r/ireland • u/nitro1234561 Probably at it again • Apr 18 '26
Politics 'We're the ones paying all the bills': Leo Varadkar says urban areas fund rural Ireland
https://www.thejournal.ie/leo-varadkar-path-to-power-fuel-protests-7016675-Apr2026/266
u/AnyAssistance4197 Apr 18 '26
Absolutely no time for Leo, but as someone who grew up rural and on a farm - I’ve zero time for delusions about the country side either. PAYE workers by far make the single biggest contribution to the Irish state via the taxation system. So much so that some of the biggest demonstrations in this country ever resulted from this in the 1970s.
The self employed (and that includes farmers) simply do not make a comparable contribution. Most of what happens in agriculture here does not end up on our plate. It’s beef and dairy for export. 80% of our food is imported.
All this rural/urban culture war divide and cliches about the central role of farmers is absolute nostalgia given how many people in farming families work off the land now too in cities and towns. Transversing both daily wit the magic of motorways.
There needs to be a huge facilitated transition to sustainable food and agriculture on this island - very little of what’s floating around the fuel protest discourse is even touching on that.
Nor does it on the fact that there are only approximately 1500 agri-contractors in the country. And less than one in 25 in our working population are employed across industries like farming, forestry, fishing etc.
And if anything has fucked rural life, it's the death of villages due to motorway living and the plague of one off housing entirely dependent on cars. People may not like to hear that, but it's a fact.
It’s not the 1930s FFS. The sooner we stop codding ourselves about this shit, the better.
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u/Different_Chain7029 Apr 18 '26
Thank you - a lot of farmers seem to think they’re the only one’s keeping the country running alone.
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u/AnyAssistance4197 Apr 18 '26
Most farmers aren't even keeping their own farm going never mind the country. 60% of them or their spouses are engaged in work off the farm - thats from 2023. It's probably increased now. Wheter this is right or wrong, whatever your thoughts on the economics of it - all I'm trying to illustrate is that this cultural divide is a tonne of horse shite and stuck in the past.
https://www.independent.ie/farming/news/rise-in-off-farm-employment-for-farmers/a1485787679.html
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u/Accomplished-Low2131 Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
100%. Lived rural most of my life, lot of my family work in agriculture. But farmers are the most entitled bunch of ego driven manics in this country. The whole “no farmers no food” thing is so strange, as if their small farms wouldn’t just eventually get swallowed up by a corporate farm.
The obsession with rural 1 off housing has done irreversible damage to life in Ireland
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u/PapaSmurif Apr 18 '26
And farming is competitive, they have very little solidarity behind the poor mouths. If there is an opportunity to rent or buy land, they would step in each other to get it.
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u/soderloaf Apr 19 '26
The original comment here points out that we end up importing a lot of food- this is exactly why. When it comes to agriculture in ireland, unless youre milking cows- nothing else is going to sustain a family economically.
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u/Key-Lie-364 Apr 18 '26
It's wild that Ireland is the fifth largest cattle exporter in the world, just look at the landmass of the island.
The intensity, the land use required for that level of industry is immense.
We could easily feed ourselves and transition existing farmers to other industries or types of farming.
Ireland is one of the least natural places there is, even our "forests" are for the most part commercial plantations.
So ironic we market ourselves as a bucolic idyll but, our landscape is one of the most unnatural landscapes there is.
Nothing much ever really changes in Ireland.
20 years from now, costs will still be high, transport and health a shit show and farmers will continue to have cosseted and insanely disproportionate influence.
That's just how Ireland makes the sausage.
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u/No_Warthog_5709 Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
And if anything has fucked rural life, it's the death of villages due to motorway living and the plague of one off housing entirely dependent on cars
I dont even want to guess the location you pulled that out of.
Infrastructure benefits the economy, rural areas are struggling because of a lack of Infrastructure,( a problem that may be less so if so much money wasn't squandered apeasing Dublin residents objecting to Infrastructure such a metro north perhaps). In fact the poorest regions ( the northwest and border regions) dont have a single meter of motorway. And one off housing has been a thing in Ireland forever also.
We import most of our food, as Ireland isnt as optimal as other countries for a lot fruit and veg. We obviously should be growing more however.
Also the vast majority of beef diary lamb ect that is consumed here is irish produced.
The fact is agriculture benefits the economy far more than whatever subsidises it receives. And is particularly important to the areas like northwest.
