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The Web Summit relocation isn't surprising, we couldn't even keep the WiFi working

Bord Failte estimates the summit generated around €100 million in the local economy last year and this will be a significant loss. But let’s get things in perspective in economic terms, writes Angela Nagle.

THE NEWS THAT Dublin’s Web Summit has chosen to relocate to Lisbon for 2016 should come as little surprise.

At previous summits, visitors listened to Enda Kenny declare Ireland’s ambition to become ‘capital of the digital world’ while being unable to get online.

One year Dublin even had its water cut off and attendees soon found themselves in crowded bars where glasses could not be washed and toilets could not be flushed.

The irony was almost too perfect. The poor basic infrastructure that has led to the loss of the Dublin Web Summit is an inevitable consequence of precisely the kind of post-industrial, low tax, free market, ‘new economy’ thinking glamourised by the summit itself.

Portugal’s corporation tax is almost twice as high as Ireland’s

Founder Paddy Cosgrave explained that Lisbon was more attractive because of the strong infrastructure in the city, the world-class venue and the low rents and lower wages for IT workers. Although Portugal’s corporation tax is almost twice as high as Ireland’s which may explain their decision to keep their HQ here.

04/11/2014 Dublin Web Summit 2014. Web Summit co-f Mark Stedman / Photocall Ireland Mark Stedman / Photocall Ireland / Photocall Ireland

Bord Failte estimates the summit generated around €100 million in the local economy last year and this will be a significant loss. But let’s get things in perspective in economic terms.

The company employs around 130 people in Ireland, about the same as many dreary hotels or small manufacturers in mid sized towns around Ireland, the managers of which would never be regarded as major public figures, the employees of which would never identify as creatives and the closure of which would scarcely generate news outside of a few inches in the local papers.

It’s clear that to some this represents something more symbolic than numbers can account for. Not least the Irish state.

04/11/2014. Eva Longoria - Dublin Web Summit 2014.

‘European Silicon Valley’ 

Before the bailout the government was rolling out plans for Ireland to become a ‘world class knowledge economy’. In 2009, as the economy was sinking into a recession, Brian Cowen expressed his vision for Ireland to become the ‘European Silicon Valley’ and then there was Richard Bruton’s vision of a ‘global technology hub’.

When the US Internet sector began to boom in the 1990s, Wired editor Kevin Kelly claimed that the net had created a new paradigm in production that had transcended the boom and bust cycle.

Wired magazine ran a cover, proclaiming: ‘We’re facing 25 years of prosperity, freedom and a better environment for the whole world. You got a problem with that?’ It was around this time, when the ideas of the post-industrial ‘new economy’ were ascendant from the hacker underground to the Clinton administration that the Celtic Tiger emerged.

It is easy to see why, for a country that had historically failed to create its own indigenous productive economy, the low tax, post-material economy model was so appealing.

2014 Web Summit - Day 3 - Centre Stage Stephen McCarthy / SPORTSFILE / Web Summit Stephen McCarthy / SPORTSFILE / Web Summit / SPORTSFILE / Web Summit

Cosgrave’s events replicated precisely the corporate bohemian sensibility of Silicon Valley, where what would normally be considered the grubby business of profit and loss has been elevated to a Woodstock for the information society in which the entrepreneurial “ecosystem” can flourish.

Skipping the basic building blocks 

The summit, like the presence of Facebook and Google HQs, has been a potent ideological vehicle for those who had to manage an economy that had skipped many of the basic building blocks of a modern industrial nation, instead using the lure of low corporation tax to generate economic activity.

During the boom, Ireland squandered perhaps its greatest opportunity for a major leap forward in industrial and infrastructural development, as the current disaster of water privatisation reminds us, and the glamour of finance, information technology multinationals and hip young start-ups have been fundamental to presenting this failure as a virtue.

International speakers at previous Web Summits argued the case for the ‘double Irish’ and Ireland’s low tax model but in 2016 they’ll have to make the case to someone else from somewhere else because of the shortcomings in Irish infrastructure resulting from precisely that model.

It turns out, despite what the summit’s attendees may have been told, that an economy can’t be built on information and there are some problems that information technology entrepreneurs can’t solve. tjb

Angela Nagle is the co-author of Ireland Under Austerity, which is available on Amazon.

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    Mute David Stapleton
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    Feb 17th 2022, 3:00 PM

    Is there any way to find out if I was not baptised correctly and so am not a member of an organisation that I cannot voluntarily leave?

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    Mute Charlie
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    Feb 17th 2022, 3:04 PM

    @David Stapleton: You can certainly leave but they will still consider you a catholic.
    Even if you choose to be another religion, or you can try and get excommunicated. If you succeed will you spread the “word”?

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    Mute Irish Antichrist
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    Feb 17th 2022, 7:14 PM

    @Charlie: You need permission to get excommunicated and no you cannot voluntarily leave they made it illegal 15 years or so ago.

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    Mute Miriam Kelliher
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    Feb 17th 2022, 8:17 PM

    @Irish Antichrist: illegal? Seriously

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    Mute Teresa O'Halloran
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    Feb 18th 2022, 12:28 AM

    @David Stapleton: If you don’t want to belong – leave. No need to make a drama out of it.

