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NEXT FRIDAY, 29 NOVEMBER, is polling day in the General Election, 2024. By now, the parties vying to run the country in the next Dáil have released their manifestos and gone head-to-head with their political opponents to set out their stalls.
Polling will take place in schools across the country in 43 constituencies and turnout often depends on the weather, the day of the week and the level of frustration of the electorate at the time. With this week’s cold snap and stormy conditions impacting candidates’ ability to canvass on the doorsteps, they’ll be hoping for plain sailing next week ahead of the big day.
Housing, health, the cost of living and immigration are showing up as the top line issues in this election cycle, with polls so far showing that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil look set to retain their lead, with Independents showing healthy support then ahead of Sinn Féin. As any election followers in this country can testify, though, it’s often the transfers that can ultimately dictate the shape of the next Dáil. So every vote counts.
One of the big issues springing from the housing crisis is that of the emigration, of young people mostly, to different parts of the world like Australia, the US, the Middle East and Canada. With near full employment in this country, many of them cite the cost of living and difficulty securing housing as the main reasons for their decision to leave.
So, with a week to go until polling day, we’d like to hear from those of you living abroad and ask if there’s anything that the next government could do that would encourage you to come home to Ireland.
Please share your views with us by emailing a paragraph or two (around 200-250 words max) to answers@thejournal.ie or by clicking the button below.
Please include your name, county, the country you’re now living in and your thoughts. You can also of course share that information but tell us too if you would like to remain anonymous in the article afterwards.
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How much does the state make in taxes if 50million euros a week
is spent on alcohol?
I am sure it covers the 114million euros a year on treatments.
Yet a charity had to be set up in Crumlin for children with scoliosis because the government won’t pay for vital surgeries.
The lists are massive and as you grow do does your curve.
No child should ever end up like me . I have stage 1 respiratory failure. We hope we have reversed it with major surgery a month ago.
These kids rely on the goodness of the public donating money for their surgery.
Yet you take heroin and become an alcoholic you get help no problem.
Disgusted by this news.
Please check out http://www.straightaheadireland.ie
A top orthopaedic surgeon does these ops for free in his own time because he cares unlike our government.
I think I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
If a small part of this money would be used to educate people for better eating and drinking culture, you won’t have addiction problems.
Besides, I don’t understand why my taxes are used for people who deliberately decide to waste their life, and I still have to pay 55 euro every time I bring my kids to the GP. Certainly my kids don’t decide to get sick.
Sorry an addiction isn’t caused by a culture or lack there of, you’re simplifying one of the more complex diseases people suffer from! There’s addicts in every walk of life, they differ in their vice but there’s no way to eliminate it through cultural changes!
⚠️⚠️⚠️Irish people are Bombarded with advertising for Alcohol. Every where, every street, town in country has these adds. Then there’s all the pubs. The supermarkets use it as lost leaders and advertise it all the time. Childern know all the brands of alcohol. So of course some people are going to have problems which need care and help. We don’t spend ENOUGH !⚠️
Let’s hope your k
Although we do have to address our relationship with alcohol in terms of our culture and the social acceptability of excessive drinking, alcohol/drugs/destructive behaviours etc are in many cases an attempt to cope with psychological or psychiatric issues. Think in terms of childhood trauma, recession, poverty, social inclusion and many other issues. Healthy eating is hardly going to deal with many of the problems we as a state have ignored.
The supermarkets and off licenses who sell so cheaply are the biggest contributors to the problem these days, they sell glass bottles too which are often drunk on the streets and then smashed on the pavements , very dangerous also Fairview Park full of cans every time we have fine weather , just thrown wherever its drunk , is it not illegal to drink on the streets and in the parks ?
I think that cash should be ringfenced and taken directly from the drinks industry, the polluter pays principle. Alcohol is so ingrained in our culture here, all over the world the image of the drunk Irishman is paraded, with Guinness as an institution. I’m not saying that’s the only image we portray as a nation but in my view the drinks industry push it as a victimless crime. The reason people drink is because it changes your perception of the world temporarily. If it’s the taste they want then why not non alcoholic beer. I’ve not seen people leave shops with a six pack of milk on a Friday night.
I believe we already pay more than enaugh for a good bottle of wine.
Why I should pay more to enjoy my wine? To support a minority who decided to get wasted by their own choice?
No, thanks.
I can guarantee you that not even 10% of this is spent on alcohol addiction services. It’s all being funnelled into the black hole of methadone supply.
“SinTaxes” more than cover any spending here.
