[disgruntledphd2]

So if you look at money, education etc basically the south of Dublin is incredibly rich relative to the rest of the country. It tends to be where much of the media and business interests of the country are focused, and you never see (for example) a Traveller halting site, or an immigration centre being set up there. Whereas, if you look at a place like Tallaght (which to be fair is also south dublin) you'll see worse services, and lots of immigration centres.

It's a comment on the geographical inequalities and their impact on politics.

Don't get me wrong, I live in a similar Northside enclave, but it's really upsetting to me that much of the media and political elite live in bubbles where they don't see the consequences of their (bad) decisions.

[Supernaut]

Well, those are common talking points in some quarters, but I can tell you they're false, because I live in a southside suburb, the kind of place that journalists describe as "leafy". For the last couple of years, a large immigration centre has been operating a kilometer and a half away from my house. (You haven't heard of it because there were no protests about it.) There's a halting site located a kilometer away from me in the other direction.

Is the system perfect? No, of course not. But the Us vs Them polemics are unfair.

[disgruntledphd2]

> Is the system perfect? No, of course not. But the Us vs Them polemics are unfair.

Fair enough, I recognise that I may have been unfair to many residents of South Dublin in my generalisation. That being said, there is a really common pattern of anything that inconveniences higher income voters being pushed into poorer areas.

For a good example, look at where all of the large apartment buildings are being actually built (as opposed to being judically reviewed). There's a pretty clear pattern of them being built in poorer areas relative to richer ones, and I guess that's where I'm coming from here.

Like, I live in a similarly leafy suburb (but on the Northside) and they wanted to build a set of high rise apartments on a junction next to the N3, and it was shut down with many angry comments. Meanwhile, over by Blanchardstown shopping centre (a much poorer area) they're building a similarly sized apartment block with local objections being steam-rollered.