# Vincent Browne on the murder of a Garda.



## Duke of Marmalade (31 Jan 2013)

Last paragraph in VB's IT opinion today said:
			
		

> I am not saying people do not have responsibility for their own actions. I am saying that a great deal of criminality, as we understand criminality, is derived in large part from the sordid inequality we ordain to persist.


So there you have it, we are to blame for those poor fellas forced into robbery and murder. And what does "as we understand criminality" mean?


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## Conan (31 Jan 2013)

What an insight. This must be worth a Nobel Prize. Vinny has discovered that criminals are not to blame. It's all down to a product of their environment. We are to blame for the inequality that leads them to being criminals. So the drug pushers, the misunderstood gentlemen who killed Garda Donohoe, the IRA killers of Garda McCabe who got caught up in "the conflict" etc, etc, etc are not really to blame. It's all our fault. Shame on us. On behalf of the nation, I feel I should apologise to these neglected, unfortunate, deprived members of our community. 
Well done Vinny for bringing this to our national consciousness. We are all the better for your insight.


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## Delboy (31 Jan 2013)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> So there you have it, we are to blame for those poor fellas forced into robbery and murder. And what does "as we understand criminality" mean?



'as we understand criminality'
we = Vinny and his liberal buddies such as former Mountjoy head, John Lonergan. And we all know how John ran Mountjoy and his views on who's fault it was that put the crims in prison....the middle classes who don't pay enough taxes so as to allow for the dole to be increased, more free houses to be provided, more handouts such as 1st communion money, xmas dole etc etc


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## Leo (1 Feb 2013)

I don't earn anything like VB does, so if I broke into his house, would he point me towards the most valuable stuff? After all, it's his fault!


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## Complainer (3 Feb 2013)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> So there you have it, we are to blame for those poor fellas forced into robbery and murder. And what does "as we understand criminality" mean?



You might want to try reading the first sentence that you quoted.

Then you might want to try explaining why the vast majority of prisoners in Mountjoy come from a few Dublin postcodes. Coincidence?


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## Duke of Marmalade (4 Feb 2013)

_Complainer_, the human condition is unequal. The grand Soviet experiment to deny that reality failed miserably more than 20 years ago. In our society we have universal education (Vinnie bemoaned in his article that not everyone goes to Blackrock College). We have universal health care. Unfortunately in the nature of the human economic condition we still have unemployment, at present far too much. But then we have the most generous social protection regime in the world funded by foreign official cheap borrowing.

Vinnie, in an attempt to be super intellectual, blames us or maybe it is "society" when someone resorts to robbery and murder because they didn't go to Blackrock College. Thankfully, the vast majority of our 460,000 unemployed are not endowed with Vinnie's intellectual moral compass.

In any case, it was rotten insensitive selfish egotism for Vinnie to make this trite high school debating point in the week that was in it.


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## Purple (5 Feb 2013)

Excellent post DoM, very well put.

The problem with seeing criminality as mainly an economic problem is that it removed personal responsibility from the equation.
The root causes of poverty are mainly social. The net results of that social problem is poverty and criminality. The solution is to alleviate the symptoms (welfare & extra policing) while  implementing the real cure; education. Welfare never lifts people out of poverty, in fact it traps them in it. Education is the cure. 
Vincent Browne is too interested in pushing his own agenda to actually delve into the detail and have a grow up debate about the core issues.


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## Complainer (11 Feb 2013)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> _Complainer_, the human condition is unequal. The grand Soviet experiment to deny that reality failed miserably more than 20 years ago. In our society we have universal education (Vinnie bemoaned in his article that not everyone goes to Blackrock College). We have universal health care. Unfortunately in the nature of the human economic condition we still have unemployment, at present far too much. But then we have the most generous social protection regime in the world funded by foreign official cheap borrowing.



Yes, the grand Soviet experiment did fail miserably, though I don't think 'the experiment' had anything much to do with human equality or inequality. It was about power and control, but that's another day's work.

We do indeed have universal education and health care. We also have huge inequalities in education. We have huge differences in class sizes. We have huge differences in access to technology. We have huge differences in access to grinds to bump up the CAO points required to access 3rd level. We have huge differences in access to essential early interventions like speech therapy for children with autism and children with Downs Syndrome - if the parents can't afford to pay for the therapies, the development opportunities are lost forever. We have huge differences in access to healthcare, as evidenced by the approx 50% of us who pay for private health insurance compared to 15% in the UK, because we know that people die for lack of insurance here. 

