

Dublin - Metrolink (Swords to Charlemont only)



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,094 ✭✭✭ cgcsb

    Hard to imagine a slower pace than whats happening currently other than just going back to the drawing board and designing a more affordable, and politically achievable surface route.

  • Registered Users Posts: 4,426 ✭✭✭ maestroamado

  • Registered Users Posts: 901 ✭✭✭ gjim

    Yeah fair call. It's too late now to start tinkering.

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  • Registered Users Posts: 10,258 ✭✭✭✭ Cookiemunster

    That was the case in the early 2010s. but won't be the case if another recession happens. They'll still have access to the markets at a pretty good rate they should definitely continue to borrow for infrastructural projects.


    There definitely won’t be 2010s style austerity again, look at what it’s inflicted in western economies politically. It’s quite surprising it took until 2020 for this new anti establishment politics to flare up in Ireland despite what went on between 2008 and the middle of the decade.

    There was a massive opportunity to cut some of the obscene misspending in this country in the early 2010s and blame it on the troika. A chance that we won’t see again.

    But then again this is a country that used corporation tax windfalls in the last few years to plug HSE overruns. We can hardly expect strategic thinking around infrastructure and multi decade planning.

  • Registered Users Posts: 26,965 ✭✭✭✭ Hotblack Desiato

    They had no choice. The government hadn't a copper and they were frozen out of the international bond markets. Nobody except the IMF and a bunch of Europeans would lend money to them.

    That was true for a few years but once the "whatever it takes" policy came in at the ECB, the government could borrow effectively for free. We should have gone all-in on infrastructure at that point.

  • Registered Users Posts: 901 ✭✭✭ gjim

    Yeah, I agree that if there is a recession in the next year or two, it won't be anything like 2008 - no capital projects should be curtailed.

    But I do think many people have a short memory when it comes to recognising how brutal the crash was - wasn't over by 2010 by a long shot. There was nearly 4 years of hard recession fringed by a period of near zero growth - GDP growth only recovered in 2014. But even when growth returned to the general economy, the government finances remained in a horrible state. It required heavy government borrowing to keep the lights on until 2018.

    It think the government/country's performance since 2008 has been at least competent if not good. Of the European countries worst affected by the crisis, it has performed the best by a big margin. Compare the results with those of the populist "anti-austerity" parties in the likes of Greece and Spain, where the outcomes were much worse in terms of suffering for the average person.

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  • Registered Users Posts: 470 ✭✭ Murph85

    Whether the government or IMF were calling the shots. Even of the troika weren't overseeing the gross mismanagement, the Irish government absolutely would have annihilated infrastructure spend, as it did... the holy grail of welfare and public service spending, couldn't be sacrificed. ..

  • Registered Users Posts: 27,204 ✭✭✭✭ end of the road

    of course they couldn't, public services have to be paid for and are needed and necessary.

    wellfare is also necessary and cutting or removing it would have caused more expensive issues elsewhere.

    julian the journalist asange is innocent, free julian the journalist.

  • Registered Users Posts: 5,211 ✭✭✭ Pete_Cavan

    EU funding would only cover a small portion of a project, not the full amount or even the majority. If you don't have the full amount and you can't borrow, you aren't able to pay for the thing you want. That is the "brutal arithmetic" referred to.

    At that time, the entire world was consolidating and reducing their exposure to risk, nobody wanted to give €1bn to a small country which had bankrupted itself and no international contractor was going to pour huge resources into a country which didn't have a pot to piss in. I will never understand why so many look back on MN through rose tinted glasses but want to talk down ML. MN is dead 10 years now, time to move on. IMO it should be banned from this thread, talk of it does nobody any good.

    Post edited by spacetweek on

  • Registered Users Posts: 901 ✭✭✭ gjim

    I'm not going to get into a pissing contest with an angry Keynesian. But yeah, Wetasanotter doesn't get it at all. This wasn't anything like the US in the 1930s. The Irish government had no monetary policy levers as we were in the Eurozone, nor fiscal policy levers in terms of expanding budgetary spending.

