Budget 2023

[jimmym]

cormac o heardhra on drivetime gave pearse a bit of a gruelling.

 

[Happyhonkaman]

Engineers are a disaster as their built-in factor of safety is in the extreme (Cruise missile strike of a herd of elephants loading)

A lot of houses have underfloor heating which means concrete floors and they also store heat that can be released during the night as well as a better floor for sound between ground and first floor and less of a fire risk.

I do not know really but the whole method of construction for homes needs to be looked at as they could be modular and better insulated if prefabricated in factory conditions like in other countries, but we always seem to have to re-invent the wheel here.

Concrete is a great material and you can get serious pay back from using it as a heat sink holding and releasing heat as you say. This discussion needs to be about the whole life cost of using a material as opposed to the upfront cost only, because we use building materials completely indiscriminately and its time to make people think about this

Insulation is another interesting one they should look at in this way. The PIR insulation we use to insulate walls and floors is made with some of the most toxic shit imaginable and the process is seriously carbon hungry. But once its made the amount of heat leaving homes reduces dramatically. We have gone from the energy use in the lifetime of a home going from 20% to build and 80% in use over its lifetime to the exact opposite where we are spending 80% of the energy in the building process and using 20% afterwards. The likes of Kingspan have been shown for what they are at Grenfell yet it has had absolutely zero impact on the industry specifying and using their products.. I cant get my head around that! There are better products for the environment out there, we should be researching and using them

 

[Barty Dunne]

I think that increasing the lower tax band to €40k was a shrewd move politically. People on decent €40k+ salaries would get fuck all from a Sinn Fein government, and I suspect that a large proportion of people on salaries like that are active voters.

It works out as an extra €800 a year, which is nice but like it's not people on over €40k who are feeling the pinch, so you'd wonder could it have been better spent elsewhere.

I'd say Pascal won back a few sceptics today who may have been drifting away from FFG. A gentle reminder that SF in government would be bad for us high net worth individuals.

People who get up early in the morning, to quote Leopold.

 

[Two Pour Bore]

I'd love to see LIttle Mickey in Foreign Affairs. They wouldn't know what hit them. And we wouldn't see what his us.

Bitcoin or Ethereum. Buy the dip.

I'll get some NFTs while I'm at it. Do you have any of your baaawls?

 

[Happyhonkaman]

It works out as an extra €800 a year, which is nice but like it's not people on over €40k who are feeling the pinch, so you'd wonder could it have been better spent elsewhere.

Wat?

€40k might be good craic if you're young, fancy free and handing half of it to Benny... but if you have a mortgage, kids in school, car to run etc. you would be struggling fo sho

 

[Donald Trump]

Newsflash for you fellah - I'm only doing missionary work on the southside trying to bring some culture to you heathens.

As for being wide ?

You're not known as forty coats for nothing?

 

[Gregory_Mike]

Lads, fellas, Matlock...? What's the best investment for €500? Should I be getting onto IBKR or taking out membership in political parties?

Should I be doing like the lottery says and setting some aside for loved ones and charities?

Trap 6 in the 8.07 at Curraheen Park tomorrow night.

 

[Happyhonkaman]

You're not known as forty coats for nothing?

 

[Donald Trump]

Lads, fellas, Matlock...? What's the best investment for €500? Should I be getting onto IBKR or taking out membership in political parties?

Should I be doing like the lottery says and setting some aside for loved ones and charities?

Call into Noels tomorrow afternoon.

There's a lovely filly going in the 3.40 at Leceister. Solid investment and barely any risk (if it loses, I'll get greedy's missus to get greedy to refund ya)

 

[CaptainSensible]

Won't somebody purleeeeeeeeeease think of the poor energy companies!!!!!!!!!
The ESB made 60M+ profit in one quarter alone, but but, they have to buy energy via oil and gas on the international market. Where do those high prices for gas and oil go as a matter of interest? Is it not to companies hiking their profits too?

Soundy you might want to sit down for this but the ESB are on track to make about 675 million this year so far more than 60 million a quarter.

As for the question of price qouging it is probably a bit more nuanced. Below are profits for the last 4 years.

2019 616 million
2020 682 million
2021 679 million
2022 675 million expected

The above indicates their profits have been fairly steady and thus indicates there has been no price gouging with the increase in prices merely that margins have been maintained to those of other years.

However that's not quite the full story, the spike in energy prices has meant those on a long term fixed contract i.e all government agencies (HSE etc) and whoever you work for you sponger, would have entered into a fixed rate contract under the government procurement process, meaning the ESB are selling electricity and gas to these agencies at a loss (last years prices) and to make up for that they are charging the rest of us a lot more than market rates would normally dictate.

Therefore it is individual households and small businesses who are basically subsidising large government agencies and possibly other large users of electricity like data centres if they too have long term contracts with the ESB.