But seriously, why do you think that much of the population of Mountjoy comes from a small number of Dublin postcodes? Is this some huge genetic coincidence, or what?


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## Firefly (12 Feb 2013)

Complainer said:


> We do indeed have universal education and health care. We also have huge inequalities in education. We have huge differences in class sizes. We have huge differences in access to technology. We have huge differences in access to grinds to bump up the CAO points required to access 3rd level. We have huge differences in access to essential early interventions like speech therapy for children with autism and children with Downs Syndrome - if the parents can't afford to pay for the therapies, the development opportunities are lost forever. We have huge differences in access to healthcare, as evidenced by the approx 50% of us who pay for private health insurance compared to 15% in the UK, because we know that people die for lack of insurance here.


 
Isn't it a function of Public Services to address such inequalities? Therefore isn't it a shame that the billions we raise in taxes along with the billions we are borrowing to pay for public services are not spent better? 



Complainer said:


> But seriously, why do you think that much of the population of Mountjoy comes from a small number of Dublin postcodes? Is this some huge genetic coincidence, or what?


 
"Idle hands are the devils tools" ?


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## Duke of Marmalade (12 Feb 2013)

Complainer said:


> But seriously, why do you think that much of the population of Mountjoy comes from a small number of Dublin postcodes? Is this some huge genetic coincidence, or what?


So what is your bestist country in the world? Norway? Switzerland? Let's call it Utopia. I'll bet Utopia has its murderers and robbers. And I also bet they source from the deprived sections of that Utopian society. In the words of Basil Fawlty that's stating the bleeding obvious. Does it mean society is to blame or those few who chose robbery and murder?

It's all a bit relative I suppose. Is our society more unequal than others? More unequal than the UK less unequal than the US.

There is no excuse for murder and serious crime in the current state of our society, imperfect as it is and as it always will be. Vinnie made the excuse at a terribly insensitive time.


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## Delboy (12 Feb 2013)

Complainer said:


> But seriously, why do you think that much of the population of Mountjoy comes from a small number of Dublin postcodes? Is this some huge genetic coincidence, or what?



everyone in this country has options, choices...some decide to go the criminal route (both blue and white collar) and some decide to go the same route as 99% of the population and play it straight, have a job, a quiet family life.
The Coates brothers being the perfect example....1 set up the Westies gang, the other became an Immunologist in Trinity college.


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## Duke of Marmalade (12 Feb 2013)

Complainer said:


> But seriously, why do you think that much of the population of Mountjoy comes from a small number of Dublin postcodes? Is this some huge genetic coincidence, or what?


I am not sure what point you are making. I thought you were making the point that serious crime tends to source from deprived sections of society, which is a Basil Fawlty bleeding obvious.

But maybe you are observing that deprived sections of society tend to be geographically concentrated in a small number of areas. I'm afraid that in a free society where there is a level of economic inequality there will always be a tendency for economic segregation in housing. Only a Soviet system could hope to quell that human instinct.

Or maybe you are asking why is it that children of deprived parents tend to be deprived themselves. Some of it is nature (genetic) for sure. In a pure meritocracy the reasons would be 50% genetic and 50% random. But in our society for the most part I agree that it is environmental and cultural. Again only a Soviet style system can separate children from their parents and bring them all up "equally" in the same environment.

_Complainer_, perhaps you could clarify which of these points you are complaining about.


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## Betsy Og (12 Feb 2013)

Surely deprivation was more widespread, almost universal even, from the 20's up until the 60's - ok there was crime but if deprivation was the key thing underpinning it Ireland should have been more or less ablaze for those decades. I think drugs is probably the new factor and the biggest reason why those postcodes filled Mountjoy.


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## blueband (12 Feb 2013)

it probably would have been ablaze except for one thing, the influnce of the church! 
or maybe thats too simple...but it had to play some part i think.


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## Duke of Marmalade (12 Feb 2013)

Betsy Og said:


> Surely deprivation was more widespread, almost universal even, from the 20's up until the 60's - ok there was crime but if deprivation was the key thing underpinning it Ireland should have been more or less ablaze for those decades.


It's an interesting point. And it shows that in a modern developed economy it is resentment of others rather than absolute deprivation which drives a tiny minority to serious crime.  It is quite some time since anyone in this country had to turn to crime in order to survive.


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## Complainer (12 Feb 2013)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> There is no excuse for murder and serious crime in the current state of our society, imperfect as it is and as it always will be. Vinnie made the excuse at a terribly insensitive time.