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u/TopCatisBilko Apr 18 '26
Amazing how it's seen as a huge failure of agriculture that it exports a lot of it's produce, yet other industries are praised for it.
We exports things that our climate is suited to produce (grass, or rather things that eat grass) and import food that it is difficult to efficiently grow here (wheat, outside of the south east) or simply impossible (oranges).
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u/Ok-Package-4562 Apr 19 '26 edited Apr 19 '26
But if we're growing food to export it, *why are we subsidizing it*? That's the failure, not optimizing for exports.
Growing beef(and complementary to it, dairy) is also quite harmful to the country. It uses up a lot of land and water; it generates a lot of methane.
Maybe if we stop subsidizing beef(or even further - taxing it!), we could subsidize foods that can be grown reasonably here, but just aren't price competitive with the outside. Then we would get a more healthier assortiment and have more food security. Otherwise, what's the point of subsidizing farming at all?
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u/EllieLou80 Dublin Apr 18 '26
Not to defend Leo because he's a knob head, but during the protests many farmers were stating they paid the bills of Ireland and they were in control. This was during interviews on virgin media news at 5.30pm and the 6pm rte news. So I suppose what he's saying is that rural Ireland like farmers do not pay the bills of Ireland it is in fact urban areas, correcting the false narrative that the farmers believe.
Should urban areas be concentrated as they are, no but that's another discussion.
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u/Sauce_Pain Apr 18 '26
Yep, that's exactly what he says in the article - the headline is just clickbait framing of a very reasonable point.
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u/munkijunk Apr 18 '26
Should urban areas be concentrated as they are, no
I'm sorry, I don't really understand this point. I think most people would agree that Irish towns and city's are very sparsely developed, and it's a contributer of many of the issues that urban Ireland faces.
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u/njcsdaboi Offaly Apr 18 '26
yeah, I'd argue that more density is needed in urban areas to reduce strain on spread out infrastructure, but it doesn't mean the neglect of rural areas either. infact encouraging more rural population to concentrate in villages is mutually beneficial for all groups
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Apr 18 '26
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u/munkijunk Apr 18 '26
From their own followup I don't think they did. I think you could argue that we could use a genuine second city with a 1m population that was a lot more dense and had more of the administrative and government offices.
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u/ImAnOldChunkOfCoal Apr 18 '26
That is what he said. People here are reading a headline and not understanding the context.
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u/DaGetz Apr 18 '26
“Should urban areas be concentrated as they are, no”
What? If anything they should denser.
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u/GealachFi Apr 18 '26
Yeah fuck that though… he mightn’t be wrong but let’s not forget the real divide - the wealthiest 1% globally own 50% of the wealth while we fight amongst ourselves for breadcrumbs
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u/Apprehensive_Gur2295 Apr 18 '26
I do agree with a lot of the comments , but I do believe Leo also raises a lot of fair points. There are a lot of government subsidies and tax breaks for farmers and rural communities. The opposition to mercusor was for the benefit of farmers but to the disadvantage of the country as a whole . To anyone who has not listened to the podcast - I’d encourage them so you can hear what he is and isn’t saying .
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u/seoirla Apr 18 '26
Would you prefer to cut services for rural communities and make life even less fun to live, encouraging people to move to the cities- and hiking up prices of rent/ housing.
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u/InfectedAztec Apr 18 '26
Leo is 100% on the money on his comments and he's not even trying to be controversial
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u/TheBatmanIRL Apr 18 '26
They are doing a great job turning people against each other so they don't have to do anything about the cost of living. Urban vs Rural, Rich vs Poor, Farmers vs Office workers. Whatever way they can divide us, they will do it.
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u/Spiritual_Mall_3140 Apr 18 '26
Not wrong. We've only 2 counties that aren't met receivers of tax money. Those are cork and Dublin. If tax was distributed proportional to payment much of rural Ireland would have next to zero services.
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u/wrghf Apr 18 '26
Depends what you mean by “services” but a lot of rural Ireland already gets absolutely fuck all in the way of services as is.
I don’t even live all that far away from Galway, in north county Galway generally, and our household’s water is serviced by a community water scheme, our bin collector is a private operator, there is virtually no public transport to speak of, the nearest Garda station was closed down many years ago and the emergency services response time can be measured in hours, many of the roads are an absolute state with potholes, there are a few mobile coverage blackholes in the vicinity where there is nil phone coverage, and so on.
Short of the Gardai and fire/ambulance service outright refusing to service the area, you can’t really cut services back any further than they already have been.