Proudly Italian, I agree with you however, never underestimate the influence that media has over our young people.
Proudly Italian, there is a difference between growing up with table wine and large corporate buisnesses protraying alcohol and young people having fun and looking sexy after drinking all night, when the reality is very much different, and can be witnessed by doctors and nurses in every hospital around the country on the weekends. The world cup for instance showed people drinking during games when it is banned in stadiums in the premier leauge, why? Well that’s because the same corporate alchol giants were major backers of FIFA so they had the rules changed.
So what? Are you blaming the “bad guys large corporate taking advantage of the poor weak people?”
Are you serious? People don;t have a brain to think? Myself, yourself and most of the people who *don’t get drunk* on a regular basis (which is different from “who don’t drink”) are not affected or impacted by advertisment?
Seriously?
See, the difference is here. If you take a kid and you raise him up with the “ghost” if “alchool is bad”, guess what he’ll do once turn 18? On the other way, if you teach a kid, since he’s young, to drink responsibly, with moderation and *enjoy* wine/beer etc., I’m sure he won’t look forward to get drunk as soon as he can.
Simple as that. Yes, sometimes solutions can be much more simple the way we think….
Well, I didn’t mean “lack of culture” by all means, obviously. Sorry for misunderstanding.
Just saying beter use the money for prevention -in case- rather than cure.
If people deliberately choose to waste their life, feel free to do so. But not with my money.
Advertising? I grow up with the bottle of wine always on my table, since I was a kid. I believe I get drunk less than 5 times in last 40 years. And I enjoy wine and beer almost every day.
This is what I’m talking about.
Sorry for misunderstanding. Obviously, no offence intended here :-)
Money would be better spent on helping the sick, who no fault of their own are like that. We still have a shortage of nurses etc.
Adrienne, I am shocked but not surprised by your attitude towards addicts. Addiction to alcohol is classed as a disease by the WHO, is recognised as coming about as a result of genetic factors and both internal and external factors play a large part as well.
How many alcoholics deliberately chose to be what they are because it was a lifestyle choice?
Well, I’m “addicted” to smoke.
I started I was 27, though. If I never lighted up the first one, most likely I won’t be an “addicted” then.
No-one is my family smokes, anyway.
Where are the genetic factors?
People become addicted because they choose to do so. Either alchol, drugs, tobacco, gambling…
At least, it’s a psycological disease. And there’s eben a way out. By choice.
So, please, don’t use my money for that. Because a kid who born with whatever disease, doesn’t choose to do so.
Proudly, first of all are you saying that the World health Organization, the American Psychiatric Association and the worlds medical profession are all wrong in stating that addiction is a disease? ” Because a kid who born with whatever disease, doesn’t choose to do so.”
Secondly you actually answer your own question.
“Well, I’m “addicted” to smoke.
I started I was 27, though. If I never lighted up the first one, most likely I won’t be an “addicted” then.
No-one is my family smokes, anyway.
Where are the genetic factors?
People become addicted because they choose to do so. ”
First off your statement that people “choose” to do so is just totally..in fact I can’t even think of the words to describe it. If you never lighted up a cigarette you might not have been addicted however if you are genetically predisposed to addiction the chances of becoming addicted are far higher than if you didn’t have an addiction gene. Secondly it’s basic genetics that not all genes are passed on to all family members. They can skip a generation or even siblings. Hence one child can be an addict while another might not be.
Please educate a little bit better before you go around insulting other people who didn’t know that the first cigarette, the first drink, the first bet etc was going to ruin their lives and those around them. Ask any addict (including myself as a smoker) if we would have picked up or used our vice had we known that we would become addicted.
@ Brian ward. Well said!! So many people in our society believe addiction to alcohol, or whatever the case may be, is a life choice. Active addicts have little or no control over their drinking and even when in recovery face a daily battle to manage their disease. Societal Education is key on this topic!
Idiot!!
@proudly Italian
Who do you think pays for lung/heart and every other “smoke” related problems?
Who do you think pays for lung/heart and every other “smoke” related problems?
In 20/ 30 years time I think we will look back on how foolishly we dealt with addiction. It’s like our attitude toward sex abuse and the clergy – we have a long, long way to go!
Health Minister, Deputy Broughan asked for details of HSE spending on alcohol addiction prevention and treatment programmes.?
There is profit in addiction and sickness but none in health.
Talk about an upside down country,.
114 million is about half the cost of keeping non violent prisoners in prison in 2009.This figure does not include education, courses and medical treatment.
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