I didn't hear Vinnie make excuses for anyone. I heard him asking important questions about the causes of crime. I'm a bit confused about why some people choose to take great offence at such questions.



Duke of Marmalade said:


> It's all a bit relative I suppose. Is our society more unequal than others? More unequal than the UK less unequal than the US.


If I recall the stats from The Spirit Level correctly, the US is way more unequal that Ireland or UK, in terms of income inequality. The Nordic countries and (I think) Japan were most equal, and had a strong correlation to lower crime rates.



Duke of Marmalade said:


> So what is your bestist country in the world? Norway? Switzerland? Let's call it Utopia. I'll bet Utopia has its murderers and robbers. And I also bet they source from the deprived sections of that Utopian society. In the words of Basil Fawlty that's stating the bleeding obvious. Does it mean society is to blame or those few who chose robbery and murder?


I haven't blamed anyone for anything. I've just asked an important question, about why crime is more prevalent in deprived areas. Why do some people get so uppity about asking some questions?



Delboy said:


> everyone in this country has options, choices...some decide to go the criminal route (both blue and white collar) and some decide to go the same route as 99% of the population and play it straight, have a job, a quiet family life.
> 
> The Coates brothers being the perfect example....1 set up the Westies gang, the other became an Immunologist in Trinity college.


Never heard that nugget about the Coates before - very interesting, and indeed everybody does have options and choices. But everybody doesn't have the same options, or more specifically, everybody doesn't have access to a basic level of housing, education, healthcare.

We house people in Fatima Mansions, with excrement coming up the drains into their houses, and then we wonder in amazement at the high crime rate in the area.



Duke of Marmalade said:


> I am not sure what point you are making. I thought you were making the point that serious crime tends to source from deprived sections of society, which is a Basil Fawlty bleeding obvious.
> 
> But maybe you are observing that deprived sections of society tend to be geographically concentrated in a small number of areas. I'm afraid that in a free society where there is a level of economic inequality there will always be a tendency for economic segregation in housing. Only a Soviet system could hope to quell that human instinct.
> 
> ...


I haven't even started complaining yet. I'm just asking questions. You seem to be trying to twist my questions. Can we just stick to the question I asked - why do most of the inhabitants of Mountjoy come from a small number of Dublin postcodes.



Betsy Og said:


> Surely deprivation was more widespread, almost universal even, from the 20's up until the 60's - ok there was crime but if deprivation was the key thing underpinning it Ireland should have been more or less ablaze for those decades. I think drugs is probably the new factor and the biggest reason why those postcodes filled Mountjoy.


It would be interesting to get a historical analysis. It's not an area I know much about. I wonder if crime was really reported and tracked in the 50s and 60s the way it is now. And drugs might indeed explain the explosion in crime rates, but it doesn't explain the geographic localisation - why does so much of Dublin's drug crime come from a small number of Dublin postcodes?


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## Firefly (13 Feb 2013)

Complainer said:


> why crime is more prevalent in deprived areas.


 


Complainer said:


> But everybody doesn't have the same options, or more specifically, everybody doesn't have access to a basic level of housing, education, healthcare.


 


Complainer said:


> We house people in Fatima Mansions, with excrement coming up the drains into their houses, and then we wonder in amazement at the high crime rate in the area.


 



Complainer said:


> why do most of the inhabitants of Mountjoy come from a small number of Dublin postcodes.


 



Complainer said:


> why does so much of Dublin's drug crime come from a small number of Dublin postcodes?


 
Since you are so intent on everyone else answering these questions, perhaps, maybe this once, you would be so good as to offer your own explanantion?

From my perspective, there are two main points - Poor implementation of billions of taxation rasied for public services and the lack of personal responsibility by those committing the crimes - as per post #9


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## ajapale (13 Feb 2013)

Title edited to more fully reflect OP and discussion.

from: Thread title (original 'Vincent Browne on the murder of a Garda') changed

Vincent Browne: "Criminality is derived ..from the sordid inequality ..in our society".


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## Betsy Og (13 Feb 2013)

Complainer said:


> And drugs might indeed explain the explosion in crime rates, but it doesn't explain the geographic localisation - why does so much of Dublin's drug crime come from a small number of Dublin postcodes?


 
Isnt it fairly understandable/obvious, i.e. (& without trying to stigmatise/overgeneralise ... though necessarily I must now proceed to do so to make my point.....)