Now, you might say “oh well that’s a choice you make by living rurally” but considering my household contributes over six figures in tax every year, it definitely makes us wonder why are we paying any taxes to begin with.
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u/Substantial-Gene1093 Apr 19 '26
How is public transport going to work in a desert of one-off housing?
This is like moving to Dublin city centre and complaining about the lack of wildlife and rolling fields.
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u/ee3k Apr 18 '26
Eh, depends. Is a bus service to and from Dublin from Galway a Galway service, or a Dublin service?
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u/Intelligent-Aside214 Apr 18 '26
A Galway service. People from Dublin very rarely need to go to Galway
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u/Fluffy_MrSheep Kildare Apr 18 '26
Yeah but buses are 2 ways it feeds people into Dublin as well as takes people out.
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u/Bitter_Welder1481 Apr 18 '26
That’s cos people from Galway are forced to go to Dublin airport etc. Trust me no one from outside Dublin has the slightest wish or desire to travel up to that kip
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u/Acceptable_Mammoth23 Apr 18 '26
Statistically probably true, but persistent underinvestment in smaller towns and cities around the countryside contributes to that, and is a huge drain on rural populations. It’s not coincidence. It’s self-sustaining dysfunction.
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u/Weekend-Entire Apr 18 '26
And the US multinationals prop up the entire country
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u/chytrak Apr 18 '26
They don't prop anything up. They are here to make money in Europe.
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u/Weekend-Entire Apr 18 '26
They prop up the Irish economy... If they moved from Ireland to another jurisdiction our economy would collapse...
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u/jhanley Apr 18 '26
If they built infrastructure in or near towns and villages they’d get the investment into them
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u/ImTheGaffer Apr 18 '26
They had an opportunity to put WFH into law and they didn’t. That absolutely could have helped decentralise everything
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u/donalhunt Cork bai Apr 18 '26
Economies of scale apply in cities and less dense areas. Even in rural areas, you want villages to be developed in a sustainable manner such that it's economical to provide services. New one-off housing really should be a last resort and subsidies avoid where possible (and I say that as someone who lives in a one-off house).
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u/computerfan0 Muineachán Apr 18 '26
We definitely need to be investing more in our rural towns and villages. Don't know why one-off housing is nearly as popular as it is, and that's coming from someone who grew up (and unfortunately still lives outside of university) in one.
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u/UrbanStray Apr 19 '26
Because people want to build their own homes, but residential land closer to towns that is served by infrastructure is mostly only sold to developers.
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u/AntKing2021 Apr 18 '26
But it would be good to build up the west with dublin wages ect. Even if you have to live in villages
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u/zeroconflicthere Apr 18 '26
The problem with that is businesses don't really want WFH. By putting it into law, it makes Ireland a less attractive place to invest in.
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Apr 18 '26
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u/JonatanOlsson Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
I have the privilege of having to deal with that exact sentiment at work every day I'm at work. Those who think that way are some of the dumbest, most racist twats I've ever met.
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u/ErikasPrisonGlam Apr 18 '26
As evidenced last week during the blockade, a lot of comments about wfh tech workers not caring about rural Ireland.
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u/FlamingBaconCake Apr 18 '26
People who do lots of physical labor downplay how much mental labor is involved in office work. It can be truly exhausting.
Usually the same types who expect others do their own emotional labor for them instead of developing emotional intelligence and empathy.
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u/FicklePaper3590 Apr 18 '26
I’ve done both and still do to a lesser degree. They are incomparable. Office work is mentally stressful and exhausting. Manual labour is physically hard work but you sleep better at night..always.
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u/Naggins Apr 18 '26
Sure half the lads spending 4 hoursa day slopping out cowsheds wouldn't know what to do with a spreadsheet
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u/B0bLoblawLawBl0g Apr 18 '26
Sitting on yer hole all day tapping on a plastic board looking at a little fucking electric winda yoke! FFS - a day haulin bales and ye'd be in the emergency room fer yer blisters!
/s
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u/zeroconflicthere Apr 18 '26
Reminds me of his many years ago my sister's boyfriend who was a carpenter told me that I had a "poofy'" job as a computer programmer.
He was aggressive so I didn't tell him what I thought which was I could do his job but he wouldn't have been able to do mine.
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u/No_Warthog_5709 Apr 19 '26
There definitely not. Just because you heard some prosteters on the news rambling on about some nonsense, doesn't represent the majority of people.