    Levels of borrowing were set by the troika/IMF and were at a level which were not enough to sustain current government spending, so there was absolutely no option except to cut current expenditure and try to raise income (tax increases). The IMF signed off on the government budgets, so the idea that the government pursued a policy at odds with IMF principles is daft.

    No EU programs alters this basic arithmetic. The idea that all economists are strict Keynsians is also a misrepresentation to say the least. If IMF policy is reflective of economic consensus - which it broadly is - then the policies pursued by the Irish government were considered orthodox.

    I also find Wetasanotter's sense of self-entitlement amusing. The vast majority of people (including me) who lost their jobs during the recession were not wealthy enough to be able to decide to stop working for 3 or 4 years and go to university to ride out the recession. So yes you were lucky - compared to the vast majority of people who were adversely affected by the recession.

  • Registered Users Posts: 903 ✭✭✭ Wetasanotter

    The point of many of the EU funds is that they either provided the loan, or guaranteed it. I'm not aware of them 'only covering a small portion of the project', can you provide evidence for this?

    It's also an extremely broad claim to make that "the entire world was consolidating and reducing their exposure to risk". What period of time was this? What economic or financial metrics are you using to make this claim? It's also provably false in Ireland's case given that every single 10 year bond auction by Ireland since the recession has been oversubscribed. Even the very first one back in March 2013 was 4x oversubscribed (which meant we could have raised €12bn vs €3bn).

    Why would an international contractor not want to 'pour huge resources' into Ireland? Have we ever defaulted on an infrastructure contract? Was there ever any suggestion that we would do so?

    Where did I look back at MN with rose tinted glasses? Where did I even mention MN? Where did I talk down ML?

    Again, an opinion /=/ knowledge and you've joined Gjim in clearly mistaking one for the other - while making clearly incorrect statements.

    I'm also not sure why Gjim is talking about the US in the 1930s, when I pointed out that economists and institutions like the IMF, today, are broadly supportive of deficit spending in cyclical recessions. I guess weird analogies are the last defense of the ignorant? I'm not a Keynesian, no-one these days is. What I am is someone who dedicated a lot of time to learning about Economics, rather than waffling ignorantly on internet forums about economics.

    I also didn't stop working, I took a part-time job during the recession. Not that it's any of your business, and it shows just how ignorant you are that you keep referring to my supposed situation during the recession as if its relevant to the fact that I know what I'm writing about and I've conclusively proved that you haven't.

    This is meant to be a relatively intellectual forum, why are you two being so aggressively anti-intellectual? If you don't know about a subject, learn about it or ask questions - don't post aggressively and authoritatively incorrect things.

  • Registered Users Posts: 903 ✭✭✭ Wetasanotter


    This is a perfect example. No external entity signed off on government budgets. As part of the bailout, we proposed targets and the IMF/EU Commission monitored our performance - but they had no input on our budgets and there was no enforcement (or stick) as to if we deviated from the targets and budgets that we set.

    Here's what the IMF official in charge of the EU-IMF bailout of Ireland had to say (Ajai Chopra):

    Irish leaders “knew what the political constraints were, so they could choose the appropriate measures,” Chopra said. “Our role ended up being to tell them what the implications of certain measures might be, how it might affect distribution, how it might affect equality, and things like that, but the choice had to be theirs.”

    As an example, Ireland left the excessive deficit procedure in 2013. Spain remained in it until 2019, because they didn't cut their spending as quickly. Was Spain punished? Nope.

    Spain has been subject to an excessive deficit procedure since February 2009, when the Council called for its deficit to be corrected by 2012.

    That deadline has been extended four times. The first three times in December 2009, July 2012 and June 2013, the deadline was pushed to 2013, 2014 and 2016 respectively, considering the major unfavourable consequences for government finances resulting from unexpected adverse economic events. In July 2016, the Council noted the lack of effective action undertaken to remedy the situation of an excessive deficit and set an new deadline for correction by 2018.