-Poor areas, for some perhaps not great family structure, inter-generational unemployment (if you've never seen the benefits of work to those who care for you, who live aroud you, it isnt something so obvious to strive for), probably a bit of alcoholism thrown in here and there, lack of facilities, lack of social cohesion, feeling of 'the whole world is against me/us' -e.g. you cant get an interview based on your address, lack of hope..... (slipping into melodrama here), plus you condense many persons in this situation into tight geographical areas.

Anyway, all this leads to why people might reach for an escape, being drugs, we may not like it but they do have the effect that you get high, your problems dissappear temporarily, you feel great ..temporarily.

However, drugs cost money, you arent working, you are now addicted - you crave a fix, how are you going to pay for it???, crime.

If you live in a salubrious part of south Dublin you may still feel some disaffection (dont we all, whah??) but if you can pay for your drugs then you dont have to resort to crime to fund it. So you dont pose as many problems for society, and as you are 'diluted' in your geographical area you are less visible.

So all the above which, before anyone points this is out, is I accept more or less a statement of the bleedin' obvious (as the expression goes), explains why those postcodes fill Mountjoy.

The question is does detrimental circumstances make it ok to choose 'the wrong path'? - I dont think so, it may be the easier path, but what path to anything worthwhile was ever easy? 

The sad thing is this, and I've spoken to a guy who has had this said to him - is that they are parents whose attitude is "my father never worked, I never worked, and I dont want my child to ever work" - so if a parent doesnt want their child to ever improve their circumstances what chance does that child have?


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## Latrade (13 Feb 2013)

Complainer said:


> But seriously, why do you think that much of the population of Mountjoy comes from a small number of Dublin postcodes? Is this some huge genetic coincidence, or what?


 
Correlation is cause, VB wasn't asking anything about causes, simply pointing out correlations that go no way to explain criminality. So no matter how many times you ask why, no one can answer. 

We can trot out any correlation to imply causes if we wish, most of those in Mountjoy had a diet that included white bread. I'm not saying anything, I'm just asking the question as to whether you can explain why they're all in Mountjoy and they all have eaten white bread. Q.E.D. 

Or that most of those in Mountjoy were claiming social welfare, again I'm not implying anything, no no, couldn't stick my neck out that fare. But there's another correlation for you. 

Is it just poverty (in a relative rather than absolute sense) that causes people to resort to armed robbery and murder? Well than why is it only handful of the population from those postcodes that engage in crime? If that was a cause, why not more?

It's great that VB has asked these questions that no one else has asked...except they have for years and conducted numerous studies and come back with the same answer: we just don't know it's far more complicated than glib statements and hiding behind correlations without any substance.

They don't get to go to blackrock college, but then no one I know did either. We all had crummy state schools...I presume the assumption we're supposed to make is that teachers now don't all make a valiant effort to educate, only those in private schools. But then our parents put a focus on our education, they engaged with us, they encouraged us, they supported us. In my case, all while they held down different shift patterns and in some cases two jobs as well as night school. 

In the absence of any actual evidence or support that poverty, unemployment or not going to a private school is the cause, I'll offer my own: the parents. The parents aren't being parents, they're too caught up in their own sense of entitlement to being taken care of by the state. They don't set an appropriate view for right and wrong. They allow their kids to get into criminality. The give their kids the excuse of it's the state's fault we're here, it's the banker's fault, it's all those kids who went to Blackrock College's fault. Blame everyone, satisfy your entitlement and fail to recognise that we have a society where there are opportunities and there is an escape, it just sin't handed to you on a plate, you have to dedicate time and effort to it and that's just too much effort for the parents and kids, easier to hold up a credit union.


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## Duke of Marmalade (13 Feb 2013)

Complainer said:


> Can we just stick to the question I asked - why do most of the inhabitants of Mountjoy come from a small number of Dublin postcodes.


I thought I had rather fully explained that, yes those who are relatively more deprived are more likely to turn to serious crime, yes we have unequal distribution of wealth in our society, parental inheritance of either the natural or cultural variety are important and yes in a free society we will inevitably have economic segregation in where people live.

What I am completely unsure of is what you are proposing to address these obvious realities.

Are you, for example, suggesting that postal code should be a mitigating circumstance before our courts and that we should target equal postal code representation in Mountjoy?

I note that the Title of my OP has been changed. But make no mistake that whilst Vinnie's article majored on a sympathetic take of some gangster who had been shot in a working class district of Bray, I was revolted when he finished up by including explicitly the murderer of the Garda in this exoneration.