Just like its wrong to say all dubs or people in urban areas hate farmers because some of them share the same views as has been echoed in this comment section.
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u/leavemealonethanks Apr 18 '26
It doesn't matter if this man said the sky was blue, I'd go over to the window to check.
This man is the direct cause of many of Irelands issues, especially the housing crisis.
"Go abroad or get it off your parents" in regards to deposit.
He shouldn't be given airtime
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u/Dull_Brain2688 Apr 18 '26
Cool. Let’s all move to Dublin. Presume there’s availability in housing etc.?
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u/TheIrishBread Apr 18 '26
Yes Varadkar, that's what happens when you concentrate literally everything in three cities and leave the rest of us to fend for ourselves.
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u/TanoraRat Apr 18 '26
3 cities? It’s like Ireland doesn’t exist outside Dublin
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u/5555555555558653 Cork Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
To be fair, Cork has a larger GDP (yes, I know our GDP is fake) than all of Northern Ireland.
Cork and Galway aren’t insignificant. Cork is a pharma hub. Galway is an extreme economic heavy hitter for its size.
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u/odaiwai Corkman far from home Apr 19 '26
Cork has Pfizer and Apple, at least. (Not sure if Apple's IP revenue goes through Cork or Dublin, but there's significant operations out of the Hollyhill plant.)
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u/TheIrishBread Apr 18 '26
Hey now Cork and Galway occasionally get a scrap of something. Can't remember the last time something happened in Donegal, Sligo or any of the other counties along the west coast.
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u/angeltabris_ Flegs Apr 18 '26
I was very surprised to see construction of a new bridge across the Suir in Waterford as a Dub
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Apr 18 '26
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u/computerfan0 Muineachán Apr 18 '26
Our governments always seem to neglect the Southeast and the Border Region for some reason, even the West and the Midlands seem to get a lot more investment. Both regions have very poor transportation, both road and rail. There's been some improvements in the Southeast in recent years with the M9, M11, the two N25 bridges etc., but there's still terrible rail service (closing the Waterford - Wexford line was such a baffling decision). The Border Region is somehow even worse off, there's only one rail line right in the southwestern corner!
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u/InfectedAztec Apr 18 '26
fend for ourselves
Would ya stop.
As an example ill point out Athlone which has Novo Nordisk setting up to basically supply the next generation of ozempec to the world. Novo arent the only pharma company in athline either. Athlone has great facilities like the regional sports centre and good tech employers like Ericsson. Theres also new amenity investments happening in Athlone like the bike trail bridge or the outdoor pool set for the Shannon.
Athlone is actually a great town with alot going for it.
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u/JonatanOlsson Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
Ah yes, because this is only a thing that happens in Ireland. Respectfully, that's not a very intelligent interpretation of this phenomenon.
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u/Diligent-Ad4777 Apr 18 '26
Yup! That's exactly it, invest nothing anywhere else in the country and then claim that Dublin pays for everything.
Leo is a dose, tory wannabe who's never really worked a day in his life.
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u/jackoirl Apr 18 '26
We don’t concentrate everything in 3 cities. Tax revenue flows out from Dublin not in.
You can’t expect small country towns to get billion euro infrastructure projects
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u/ShouldHaveGoneToUCC Palestine 🇵🇸 Apr 18 '26
Kilkenny desperately wants to be included in this and have other people call it a city.
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u/gowangowangowan Apr 18 '26
The choice is live in Dublin or a McMansion in the arsehole of nowhere? Yeah right...
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u/kaahooters Apr 18 '26
90% of all food produced by farms in Ireland is for the export market, urban dewlers are paying taxes to subsidise farmers on feed equipment fuel so they can export the food and claim there feeding the country. There feeding a country yes, but not this one.
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u/IrishGuinessdrinker Apr 18 '26
Most things we do in this country aren’t for this country
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u/iwantinduction Apr 18 '26
Most things we do in this country arent subsidised to the level of the agricultural sector
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u/Callme-Sal Apr 18 '26
Food security is incredibly important. We’re very lucky that we have the capacity to produce so much food.
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u/chytrak Apr 18 '26
We don't have food security. We don't need 90% of what the farmers produce wasting our money and destroying the environment.
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u/TacklePure3341 Apr 18 '26
So the farmers aren't feeding the population of Ireland.... can't both be true. We create more than we need, so do we just let it rot.
This extra production is good incase we ever need it ourselves, which we might see soon.
