‘We can’t have nice things in Ireland because no one follows the rules’: Emigrants on returning home
by Pension_Alternative
‘We can’t have nice things in Ireland because no one follows the rules’: Emigrants on returning home
by Pension_Alternative
20 comments
This contribution resonated with me- excerpt below:. I lived in Europe for several years before coming back and I must admit I regretted it for quite a while. Things just didn’t seem to work. I came back for family reasons and I’ve got used to it but it was and still is difficult.
>Living overseas gave her an insight into “how different societies function,” she says, adding she never realised “how much of a nation of rule breakers we are in Ireland”. She feels a lack of services in Ireland means “everyone’s in it for themselves … Everyone has to fight to get something they should be able to access, like proper healthcare and the likes. Everyone calls in favours. There’s no such thing as meritocracy. Everyone’s skipping the queue and pushing everyone else’s waiting back”.
>“This is why we can’t have nice things in this country. We can’t because no one follows the rules.” In Australia, Breda says she could access healthcare with relative ease.
>She adds of Ireland: “We got a rental because we knew someone. That means someone else who is desperate for a rental didn’t get it. We came back in a housing crisis. We haven’t been able to purchase a house, we’ve been cut off so many times from other people that it’s hopeless now. And moving to Dublin is hopeless.”
>Breda and her husband commute to work. “There is no commuter train that gets us into an office for nine o’clock in the morning. There is no road infrastructure to get there … All the companies are around Dublin, Cork and the likes, generally, so it has impacted your professional choices. I’d really like if I worked part-time around the kids. But that flexibility isn’t available. You see corporates talking about how everyone has to come back into the office now.”
>Breda says they have decided to return to Australia later this year. “My husband and I both worry excessively about our ageing parents [in Ireland]. It’s a real concern.
>“Australia’s not perfect. It’s just that we had curated a life that was pretty close to it … and we hadn’t realised you can’t create that everywhere.”
>*Name has been changed
They’re not wrong
Coming from Italy, it feels like everyone follows the rules in Ireland
That is completely wrong and we need to stop throwing around that excuse, alongside weather, population density, and this country being poor 30+ years ago.
“Rules? Where we’re going, we don’t need any rules…”
I lived in Toronto for 10 years.
Moved home for family reasons.
I lasted 2 years before I just couldn’t take it anymore.
Along with the terrible health service, complete lack of public transport, extortionate housing market, the standard of living, the quality of live, however you want to put it… It’s just not very good in Ireland.
I’ve been back in Toronto for 3 years now, and I don’t think I could ever move back to Ireland again.
I love that about Ireland to be honest. There’s a very practical adoption and disregard for rules and conventions and a very healthy disdain for authority. The flip side is the UK, where there is slavish adherence to every silly rule and regulation and the result is millions of frogs quietly being boiled, aware they’re being boiled, but happy to accept their fate just as long as they’re all standing in an orderly queue while its happening.
>She adds of Ireland: “We got a rental because we knew someone. That means someone else who is desperate for a rental didn’t get it. We came back in a housing crisis. We haven’t been able to purchase a house, we’ve been cut off so many times from other people that it’s hopeless now. And moving to Dublin is hopeless.”
I dont like Ireland because people jump queues and use connections – proceeds to do exactly what she complains about.
EDIT: Yes fair points below, my take is a bit cynical and simplistic
Reminds me of the pub bores you would meet at christmas who spend the whole time talking about how great Aus/America/Thailand is.
I feel like one of Ireland’s fatal flaws is planning. Case in point: the children’s hospital. Going back further, transport infrastructure such as the LUAS connector which was ridiculously slow and expensive. Not to mention Irish rail in general.
Other countries like Australia have benefited from having grid layouts in their cities which makes adding public transport much easier.
We have taken the hardest, slowest, and most expensive route every time for short-term solutions to long term problems.
*not a defence of our shite health service, buuut..*
If she was resident in Australia she paid for private health insurance as part of her conditions for a visa.
Nothing you love more than going down the pub with a mate who has returned from a few years overseas to get a night long lecture on how bloody wonderful it is abroad and how terrible it is here.
Ireland has its problems and its dysfunctions. Every country in the world does. I prefer to take the positive mindset of acknowledging good stuff we should seek to import, rather than just jumping up and down and pretending “only in Ireland x”, because it invites a back biting discussion where we look at wherever you went abroad, and point out all its flaws.
As for “nobody following the rules”, you’d want to be narrowly travelled in the world to think of Ireland this way. As a society we’re not built the way say, the Germans are. But neither are we Italians or Greeks. Ireland is a pretty stable rules based society in the grand scheme of things.
How can the headline be that the problem is Irish people dont follow rules? Is it not that there is insufficient provision in these areas -housing etc so people are finding ways and means? Theyve got this backwards.
The flip side if that is Australia’s a police state lol. They fine you for everything
And when these flaws are pointed out, the Irish get pissy and refuse to acknowledge them
we can’t have bins on the street because they inevitably end up being used as local refuse by the mingebags among us.
Ireland suffers from Post Colonialism. We have way more in common with African and South American countries than with Europe or Australia.
Having been a colony for hundreds of years leads to an inate distrust of government and a “stroke” culture. It will take a very long time to become anything resembling a Denmark.
The fatal flaw with Irish people (people in general) moving abroad is simply looking at what other places do well rather than what they do wrong. And then do the opposite to home. I do believe Irish people going abroad and coming home with fresh ideas is absolutely essential for our societal progress. But if you’re going to go to Australia and shit on Ireland for the rest of your life, get lost.
I lived abroad for a few years. Travelled to a few countries and the one thing that hit me really hard when I got home is the lack of policing. Most other countries have such a good handle on crime it makes Ireland look like a joke.
Most trans and trains I used abroad always had a member of the police to make sure the transport was safe. On top of this people seemed to really respect them of all ages.
It’s no wonder the youth of Ireland do what they do. They don’t get in any trouble. When I was abroad it was not common to meet a gang of youth doing what they do here.
Yet we’ll be called stuck up and told move back abroad if you like it so much if say everything is backwards here
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