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## Duke of Marmalade (13 Feb 2013)

ajapale said:


> Title edited to more fully reflect OP and discussion.
> 
> Vincent Browne: "Criminality is derived ..from the sordid inequality ..in our society".


I object to this editing of my title.  I have no objection to VB indulging in puerile debate about society being to blame for all crime, I wouldn't stoop to indulge in a debate I gave up many years ago.  What caused me to let off steam was that he pointedly cited the murder of a Garda as "proof" of his thesis on the very day that the Garda was being buried.

Please change my title back to "VB blames murder of Garda on society"


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## Chris (14 Feb 2013)

Question: Why do the majority of criminals come from a small number of deprived areas?

My answer:
1) The Welfare System
2) Education
3) Minimum Wage

We have an education system that fails to educate kids to a level that allows them to get a minimum wage job. When someone is employed for €x then the business owner has to get more than €x in productivity out of that person. Young people with no experience other than schooling have very little productivity and in many cases far less productivity than the minimum wage. 

Then, those same young people will eventually fall into the welfare system that doesn't teach them any new skills to make them more productive, meaning that they are still not employable at the minimum wage. For many young people, the only solution they see is crime.

So, we have schools that fail to make young people productive enough to get a job at a government mandated minimum wage, and then they are given money for doing nothing. That is why the majority of criminals start out at a young age in deprived neighbourhoods.

This theory is perfectly backed up by the fact that the majority of criminals come from areas where the schools perform worst and that the majority of criminals start their criminal careers at a very young age when they are simply not employable at the minimum wage.

Now for an example:
Singapore has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. It has no welfare system other than absolute minimum support, telling its people that planning for a rainy day is their own responsibility. It has no minimum wage and has a world leading school system.

So, there is the theory, the correlation of data and a successful example.


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## Betsy Og (14 Feb 2013)

Not saying I necessarily disagree with the overall point, but Singapore may not be the most representative place from which to use stats. Small island, high cost, high value, tough regime kind of place - I wouldnt be surprised if "problems" are exported out of there quick smart, so dunno if its experience can directly translate for a more broad based western society.


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## Delboy (14 Feb 2013)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> ...... yes we have unequal distribution of wealth in our society.....



an often trotted out 'fact' but it does'nt stand up according to Dan O'Brien in today's Irish Times
[broken link removed]

 "Yesterday’s numbers show that Ireland registered a Gini coefficient of 31.1 in 2011. This is, as it happens, identical to the figure for the EU as a whole.

As Europe is by far the most equal part of the world and as Ireland is average in Europe, this makes Ireland an unusually equal country by global standards (it is emphatically not a very unequal society, as those who ignore the evidence sometimes declare with great certainty)."


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## AgathaC (15 Feb 2013)

duke of marmalade said:


> i object to this editing of my title.  I have no objection to vb indulging in puerile debate about society being to blame for all crime, i wouldn't stoop to indulge in a debate i gave up many years ago.  What caused me to let off steam was that he pointedly cited the murder of a garda as "proof" of his thesis on the very day that the garda was being buried.
> 
> Please change my title back to "vb blames murder of garda on society"



+1.


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## Duke of Marmalade (15 Feb 2013)

This article addresses why Singapore has low crime rates. One of the main reasons cited is legalised abortion. How? Because unwanted children are more likely to turn to crime. Not sure about that. By Irish standards casual abortion is akin to murder so in our law Singapore is much worse than us, but that is for another debate. It is also notable that Singapore has the highest execution rate in the world, that might be correlated to the low crime rate.

Everyone agrees that crime is more likely to source from lower income groups. (_Chris_ has interesting theories why we have these groups, but does not dispute that they tend to source crime). All the Wiki stats show that, with for example huge levels of murder in Africa. Ireland is in fact quite low and Monaco is lowest of all at 0. So much for the bleeding obvious.

Now we also accept that in our free economies lower income groups tend to be concentrated in geographical areas. Again fairly bleeding obvious.

So that leads me to think that _Complainer_ is asking these questions rhetorically for we all know the answers. So she must be making some point and the only point I can glean is that she agrees with Vinnie that society is to blame for the murder of a Garda. Perhaps she will clarify which point she is making.


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## DerKaiser (15 Feb 2013)

Delboy said:


> an often trotted out 'fact' but it does'nt stand up according to Dan O'Brien in today's Irish Times
> [broken link removed]
> 
> "Yesterday’s numbers show that Ireland registered a Gini coefficient of 31.1 in 2011. This is, as it happens, identical to the figure for the EU as a whole.
> ...