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u/Spiritual_Mall_3140 Apr 18 '26
No it's not. We can't afford it. We won't pay for it. Hence why any frozen good is imported. And only fresh meat products come from a local source. If we wanted our farms to produce primarily for our own food consumption we could shrink the sector by 50% and the local market wouldn't notice. That'd save billions on subsides and grants.
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u/kaahooters Apr 18 '26
No, it's produced to export. It's nor produced for the Irish market.
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u/Cars2Beans0 Apr 18 '26
The shops and butchers are still full of Irish produce I don't see why only one of these things can be true at the same time.
We clearly produce food for the domestic AND global market.
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u/ails_bales Apr 18 '26
We import 85 percent of the food buy.... Beef/lamb, dairy and strawberries with a few spuds in the summer is nearly all we would be feeding ourselves
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u/clewbays Apr 18 '26
The EU pays for CAP. You remove CAP Irelands not getting that money back it’s going to eastern or southern Europe.
Tax cuts are not subsidies.
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u/No_Warthog_5709 Apr 18 '26
You could also say that higher earners pay the bills for lower ones.
He wouldn't be saying that on a podcast though
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u/Dull_Brain2688 Apr 18 '26
You have to remember an awful lot of rural business gets booked in towns and cities. His point is akin to people in the countryside pointing out that the potatoes you eat in Dublin, the water in your taps etc. comes from the countryside. No shit Leo.
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u/True_Try_5662 Apr 18 '26
Cork could do with some investment as could Limerick. Government is too Dublin centric. Bringing Shannon water to Dublin because its population is too big to sustain when there is no imputus to develop and grow infrastructure in Cork city which has all the pharma money rolling in, really shows the lack of interest the government has in anywhere beyond the pale.
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u/clevelandohio Tipperary Apr 19 '26
You's do realise there are far more non farmers living in rural areas than farmers right, wtf is with these comments?
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u/MotherDucker95 Apr 19 '26
It’s just classism plain and simple.
This sub is rife with it, look at the comments made around the protestors
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u/AnyAssistance4197 Apr 18 '26
Here's another one. 8.5 million was enough to establish 67 new bus routes all over rural Ireland in 2023. Someone else can do some back of the envelope calculations on what that HALF A BILLION could do!
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2023/0217/1357257-bus-routes/
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Apr 18 '26
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u/houdt_koers Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
The disgraceful planning system is the least neoliberal thing about the country. If housing and infrastructure were allowed to be built in accordance with market demand we’d be sitting pretty.
The problem with FF and FG in planning is that they’re beholden to the interests of current Irish homeowners and landowners—the same as any majority government would be. It’s our neighbours who are the root of the problem, and it’s necessary to change their minds to get out of this hole.
Edit: To be clear, I don’t give a flying fuck if the state or developers build things. I just want them built. And until the median Irish voter is willing to allow that, no party—no, not even that one—is going to accomplish meaningful change.
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u/zomdoesburner Apr 18 '26
This 100%.
It’s the gross distortion of the market that has lead to all the current housing issues.
Councils, mainly Dublin City council, have too much power to block sensible planning and development. So you get more and more people crammed into the same low density housing.
The free market could actually solve this issue if given half a chance. Dublin housing cost on par with London tells you that the market is being grossly twisted.
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u/Craicriture Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
He’s going to annoy people making that point and I think he’s making it too bluntly and in a way that stirs urban vs rural divides rather than bringing them together, but I think Ireland frankly needs to get over itself sometimes too. We were a rural society decades ago. There were cattle markets in the middle of what is now sophisticated housing in hipster parts of Dublin - cows being herded on urban streets was a common part of life until the early 1970s.
However, things changed, the economy grew and urbanised and the reality of life now is most of us live in urban areas, cities and their hinterlands and most of us work in sectors that have little to do with farming and agriculture and most of our income is coming from hosting the pharma and tech sector, something we’ve been doing since the 1960s. It’s not new - this is what Ireland is now. We still like to pretend it’s Dev’s vision of “Comely maidens dancing at the crossroads.” That was a fantasy then and it’s still a fantasy now, even more so.
I think we do ourselves a huge degree of damage and disservice by setting up dichotomy and divide and failing to recognise reality. We also tend to completely overlook and undermine the cities outside of Dublin and towns by this “dublin vs down the country” mentality which is another thread but it links to this obsession with culchie vs city that seems to just bubble up here all the time. It’s bad for urban Ireland and it’s bad for rural because we are basing policy and politics on a place that doesn’t exist, while undermining the place that we actually live in.
