Is Ireland a 3rd World Country?

D

delgirl

Registered User
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It happens about 3 or 4 times a year - our electricity supply is cut off for a whole day for repairs and maintenance to a sub-station.

Does this kind of thing happen in any other developed country in the middle of Winter??

We will have no heating, no cooking facilities - everything's electric - no light, no phones and no broadband. What happens to old people and children every time this occurs?

We're currently working from home so it means that we can't do any business for a whole day.

The people we do business with, mainly in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and the UK are laughing their socks off at Ireland having power cuts like this and think we're still in the dark ages.
 
I was watching a documentary on Enron over the holidays and how they cornered the energy market in California in the early 2000's. There were rolling blackouts in the winter - a time when consumption is a fraction of that in the Summer.

I dont think you can get more 'first world' than California!
 
It's not just us you know
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Bid to overhaul Europe power grid

Energy demand has been rising in Europe as winter nears
Italy's prime minister has said Europe needs a central power authority to prevent the kind of blackouts that left swathes of West Europe without energy.
An overload in Germany's power network triggered outages leaving millions without electricity on Saturday night.
Romano Prodi said there was a "contradiction" in having a unified power network but no central authority.
Power failed first in Cologne, Germany, before shutting down across parts of France, Italy, Spain and Austria.
Belgium, the Netherlands and Croatia were also affected.
"My first impression is that there is a contradiction between having European networks but not having a central European authority. It is somewhat absurd," Mr Prodi said.




Winter power cuts warning
Sean Poulter, Daily Mail
6 October 2005
GAS shortages could lead to power cuts which would cripple industry this winter, it emerged yesterday.
Power cut chaos hits millions in North America

ALASTAIR JAMIESON AND ANNETTE WITHERIDGE IN NEW YORK
MILLIONS of people across the north-eastern United States and Canada were plunged into confusion and chaos last night after a huge power cut.
Buildings were evacuated, airports shut down and rush- hour traffic became gridlocked after the blackout hit New York, Detroit, Cleveland, Toronto and Ottawa.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money-...icle_id=404156&in_page_id=5#endpromo#endpromo
 
Not electricity, but I lived in Trinidad in a very expensive part of the island for two years. There, every house had a 400 gallon water tank outside because the supply could, in some cases, only be available for 3 hours per day. In other parts of the island there were houses that had not received a mains supply of water for , literally, years.
The legal situation was that you had to pay your water rates whether or not you got water and your house could be sold to pay any arrears if you did not pay up!
 
delgirl said:
We will have no heating, no cooking facilities - everything's electric - no light, no phones and no broadband.
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Surely the phone line, powered as it is from the exchange, should continue to work?

I don't think that sporadic power cuts are necessarily indicative of somewhere being considered "third world" nor are they confined to such countries.
 
delgirl said:
We're currently working from home so it means that we can't do any business for a whole day.
Click to expand...

I saw over christmas that B&Q had petrol driven generators on sale. They weren't too expensive. YOu could also consider a UPS for your PC/server.
 
I remember in the eighties the boss of a multinational firm here telling me his firms head office regarded Ireland as being like a third word country, because of the corruption etc. It kind of shocked me at the time even though I had heard of Haugheys meddling etc.

What amazes me is that we are so well off and are still not net contributers to the EC.
 
ClubMan said:
Surely the phone line, powered as it is from the exchange, should continue to work?

I don't think that sporadic power cuts are necessarily indicative of somewhere being considered "third world" nor are they confined to such countries.
Click to expand...
Yes, the phone line still works, but all our phones require power. Hubby has gone out to buy a simple phone that doesn't require power so we can at least make calls.

DonKing said:
You could also consider a UPS for your PC/server.
Click to expand...
What's a UPS?
 
when I bought a cordless phone I was told I must have an ordinary phone in case of emergencies. So I've a very cheap thing in a cupboard and haven't used it yet!

What might make Ireland 3rd world is the state of our health services, especially for those with enduring illnesses - mental handicap, elderly, chronic illnesses, mental disorder, long-term disabilities of all kinds.
 
Gordanus said:
when I bought a cordless phone I was told I must have an ordinary phone in case of emergencies. So I've a very cheap thing in a cupboard and haven't used it yet!
Click to expand...

I had to install an old one I had after the second occasion when the house-alarm went off during the night because the mains had failed - which meant that the monitoring station couldn't get through to our cordless phone. The internal alarm-bell was mains-powered and we couldn't hear the external one. A neighbour was called-out instead.
 
I was the other way around. when purchasing never gave it a thought. when I opened the box reality dawned. result: I just got another phone point set up in the bedroom and thats where the base 'station' now sits. in the meantime the 'old' phone sits in the hall. unloved and unused by all except when you cant find the bl**dy handset of the cordless one cause someone has gone off with it. brought back and old old old office phone to eircom and told them I wanted my rental on instrument ( as they call it) ceased. no problem. even though I still have it. they just threw the old old old office one into the bin in front of me.
 
Ireland is not a 3rd world country....we don`t have the nice sunny weather.
O.K. our health service could be better .We have alot of older people who naturally enough are getting medical problems and not everyone can get top medical treatment to live to a ripe old age.
Un fortunately wealth helps in getting the best medical treatment and definitely helps in keeping one healthy.don`t forget in the 3rd world the life expectancy is muchmuch lower.
Corruption is endemic in all countries and is not the reserve of the poorer nations.
 
delgirl said:
Yes, the phone line still works, but all our phones require power. Hubby has gone out to buy a simple phone that doesn't require power so we can at least make calls.
Click to expand...
Perhaps sometimes first world technology like cordless phones is not all it's cracked up to be?
 
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