 
Good link Delboy.


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## Chris (15 Feb 2013)

Betsy Og said:


> Not saying I necessarily disagree with the overall point, but Singapore may not be the most representative place from which to use stats. Small island, high cost, high value, tough regime kind of place - I wouldnt be surprised if "problems" are exported out of there quick smart, so dunno if its experience can directly translate for a more broad based western society.



Yes it is a small island, country and state with a larger population than Ireland, with 5.3 million people. It is 100% urban, and crime rates throughout the world are highest in urban environments, so from that point of view they have a much tougher task at hand than other countries.

Singapore is also an extremely modern and free country, being number two on the index of economic freedom. So it is a very comparable place to the western world. I have personally visited and have friends who have emigrated there and I can tell you that it is by far the safest place I have ever been.

Now it does have some very draconian and bizarre laws and as Duke points out, it has one of the highest execution rates in the world. But if executions were a crime deterrent then over time there should be less, which has not happened in Singapore, or other countries that have the death penalty.


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## Firefly (15 Feb 2013)

Chris said:


> Now it does have some very draconian and bizarre laws


 
This has got to be up there..

From the economist "_The Stingy nanny_"  
http://www.economist.com/node/15524092 

"Citizens are obliged to save for the future, rely on their families and not expect any handouts from the government unless they hit rock bottom. The emphasis on family extends into old age: _retired parents can sue children who fail to support them._"


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## Betsy Og (15 Feb 2013)

Chris said:


> it has one of the highest execution rates in the world.


 
Just as a matter of interest, how many Singaporeans (??) were born there?, strikes me a kind of "transitory" place that talented people in Asia gravitate towards, or maybe did so in the past generation - so there might be a "natural selection" process going on at the entry gate.

Overall though its in Asia, populated primarily by Asians (kick me if its dumb that I should point that out), itg got a high execution rate, its totally urban .... I doubt the town councils are constantly debating motions whether to rename themselves "New Ireland"....... 

From a touristic point of view neighbouring Malaysia is great, Singapore itself wouldnt exactly rock my world.


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## delgirl (15 Feb 2013)

Chris said:


> Yes it is a small island, country and state with a larger population than Ireland, with 5.3 million people. It is 100% urban, and crime rates throughout the world are highest in urban environments, so from that point of view they have a much tougher task at hand than other countries.
> 
> Singapore is also an extremely modern and free country, being number two on the index of economic freedom. So it is a very comparable place to the western world. I have personally visited and have friends who have emigrated there and I can tell you that it is by far the safest place I have ever been.


Fantastic place, lived there for 2 years and Ireland could learn a thing or two from them.  Safest place I've ever lived - no problem walking in the city at any hour of the day or night as a lone female.

If Ireland had harsher penanties for ciminality, drug dealing and weapon possession, the majority of law-abiding citizens in Ireland would have more freedom and would feel safer in their own homes.


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## Delboy (15 Feb 2013)

delgirl said:


> ....If Ireland had harsher penanties for ciminality, drug dealing and weapon possession, the majority of law-abiding citizens in Ireland would have more freedom and would feel safer in their own homes.



now, now.....don't be infringing on the rights of recalcitrant criminals to get 50+ chances to go straight...it's the middle classes fault in the 1st place that they actually committed crime #1


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## celebtastic (16 Feb 2013)

Chris said:


> So, we have schools that fail to make young people productive enough to get a job at a government mandated minimum wage, and then they are given money for doing nothing. That is why the majority of criminals start out at a young age in deprived neighbourhoods.



Spot on.

One of the very first things this gubbernment did was to make matters far worse by jacking our minimum wage back up to the second highest level of any country in the OECD in PPP terms:


All this, whilst failing to grasp the opportunity to dramatically reduce welfare levels.

So we now have a society that pays young people up to €188  (plus all sorts of allowances) to sit at home with mammy watching telly all day.

There is something very very wrong in that.

We are doing our young people a disservice by disincentivising honest work


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## ajapale (16 Feb 2013)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> I object to this editing of my title.  I have no objection to VB indulging in puerile debate about society being to blame for all crime, I wouldn't stoop to indulge in a debate I gave up many years ago.
> 
> What caused me to let off steam was that* he pointedly cited the murder of a Garda as "proof" of his thesis on the very day that the Garda was being buried.*
> 
> Please change my title back to "VB blames murder of Garda on society"




 Vincent Browne: Criminality is derived ..from the sordid inequality ..in our society.

