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Bad News for the College Green Plaza

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Bad News for the College Green Plaza

Dublin City had planned to pedestrianise the College Green area from the TCD front to approx. where H&M and Starbucks are and turn this new City Centre Plaza into a public amenity. (An article is here.) It would have been the first and only City Centre event space and in my opinion it is the perfect location for a PROPER Christmas Market in Dublin.

But the planning authority, An Bord Pleanala, was not in favour of it because it would have a negative effect on traffic and would cause unacceptable conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians.

At the moment College Green can only be used by buses and taxis and getting taxis out of this area would – in my opinion – be a good thing.

By the way: The only chance a Christmas Market has in Dublin if it a) is in a central location and b) is organised and run by Dublin City, NOT an event management company and definitely not by DublinTown.

The next steps that Dublin City will take regarding this, have not been revealed yet.

Dublin City Council, Tourism, Traffic, , ,

Presidential Election: Anyone but Miggeldy!!!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Presidential Election: Anyone but Miggeldy!!!

The Presidential Election in Ireland is coming closer. On 26 October all Irish citizens in Ireland will be asked to vote for a new President. There are six candidates (including the current president) and the term is a very long 7 years.

The candidates are Sean Gallagher, Gavin Duffy, Peter Casey, Joan Freeman, Liadh Ní Riada and the current president Michael D. Higgins (a.k.a Miggeldy Higins, after a primary school’s child answer to the question “Who is the President of Ireland?”).

None of the candidates is any better than another, considering that the Irish President has virtually NO political power. But none of them is unsuitable either. So who should you vote for?

In my opinion you can’t do ANYTHING wrong, no matter who you vote for, so if  – for whatever reason – you feel passionate about one of them, go ahead and vote for him or her. But if you are not sure and care about my opinion, then I would suggest to vote for anyone but Michael D. Higgins!

Why so? There are two reasons: 1) Age and 2) Arrogance

We have a minimum age for a President. For some reason it has been decided that anybody that is younger than 35 years of age is not eligible to be voted as a President. In the same way, it also would make sense to have an upper age limit. It can’t make sense that an over 80 year old is the President of a country unless we are super desperate and absolutely can’t find anyone else! Higgins will be 84 when the next term ends and there is no good reason for that. Aras an Uachterain should NOT be a retirement home!

And the point about arrogance? I know he took part in the debate on Virgin Media One on Thursday, but his refusal to take part in previous debates is an arrogance that no candidate should be allowed to get away with. And Sean Gallagher, who also refused because Higgins refused, doesn’t get any stars for this from me either.

Speaking about debates: The Virgin Media One debate was really interesting, because it showed that Michael D. Higgins is not at all an impressive candidate, actually he is surprisingly weak, considering that he was in that position already for 7 years. (So don’t expect anything impressive from him in the next 7 years!) But it also showed, that there is no outstanding other candidate.

And finally, what would I do…if you care? The one that I would probably vote for is Gavin Duffy! Seven years ago, it would have been Sean Gallagher, but this time around I am not convinced about him.

For me, the biggest surprise of the evening was that Pat Kenny did a really good job in probing the candidates!

Elections, Irish, Politics, President, , , , , , ,

Budget Day is coming…on soft slippers!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Budget Day is coming…on soft slippers!

On Tuesday 09 Oct, the Budget for Ireland for 2019 will be announced. In previous years the media was whipping their readers into a frenzy about what will be increased and what will be decreased and lots of interest groups warned the government about the terrible consequences of the new budget unless they turn it around in time before Tuesday.

But it seems to me that this year the Budget Day is coming on soft slippers. There seems to be a lot less noise about the announcement on Tuesday than in previous years. It could be that it is just my perception, but it also could be that it is quieter because everyone knows that we can’t expect much (good) from the budget, but that it also won’t be tooo bad.

Yes, Cigarettes prices will most likely go up again. Not for health reasons, but just to get taxes.

Petrol and Diesel prices will probably go up as well (and you should fill up your car before midnight on Tuesday if you want to avoid the price hike for the last time).

The 9% VAT rate for the hopsitality sector (hotels and restaurants) will probably go up and that will have a definite bad effect on your pocket if you ever eat out! The restaurants will ALL increase their prices the moment the VAT increase takes effect and the increase will never be limited to the actual VAT increase, but will be generously rounded up. (A 2% increase of that VAT rate should increase a EUR 20 dinner only by 40 cent, but I bet most restaurants will add at least EUR 1 to the price!)

Income tax might fall a bit, but the other tax increases will most likely eat all the savings so that you end up with just a handful of Euro more in your pocket.

DIRT (Deposit Interest Retention Tax), that’s the tax on the interest you earn for your savings, will go down, but that is just part of a many year plan of reducing it, so nothing new. And the Property Tax might go down a tiny bit.

Nothing overly exciting! Maybe that is the reason for the reduced media hype!?

Taxes

Telephonephobia is a new thing!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Telephonephobia is a new thing!

With surprise I read about a new “problem” in this world. It is the fear of having a phone conversation. The reasons can be manifold. Maybe the information you have to pass on is bad news, or you are concerned that the person you talk to would put you on the sport and you don’t know how to answer a question, or your communication partner is just toooo chatty.

I am on the phone a LOT, due to work, but also for private calls, but after reading about the fear of phone conversations in a German publication, I realised that there are some people that I hardly EVER talk to on the phone. Facebook Messenger and What’s App are the only means we use to communicate with each other. :-O

Are we hiding behind all these messaging apps?

I am not sure if the term Telephonephobia has been used yet for this new type of aversion of using the phone, but it definitely has the danger to become a bit of a problem. A few minutes of a call will create a closer bond with the other person AND will speed up the communication hugely. Have you ever tried to arrange a meeting with someone on messaging platforms only? It can be a pain in the backside to make all arrangements and usually takes a lot longer than a quick call.

So I am in favour of using the phone to TALK to people again. ;-) Who is with me?

Odd,

The end of 1890 numbers! – Good riddance!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
The end of 1890 numbers! – Good riddance!

Hurray, one big user of 1890 numbers has stopped using them! The Irish Revenue commissioner loved 1890 numbers and it was difficult sometimes to find the geographical (and cheaper) number, but now they completely stopped using them. A great day for customer service.

Many people don’t know the 1890 “scam”, so let me explain:
Many many moons ago when we still had landlines, the phone companies came up with a marketing solution for companies that wanted to provide a better customer service. If a company used a 1890 number then they would pay for part of the call cost and the caller would pay a lower and capped price. Telecom Eireann/Eircom/eir called these numbers “LoCall” numbers and back in the days this was actually correct, But then came mobile phone companies along and in their greed, they ignored the LoCall idea and instead charged a surcharge. :-O For reasons I will never understand, the telecommunications regulator ComReg didn’t stop the mobile phone companies from scamming the customers. But it got worse! When mobile phone companies introduced inclusive minutes, calls to 1890 numbers were not taken out of that minute budget and still cost a surcharge.
So if you can avoid them, NEVER use 1890 numbers and tell companies that still use them that they had good intention, but are hurting their customers now. NOBODY should use 1890 numbers anymore!
www.thejournal.ie/revenue-new-numbers-4256271-Sep2018

Other numbers to avoid: 1850, 076, 0818 and all 15x numbers. Always look for numbers beginning with a geographical code like “01” etc.

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