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    Mute Marie Gunbay
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    Feb 18th 2022, 1:10 AM

    @David Stapleton: love your humour ha ha hope you are not stressing out about this.

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    Mute Stephen Mogerley
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    Feb 17th 2022, 3:03 PM

    This is like an Onion article.

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    Mute David F. Dwyer
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    Feb 17th 2022, 3:11 PM

    Is there anything to be said for another mass?

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    Mute Dave Harris
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    Feb 17th 2022, 5:08 PM

    @David F. Dwyer: that would be an ecumenical matter

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    Mute Brendan Harlowe
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    Feb 17th 2022, 6:00 PM

    @David F. Dwyer: it would depend on the wording used if it would be beneficial

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    Mute Larry Whack
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    Feb 17th 2022, 3:02 PM

    Remember, these people are supposedly educated adults.

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    Mute Maximus_Demonus
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    Feb 17th 2022, 4:33 PM

    Ah no, if you’re going to do magic spells get the wording correct, otherwise anything can happen.

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    Mute Tony Durran
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    Feb 17th 2022, 6:25 PM

    @Maximus_Demonus: Mickey mouse showed us the horrors that can unfold.

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    Mute Séamus White
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    Feb 17th 2022, 3:05 PM

    Lucky them

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    Mute John Mulligan
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    Feb 17th 2022, 3:09 PM

    But I thought their god was three people?

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    Mute Watchful Axe
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    Feb 17th 2022, 6:59 PM

    @John Mulligan: When you look at a shamrock, is that one leaf or three leaves in your opinion. Jazus.

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    Mute John Mulligan
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    Feb 17th 2022, 9:03 PM

    @Watchful Axe: we have no idea of the relevance of your question.
    And my name’s not Jazus.

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    Mute Larry O Reilly
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    Feb 17th 2022, 3:09 PM

    What the big deal, it down to interpretation we v I, who cares they lucky anyone want to be associated with this corporate sinful organisation

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    Mute Ann Harman
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    Feb 17th 2022, 3:56 PM

    We=God and I.No problem

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    Mute Mike Ryan
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    Feb 17th 2022, 3:13 PM

    Who knew identity politics would be such a pervasive issue in the catholic church

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    Mute Tony Durran
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    Feb 17th 2022, 6:24 PM

    They’ve got a point. What if the spell doesn’t work without the correct invocation?!

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    Mute Padraic McDonagh
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    Feb 17th 2022, 3:50 PM
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    Mute Mary Nugent
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    Feb 17th 2022, 6:15 PM

    @Padraic McDonagh: Boris at it back then, my God.

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    Mute Irish Antichrist
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    Feb 17th 2022, 7:13 PM

    Why would a universe creator give a toss??

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    Mute Colm de Cleir
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    Feb 17th 2022, 9:36 PM

    Hilarious! So what does the all-powerful, all-loving God look down on the baptism and snark… “Hmmm… no, he didn’t quite say that right, so that baby can’t come in I’m afraid”? – It’s hard to believe that a church who continuously preaches about how God and The Holy Spirit and Jesus love us all so much and is super-powerful and super-intelligent, and how we should rejoice that He even exists… would also consider Him that incredibly petty…

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    Mute Pete Brady
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    Feb 17th 2022, 7:25 PM

    They need to train priests better so that this doesnt happen again and set up a freephone helpline for concerned Catholics who may be affected by this error. I mightn’t sleep tonight unless I can pull out my documents on the off chance my parents christened me in Brazil.

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    Mute Christopher Mc Camley
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    Feb 17th 2022, 6:27 PM

    Usual anti Catholics that the Journal attracts out with their comments. This Cork priest hasn’t a clue what he’s talking about. He merely confirms that the Association of Catholic Priests isn’t representing the views of majority of priests.

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    Mute Pat Conway
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    Feb 17th 2022, 8:02 PM

    @Christopher Mc Camley: What difference does it make anyway whether it’s a ‘correct’ baptism or not. What benefit does it bring to the child? None whatsoever.

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    Mute katholic
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    Feb 17th 2022, 7:24 PM

    Asking the Association of “Catholic” Priests to comment on something like this is pretty pointless. They’re nothing but the media’s “go-to” Fr. Trendys. They can always be relied upon to misunderstand and fudge the details of any issue relating to the Church.

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    Mute Piggy
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    Feb 17th 2022, 4:42 PM

    No, he was on trial in Liverpool

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    Mute Ken Miles
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    Feb 17th 2022, 6:56 PM

    Should have stuck with the proper version, no mistake then

    ego te baptizo in nomine + Patris, et Filii, +, et Spiritus + Sancti.

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    Mute Irish Antichrist
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    Feb 17th 2022, 7:16 PM

    @Ken Miles: + Et Nonsense

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    Mute Colm de Cleir
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    Feb 18th 2022, 12:32 AM

    Maybe it’s a computer running it all up there and they forgot an important rule of UI: Never allow free text on data you’re going to validate. They need to spell it out for them and the priest just ticks a box or something.

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    Mute Sean
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    Feb 18th 2022, 7:59 AM

    Why would milk not work for consecration? After all it isn’t actually the blood of Jesus that is used. It is just red wine with a drop of water.

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