    In the light of the latest data, the Council concluded that Spain's deficit has now been corrected.

    I also explicitly stated that the IMF has come around to deficit spending since then, but you're disingenuously changing my arguments and then claiming they're daft.

    Anyway, this has dragged the discussion faaaaaar off topic. I just dislike people authoritatively peddling false information that can be corrected with a google search. A topic like infrastructure deserves far better than that given the level of spending and the long-term ramifications or building (and especially, not building!)

  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 8,114 CMod ✭✭✭✭ Sierra Oscar

    We’re rapidly approaching the end of May and still no sign of the Railway Order application being submitted. Will it even make it in before the traditional summer slowdown sets in? I have my doubts at this stage.

  • Registered Users Posts: 15 Brosna1999

    Seems unlikely doesn't it? We haven't even seen any sign of the preliminary business case approval unless perhaps it was done in secret?

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  • Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 26,280 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Peregrine

    Definitely hasn't been approved by cabinet. It's coming in the next two weeks, I think.

    The railway order application will be submitted by Q2 2022 is what they said in public so there's still a month left. I have my doubts about meeting that deadline though.

  • Registered Users Posts: 21,738 ✭✭✭✭ blanch152

    You say that you are "not aware of them 'only covering a small portion of the project', can you provide evidence for this?"

    How many links do you need? Here is one from the ESF 2001-2006:,is%20required%20for%20ERDF%20projects.&text=Private%20match%20funds%20are%20defined%20as%20any%20money%20originating%20from%20private%20enterprise.&text=It%20is%20also%20worth%20noting,the%20form%20of%20financial%20contributions.

    "ERDFi will only contribute a maximum of 50% of eligible expenditure. The remaining amount (Match Fundingi) has to come from other sources. The exact proportion will depend on several factors, including the type of activity, but generally speaking the funds will meet between 5% and 50% of project costs. Match funding for European grants made through Objective 2i can come form a wide variety of sources, these could include,

    • Funding through national schemes, including Government programmes and funds
    • Grants from statutory bodies, such as local authorities
    • Contributions from the voluntary sector, including donations from charities and trusts
    • Contributions from the private sector
    • Loans from organisations such as the European Investment Bank"

  • Registered Users Posts: 903 ✭✭✭ Wetasanotter

    How is a 2001-2006 scheme relevant to a point about post-Great Recession? Regardless, "up to 50% from a pre-recession scheme, with the rest of the funding being able to come from other sources including the European Investment Bank"

    50% is not a 'small portion of the project' and it makes the point that other sources of funding (including from other EU sources) fill in the gap.

    Did you think that demonstrating that you don't know what 'a small portion' means nor that 2001-2006 occured before 2011 were somehow a cogent rebuttal?

    Again, this is meant to be a serious forum about a serious topic but many users are treating it as "I can just blithely state my beliefs and opinions and they are basically the same thing as facts, knowledge and information".

    Do better.



    Thank you for the backseat modding, but it is against the charter.

  • Registered Users Posts: 15 Brosna1999

    Peregrine any update on this? It's been two weeks and still nothing! 😓


    Railway order application won't be submitted by the end of this month. Cabinet approval is on the way but there's no rush if the railway order application isn't ready. Not sure when it'll be approved. It'll be leaked the weekend before.

    Post edited by Peregrine on

  • Registered Users Posts: 15 Brosna1999

    Oh I had thought that the RO was ready to when they submitted the PBC for approval.


    Hard to see it being approved by Cabinet before September then. There won't be many cabinet meetings in July, there will be none in August.

  • Registered Users Posts: 26,965 ✭✭✭✭ Hotblack Desiato

    Sure what's another few months on a project delayed by 50 years! 🙄

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    Hm..I wouldn't go as far as September. The RO application would be ready by September so it has to be before that or the RO app will be delayed because of government delay.