Posted on 02/25/2011 8:45:58 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Irish voters go to the polls this week as an ailing economy is forcing record numbers of disillusioned citizens to flee the country in search of a better life overseas.
Less than three months after the government accepted an international bailout worth $115 billion to rescue an economy on life support, the public is furious with the entire political class.
Fianna Fail is the centre-left party which has been in government for 60 of the 89 years of Ireland's independence.
Polls indicate they will be trounced in Friday's election and will be lucky to come away with 20 seats out of a possible 166.
Until three years ago, the little country the size of Tasmania was experiencing 6 per cent growth and was the envy of Europe.
Low taxes kept foreign firms investing, but the people who became known as the I-rich became obsessed with property - not buying and selling, but building.
Banks and developers, encouraged by the government, got so carried away in some areas that they built more houses than there were families to fill them.
Now there are 300,000 homes lying empty in what have come to be known as "ghost estates".
Finance minister Brian Lenihan admits it was wrong to allow the construction sector to become so big.
"We had an unsustainable building boom, construction boom in this country from 2003 to 2008," he said.
"My party leader has taken full responsibility for this. So have I."
History repeating
In a case of history repeating itself, residents of County Mayo in the west of Ireland are emigrating in what is expected to be record numbers.
It is the same place from which many of the famine boats left back in the 1840s when a wave of emigration washed 1 million people away from the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at abc.net.au ...
SIGNS OF THE TIMES:
* Around 1,000 Irish head for the exits every week.
* Australian visa applications from Dublin in the past 12 months are up 60 per cent.
* The Irish banking system became three times bigger than the gross national product of the country
* Those who leave the country no longer have a say in Ireland’s future.
“Those who leave the country no longer have a say in Ireland’s future.
But they are not responsible for paying back any of the debt any more, either!
Sad, but then again I would not be an American if Ireland did not send her sons and daughters scurrying out of the country on a more or less regular basis.
The Irish Voter Famine of 2011...............
These numbers are hardly a record Irish Exodus. My ancestors came here in Black 47 with a million + between 1846 -1855.
“Fianna Fail is the centre-left party which has been in government for 60 of the 89 years of Ireland’s independence.”
I guess they should be simply called the “FAIL” party now.
Every nation now has problems. When will people start using their heads and figure out that they need to FIX WHEREVER THEY CURRENTLY LIVE ? FIX IT. Otherwise we’re just playing musical nations.
My ancestral home county. Maybe I can buy the family farm back.
That ain,t nothin we get a million Mexicans an hour in Texas.
“Those who leave the country no longer have a say in Ireland’s future.”
They’ll replace them with Muslims.
I pity whomever is on the receiving end.
Were those great Gaels of Ireland
The men that God made mad
Their wars were never merry
But all their songs were sad
Bump to save. erin go bragh.
“...an ailing economy is forcing record numbers of disillusioned citizens to flee the country in search of a better life overseas. “
Where should I go after the dems, unions, government parasites, class warriors, and banksters have reduced the USA to a smoking heap of rubble?
RE: with a million + between 1846 -1855.
It took over a million in nine years then.
It obviously isn’t as bad today as it was then.
At the rate of 1,000 leaving Ireland a week ( current figures ), it will take 20 years to reach the 1 million number.
Hopefully, Ireland will have fixed whatever financial problems she has then ( or will she ?).
Having ruined their homeland, Irish liberals look for new places to destroy....
Eastern Europe, where capitalism is reportedly blooming and those nations are rising from mediocrity.
That sounds like a lot of the people who have fled California, New York, and New Jersey.
“Fianna Fail”
Fianna must = Epic
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