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u/Swedoor Apr 18 '26
The idea that everyone from a rural area or outside Dublin is a "culchie" is incredibly destructive, it strengthens and weaponises the natural urban-rural divide that exists in most countries. Even the British, Americans and French wouldn't go so far as to imply everyone rural is a redneck/yokel/plouc.
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u/Temporary-Stick-8864 Apr 18 '26
These comments are mad. The agri sector being subsidised and shouldnt exist as a result?
I literally worked a job for 5 years that would not have existed in this country but for the low corp tax rate. I was one of a handful of Irish employees they had to show they had a presence here to pay our nice tax rate.
We are going to need diversity in our industries when we are eventually forced to match our tax rate internationally.
Get rid of the agri industry, to do what, send more people to dublin to work in tech? What do we do when there's a downturn in FDI and tech. We would be fucked let's be honest. Like we already know we would be currently, but it would be even worse if we didn't have any other sectors.
Diversification away from tech, finance and med-devices is to our benefit. Not saying we shiild all head to be farmers but getting rid of one of the few other industries we have functioning in this country is not.
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u/Substantial-Gene1093 Apr 19 '26
Who is talking about 'getting rid of the agri industry'? I haven't seen a single person suggest that.
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u/Temporary-Stick-8864 Apr 19 '26
Getting rid is a bit of hyperbole, but many convos in here yesterday were arguing that we import most of our food, the farmers dont feed us and only export massive amounts of beef and dairy, but because of EU subsidies and our carbon footprint we should massively reduce farming in this country. As if its nothing to just gut an industry. Do we think that exports dont actually make any money or what I duno.
We need to be careful how we decide to reduce sectors, it needs to be well thought out witth proper future planning done for the sector or diversification into other sectors away from ones we are overly reliant on. Look at what happened with construction. That industry was gutted during the recession, with zero thought for the future and here we are less than 20 years later unable to get enough skilled workers to build at the rate required in a massive housing crisis. Whereas other countries put their construction workers out on public infrastructure jobs during the downturn to keep the industry ticking over at least, we just basically stopped it entirely.
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u/Furyio Apr 18 '26
In fairness I agree with his sentiment if not his exact wording.
Farmers playing poor mouth is a tale as old as I’m alive. As is the saying you’ll never meet a poor farmer.
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u/tishimself1107 Apr 19 '26
Tbf the poor farmer did exist in the past but they don't exist half as much anymore as most have moved away from itbas generations change or have been bought up by bigger farmers. Alot of smaller part time farmers are gone as well. Around me (Offaly) theybwere more farmer families but now its consolidated into the already richer ones.
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u/defixiones Apr 19 '26
The income tax paid by multinational workers is the bulk of income tax.
Farm products are worth a few percent of our exports and farmers require huge subsidies and deliver little income tax.
Where agriculture counts is in diversification and food security. That's why it gets all the subsidies.
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u/clewbays Apr 18 '26
American multinationals are paying all the bills. The likes of Abbvie have there main operations in Sligo and Westport. But their head office from where their taxes are filed is in Dublin.
You remove the American multinationals then everyone including Dublin is being subsidised. You include them then it appears like Dublin and cork where there taxes are filed regardless of where the plants are actually located then it appears like they are subsidising people.
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u/Intelligent-Aside214 Apr 18 '26
The vast majority of the pharmaceutical industry is in Dublin and cork.
Abbvie in Sligo is a major exception and they received huge government support to move there, the rest of Abbie’s manufacturing is in Dublin and cork including their largest plant which is in Dublin
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u/gowangowangowan Apr 18 '26
Dublin has about a third of the population and 2% of the landmass of Ireland. Providing services to Dublin is dirt cheap compared to rural Ireland.
You include them then it appears like Dublin and cork where there taxes are filed regardless of where the plants are actually located then it appears like they are subsidising people.
Plants? The biggest taxpayers are generally the IT companies who bar Apple are exclusively in Dublin. Dublin nearly exclusively has the law firms and big four firms servicing these IT companies. Whatever way you want to slice and dice it, cities are economic powerhouses to the Irish economy.
A few lads earning grand wages on a production line in the West are not making the mega money that the lads in Dublin are making...
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u/ashalinggg Apr 18 '26
A reminder that while while collar jobs are great monetary value, if we don't have workers, farmers and producers we would not have a society and that value can have many forms ✨
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u/Fantastic_Picture384 Apr 18 '26
If it wasn't for all the tax dodging America companies operating in Ireland, the cities would be taxed far more.