Title changed back to original as requested by OP.

aj


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## Duke of Marmalade (16 Feb 2013)

ajapale said:


> Vincent Browne: Criminality is derived ..from the sordid inequality ..in our society.
> 
> Title changed back to original as requested by OP.
> 
> aj


Thank you


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## Chris (16 Feb 2013)

Betsy Og said:


> Just as a matter of interest, how many Singaporeans (??) were born there?, strikes me a kind of "transitory" place that talented people in Asia gravitate towards, or maybe did so in the past generation - so there might be a "natural selection" process going on at the entry gate.
> 
> Overall though its in Asia, populated primarily by Asians (kick me if its dumb that I should point that out), itg got a high execution rate, its totally urban .... I doubt the town councils are constantly debating motions whether to rename themselves "New Ireland".......
> 
> From a touristic point of view neighbouring Malaysia is great, Singapore itself wouldnt exactly rock my world.



According to Wikipedia 2.91 million people were born in Singapore, keeping in mind that it has existed as an independent state only since 1965: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore
That's still plenty of people breeding potential criminals.

Yes, Malaysia has probably a lot more to offer tourists, but it is nowhere near as safe, or advanced or wealthy as Singapore. And both countries got their independence at the same time, and are made up of people that share the same cltural past.

And I'm not sure why the population being mainly Asian means that the state cannot be compared to other free countries, set up as constitutional republics, like in Europe.


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## Deiseblue (17 Feb 2013)

celebtastic said:


> Spot on.
> 
> One of the very first things this gubbernment did was to make matters far worse by jacking our minimum wage back up to the second highest level of any country in the OECD in PPP terms:
> 
> ...



Per the link you posted we are ranked 4th in terms of minimum wage levels or am I missing something ?

Young people who qualify aged between 18 & 21 living at home get €100 whilst those between 21 & 25 get € 144.


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## celebtastic (17 Feb 2013)

Deiseblue said:


> Per the link you posted we are ranked 4th in terms of minimum wage levels or am I missing something ?



In US$PPP (to strip out any differences in relative prices) only Luxembourg had a higher minimum wage than Ireland. 

Luxembourg, Ireland, France and the Netherlands all had minimum wages in excess of €10 per hour. 

We have the second highest level, out of the full list of 34 OECD members.





Deiseblue said:


> Young people who qualify aged between 18 & 21 living at home get €100 whilst those between 21 & 25 get € 144.



Still substantially higher than it should be.

Our nearest neighbour has dole payments of £56.25 for 18-24 year olds. This is the sort of level we should be bringing our welfare towards to encourage young people to get out there and start earning.


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## Sunny (17 Feb 2013)

celebtastic said:


> In US$PPP (to strip out any differences in relative prices) only Luxembourg had a higher minimum wage than Ireland.
> 
> Luxembourg, Ireland, France and the Netherlands all had minimum wages in excess of €10 per hour.
> 
> ...



So if we cut our dole to UK levels, we will cure youth unemployment?? Why didn't anyone think of this before? The UK still has a youth unemployment rate of over 20% so why would we want to copy them? If you used Germany and their apprenticeship model, we could have a discussion but I guess it is easier to tar an entire generation of young people as lazy good for nothings who don't want anything more from life than earning €100 a week and living with mammy and daddy. All those young people emigrating are fools when you think what a easy life they could have here....


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## celebtastic (17 Feb 2013)

Sunny said:


> The UK still has a youth unemployment rate of over 20% so why would we want to copy them?





Because Ireland's youth unemployment rate is north of 30%:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/may/16/youth-unemployment-europe-oecd

The Brits have a very different (and much healthier) attitude towards state handouts, to those that are physically capable of work.

To pay our young people hundreds of euros per week to sit at home with mammy is ultimately doing them (and Irish society) a terrible disservice.


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## Sunny (17 Feb 2013)

celebtastic said:


> Because Ireland's youth unemployment rate is north of 30%:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/may/16/youth-unemployment-europe-oecd
> 
> The Brits have a very different (and much healthier) attitude towards state handouts, to those that are physically capable of work.
> ...



So now we pay young people hundreds of euro a week to sit at home? And you are happy with a youth unemployment rate of over 20% as the UK have? Why are they the model you want to follow? Germany has a rate of 8%. Why not follow them? Spain have lower rates than us and have youth unemployment of over 50%. So what exactly is the correlation between welfare levels and unemployment in young graduates? Presume you have studied the data.


