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[Photo Galleries ][Polls Discussion ] [ Go to Castlebar ] [ The BB Index ] [ Disclaimer ] [Nostalgia Board ] [Roots ] [NB Refresh for current version and all follow-ups] Posted by jj on July 26, 2004 at 15:06:29: In Reply to: Re: You can always move to England and start paying council tax and higher rents posted by Henry on July 26, 2004 at 13:05:56: Before you attack me I am not agreeing with what X said. But I believe it is unfair to blame the Catholic Church and the political system. I don't understand how church bells for 1 minute can annoy you. Even some Muslins believe it is useful to take a minute "time-out" from our hectic life. Yes everyone pays into the system, but I compared with our fellow Europeans, excluding the UK, the Irish pay the least in personal and corporate taxes. And therefore in paying less in total you have to expect a lower safer. In relation to cancer treatment, I understand the additional pain and incovencience to have to travel to Dublin twice weekly (I hope the best for your father), but you can't have cancer treatment centres in each town in Ireland. There has to be a happy medium, but Ireland is still a relatively unpopulated these centres need to be centralised. On the insurance companies - there profit margins are no higher than their European peers - if you do a sector comparison they are usually in the 2nd quartile of profitability. That points to either higher administration (salary) costs or higher payouts in insurance claims. I do agree Irish people are reluctant to complain - myself included (even this morning when I got the wrong delivery of food but accepted it anyway). Corruption rife in Politics - I think that is unfair generalisation. People in trade unions/politics have vested interests, but that does not mean they manipulate their positions. I agree Ireland has improvements to its social structure but 20yrs behind the rest of Europe?? I must disagree. It depends on what is the social goal is. I would describe Ireland as a modern country, with high quality education (dispite/because of the Church), high quality health service (if I was sick, personally I would rather be in Ireland than the UK) and a political system that respects democracy (with PR giving one issue canditates and smaller parties a better chance than the larger parties).
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