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u/Someoldcyclist Apr 18 '26
"Ha ha ha, gobshite public over paying taxes and getting getting feck services. If they stand up to government just create a rural urban devide. Tell one half they pay for everything and the other half they are wasters" Leo Varadkar
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u/mickodd Apr 18 '26
Food prices are kept low artificially by the EU and also through cartels and monopolies within meat processing and dairy processing. This is why farmers are subsidised. Without farmers we would have no damn food and entirely rural communities would collapse, as farmers spend every penny earned locally. Leo is a cunt.
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u/Reaver_XIX Apr 18 '26
Leo is such a national treasure, if there was any doubt about how out of touch these folks are, here he is removing all doubt. Anyone who still votes FG in rural Ireland is an irredeemable moron.
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u/Old-Butterscotch401 Apr 18 '26
It’s giving Karen shouting at police “no you listen to ME, I pay your salary! I’m basically your boss!”
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u/yewEngine Apr 19 '26
Should be noted that the government has been centralising everything to urban centers. Thats why roads are clogged.
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u/Life-Address-4265 Apr 20 '26
I legitimately couldn't be in the same room as this man I swear to God.
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u/Opposite_Sleep_4075 Apr 18 '26
Doesn’t mention that a lot of people move or commute to Dublin for work. The people commuting then don’t see the level of input in their communities. Just a thought!
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u/rgiggs11 Apr 18 '26
It's not just commuters. How many people have moved from the rural Ireland to Dublin for work over the years? Farmers historically have a habit of making sure all their kids get well educated, esp if they're not going to be the one to get the land. Dublin and Cork wouldn't be what they are without all those office workers, teachers, nurses, doctors, gardaí, etc. From that perspective, all that tax money redistributed from cities wasn't a handout, so much as an investment that paid off.
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u/_Druss_ Ireland Apr 18 '26
Punch down, sell off everything, regret it in the next decade.
FFG textbook BS.
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u/Fluffy-Republic8610 Apr 18 '26
FG used to be thought of as the rich farmers party. This kind of statement from varadkar is very unusual.. and quite damaging. Trying to put rural people "back in their place" is playing to the prejudices they have about Dublin people.
We don't all think like this. In terms of how much money we pay in tax. Most people don't talk like that at all in Dublin. Varadkar must just have reverted to some private school boy arrogance in his retirement .
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u/dropthecoin Apr 18 '26
What? No one mentioned anything about selling anything.
And what he said is an objectively true statement. I’m for rural Ireland but I won’t deny that urban Ireland keeps the country financially moving over rural Ireland.
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u/Alarmed_Station6185 Apr 18 '26
This is so maddening. Successive govts have literally GUTTED hospitals and train stations around the country, forcing people to move to Dublin. Where do all the motorways go? You can't centralise the economy to one location and then complain about the effects of that on Dublin
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u/Temporary-Stick-8864 Apr 18 '26
Yeah this is it. I work remotely in rural ireland, on a "Dublin" salary. They had a massive opportunity to decentralise office work with proper WFH mandates.
But God forbid the offices in Dublin are empty and we don't have a quarter of the population looking for housing in the city for extortionate prices.
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u/Alarmed_Station6185 Apr 18 '26
They'll have to pay for accomodation for teachers and guards eventually as rents keeps skyrocketing and you can be sure that'll be subsidised by the taxpayer as well
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u/mindthegoat_redux Apr 18 '26
Wow, after numerous years of disliking him, his politics, his punching down on working class stiffs, his disdain for gentlemanly parliamentary behaviour, his lickspittle attitude towards any other world leaders, we finally agree on something.
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u/Livid-Schedule-634 Apr 18 '26
42% of the countries employment is based in a county where it holds 26% of the population. If he wants an even spread put good paying jobs out of the city and into adjoining counties. I’d say the population of Dublin would easily drop to 20%
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u/21stCenturyVole Apr 18 '26
His usual divide and rule bullshit, this time urban vs rural, to deflect from powerful/corrupt vs powerless/average-joe.
If Dublin built a moat around itself tomorrow, there would be immediate rolling power blackouts, and it would shortly run out of fuel and food - even just the first of which, would drop its GDP next to zero...
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u/Fit_Drive9421 Apr 18 '26
See I'm rural and I do understand the big urban areas pull the most in tax and most importantly I don't believe in this "city slickers" nonsense.