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## Deiseblue (17 Feb 2013)

celebtastic said:


> Because Ireland's youth unemployment rate is north of 30%:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/may/16/youth-unemployment-europe-oecd
> 
> The Brits have a very different (and much healthier) attitude towards state handouts, to those that are physically capable of work.
> ...



As you have readily admitted in your previous post the Government are not paying " hundreds of euros " to young people who live at home - do I really need to reiterate that the minimum is € 100 & the maximum is € 144 .

And where exactly are these jobs that youngsters can aspire to - I take it that you have seen the recent unemployment figures ?

Thanks for explaining the minimum wage figures , I note however that many countries have increased their minimum wage rates since 2011 including the UK , the Netherlands & Luxembourg whereas Ireland hasn't.


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## Purple (17 Feb 2013)

Cutting welfare levels during a recession is like building a flood barrier after the river has burst its banks. Social engineering takes years, maybe decades. We should have been doing it during the boom but then again there are lots of things we should have been doing during the boom such as stopping the boom and then we wouldn't have to have this discussion.


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## Chris (26 Feb 2013)

celebtastic said:


> The Brits have a very different (and much healthier) attitude towards state handouts, to those that are physically capable of work.



The welfare young people receive us only one part if the problem. The bigger problem is that an 18 year old does not have enough experience in pretty much anything to allow employers to pay them €8.65 per hour. While there are some rules that reduce that minimum dependent on first and second year of employment over age 18, those minimums are still too high. 
If a person cannot produce €9 worth of goods or services per hour, they simply will not be employed.


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## Chris (26 Feb 2013)

Sunny said:


> So if we cut our dole to UK levels, we will cure youth unemployment?? Why didn't anyone think of this before? The UK still has a youth unemployment rate of over 20% so why would we want to copy them? If you used Germany and their apprenticeship model, we could have a discussion but I guess it is easier to tar an entire generation of young people as lazy good for nothings who don't want anything more from life than earning €100 a week and living with mammy and daddy. All those young people emigrating are fools when you think what a easy life they could have here....



Sunny, saw you mentioned the German system of apprenticeships and checked out what the income is for an apprentice. A friend of mine works for one if Germany's largest Mercedes dealers so I sent him a quick mail to get some details:
- car mechanic apprenticeship lasts for 4 years
- first year gross pay is about €550 per month resulting in about €400 net
- pay goes up to about €750 (€600 after tax) in the fourth year
- a newly qualified mechanic will then start on about €9 an hour

That means that a totally unqualified person's labour is valued at just over €3 per hour. Apparently this is at the higher end of pay for apprenticeships in general, with most professions paying quite a bit less.


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## Purple (27 Feb 2013)

I heard a guy from the local GAA club where Garda Donohoe coached the nursery teams speaking about him on NewsTalk yesterday afternoon. I was really struck by how articulate and intelligent he was and the moving and eloquent way he spoke about Garda Donohoe. I have no idea who he was but I'd love to see Vincent Browne explain his comments to him.


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## Betsy Og (27 Feb 2013)

Purple said:


> I heard a guy from the local GAA club ... I was really struck by how articulate and intelligent he was and the moving and eloquent way he spoke


 
Ah now, you're not saying you were labouring under the misconception that GAA people were all country yokels/backwoodsmen/bog warriors !!!!,  we're all intelligent, articulate.....   (apologies in advance, I know this is a serious thread)

On the subject of mentioning sporting affiliations, I've been struck (no pun intended) by how often the media mentions someones sporting affiliation totally out of context - "Prominent GAA player in affray charge" ... you read the article and its something about a scuffle outside a chipper, the person is question has barely been heard of outside his parish, let alone his county, but yet the fact that he plays GAA must go in the headline, they might as well say "Chip eater in affray charge" - at least it would be peripherally relevant to the story.


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## Purple (1 Mar 2013)

I see Vinnie got a slap on the wrist from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland for his anti-Israeli comments during the US election. They failed to uphold the complaint that his comments were anti-Semitic which I find strange. It's good to see the BAI looking at his TV3 programme as it makes no attempt at balance or fairness and should not be presented as a new programme but rather a platform for Vincent Browne to vent his biased views, supported by a cohort of like minded crony’s (with the odd government politician invited on to be attached and bullied).


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## Delboy (1 Mar 2013)

he was great craic Monday night with Dan O'Brien of the Irish Times....tried to make a case for Communism- whats wrong with everyone having the same income and people would go for it if the Govt tried to sell it as a good idea, he said
I don't know how Dan did'nt fall off his chair in laughter/shock


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