public services – well then that’s not progressive.”
Last week, Social Democrats councillor Catherine Stocker said the issue is essentially a non-starter: “We do not have a majority to bring local property tax back to baseline or do anything else with it.”
Stocker added that it was “a shame” that Labour pulled out.
Ó Ríordáin said that he believes that the Social Democrats, as well as the Green Party, would hold a different view on the issue nationally and that the argument in Dublin City Council came down to “mayors and committees chairs”.
He added: “This is serious, this is life, it’s not a game. On a national basis, if we sit down with the Soc Dems and they’re not serious – just like the were not serious on Dublin City Council – there probably isn’t much point talking to them.
“But if they are serious, it’s worth talking to them.
“The ambitions here are big, because we can increase the role of the state, we can separate church and state, we can achieve things in education, we can achieve things in the housing crisis and other aspects of people’s lives. We can change drug policy, we can flip things on its head, we can really change the climate crisis, we can defeat racism.
“But if people’s aspiration is to the posture, well, then that’s fine.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
How the other half live eh?
But seriously though, doing well for a 28 year old, keep it up!
Good job! That’s my base salary here and I surely don’t have 10k after the taxes (which are used for only god’s know what with poor healthcare, poor education, expensive childcare, poor public service overall).
@Yvon Queguiner:
Poor Education?
@Yvon Queguiner: Education is the only service we’ve had that is decent, but yea slowly it’s being torn apart by misguided Irish opinion. Also add Housing and Transport.
@thesaltyurchin: Despite unrealistic public expectation and far too much of the funding wasted in bureaucracy, Ireland’s Health service is world class.
Before anyone says anything about the salary it’s very average for the UAE. As a past resident if I can one piece of advice to the 28 year old consultant. DO NOT take out any loans or credit cards that’s how they get to keep you as you are stuck if you do
Riveting!! Zzzzzzzzz
For some odd reason Engineering consultants in Ireland get half the rate than on the continent. The average charge out rate for a civil Engineer in Scandinavia is the equivalent of 188 euros an hour.
1125 for rent in the UAE , you wouldn’t get a bed sit in Waterford for that
@David Chadwick: yea but we’re all living the dream here.
@David Chadwick: well your property here probably wasn’t built using slave labour like there.
A salary of 120k is just over 1% of workers in ireland. But 54% are college educated in Ireland. From Revenue’s “Analysis of High Income Individuals”
@Communist Party: Well, ~14% of workers in Ireland are above €100k according to recent statistics perpetuated by Newstalk. I doubt €120k is a hard ceiling for said individuals.
He’s a peasant with that salary over there when everyone and their grandma drives a Rolls Royce.
@Kieran Menon: and you’re point being?
@Fuji Hakayito: he is
@Kieran Menon: Certainly not a peasant, on that salary he has a good standard of living. Remember it’s tax free, his healthcare is paid for, and by the way the healthcare system here is world class. VAT is only 5%, the weather is incredible 8 months of the year and petrol is far cheaper than back home. I live here too so I can attest to this. So he’s definitely doing better than he would be back in Ireland, that I know for sure
Fair play.
Work hard, take risks, get rewarded.
In Ireland people who do this are vilified by the Left and taxed mercilessly to pay for the perpetually lazy.
@Paul: You really do need to get over yourself and stop blaming everybody but yourself for your bad decisions that left you paying for someone else to live in ‘your’ house. It’s not the fault of ‘the left’, it’s yours and yours alone. Be a big boy now and own it and stop stamping your feet like a child whose ice-cram just fell on the floor.
fair play to you, far away hills are not green, make sure you dont come home !!
Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development.
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then these services may not function properly.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not be able to monitor our performance.
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.
Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500 metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
have your say