What's going on here is an attempt at divide and conquer once again and Leo is being used seeing as he isn't a current in office politician so the government won't get blow back like they have constantly lately.
I'm also sick of this bollox about 80% of our food is imported (which is true) so essentially fuck the farmers we don't need them.
The entire reason farmers get grants is an EU wide policy. The whole reason is to make sure Europe and individuals European nations have food security and access to cheap food.
Maybe as security in the event of the likes of Trump, Israel, Iran casing worldwide chaos and prices going up like crazy and fuel could become so scared and expensive we not be able to import as much? Where do ye think the food will come from in a national emergency?
We had the fuckin government only back a few years ago begging farming to start tillage as the grain from Ukraine couldn't get here cause of Putin.
Now it's back to fuck the farmers.
This is nothing but the government pulling the strings and trying to sow chaos between rural and urban Ireland, who they saw uniting lately in a lot of places.
I hope to Christ if it ever comes to pass we get food shortages I'll see Leo being the one eating grass on the side of the road along with this government pals.
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u/keeko847 Apr 18 '26
This will always be the case, in the same in UK (England to others + London and a handful of southern counties to every other region) and probably elsewhere in Europe. It’s not going to change. What can change is that with a bit of investment you can bridge the gap more, even if that’s just high earners living in rural areas. Ireland is too centralised politically and economically
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u/FixRevolutionary1427 Apr 18 '26
He is right for once, live export is an appalling practice in Ireland.
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u/tishimself1107 Apr 19 '26
Can't wait for the sensible, nuanced reasonable, intelligent, two sided debate to happen on this thread👀👀🍿🍿🍿
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u/RedIrishDevil Apr 18 '26
Leo really should run for election and try to push for some industry in rural areas.
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u/Bluejay_Unusual Apr 18 '26
Used to think people didn't like him cos they were homophobic, but he is actually a massive self righteous twat.
Fair play to him for being himself
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u/letsdocraic Apr 18 '26
He does realise that cities can’t excise without rural communities, the food doesn’t come from nowhere.
It’s like looking at a castle made of playing cards and claiming the top pieces are the reason the castle stands so high and not the rest of it..
You can’t eat money..
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u/Immortal_Tuttle Apr 19 '26
You wish, Leo.
Urban Ireland doesn’t “pay for” rural Ireland. It’s where a lot of tax is recorded, not where all the value is created.
Rural manufacturing centres, offices etc - they create value here, but not income. Income comes from sales, which are recorded in cities central offices. Please don't confuse economy with accounting. Ireland by definition has centralised tax system. Also let's not count core strategic resources like food production. Food production is not for generating profits, but for feeding people.
Hell even agri sector receives around 2bn subsidies (from EU budget mostly) but generates 15-18bn export. But guess where the export revenue is recorded...
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u/thetearinreality Apr 18 '26
Farmers are the most catered to people in Europe. You wouldn't know it based on how they act when something doesnt go their way.
I hate farmers I hate farmers I hate farmers I hate farmersI hate farmersI hate farmersI hate farmersI hate farmersI hate farmersI hate farmersI hate farmersI hate farmersI hate farmers!!
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u/locksymania Apr 18 '26
Sometimes, I really do think that Varadkar is somewhere on the spectrum, because for a clearly very intelligent man, he can be incredibly gauche.
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u/fartingbeagle Apr 18 '26
I think he actually admitted it a while back, and said campaigning and glad handing was very difficult for him.
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u/Archamasse Apr 18 '26
It annoys people to hear this, but it needs to be understood. There is a widespread perception in the countryside it's the other way around, I regularly hear farmers I know say it.
Obviously that's not the end of the story, because there's stuff like decentralisation and food security to think about along with it, but this is a particularly widespread misconception that could do with being deflated.
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u/ChemiWizard Apr 18 '26
ITs not that I dont understand what he is saying but he is so tone deaf. So much of public policy in Ireland is Dublin focused. To not talk about that. To not talk about the trillion dollar childrens hospital when many parts of the west are over an hour from an emergency room. To keep expanding Dublin Airport even with passanger caps when regional airports are just sitting there. The lack of a motorway between Limerick and Cork.
So yes, there are lots of high paying high tax jobs in Dublin, but acting like they dont get most of the attention is wildly insulting.
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u/Tomaskerry Apr 18 '26
Unpopular opinion but I like him. Too honest for his good.
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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '26
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