APPLE OWES IRELAND 3BILLION IN UNPAID TAXES
Sometimes I really wonder what kind of world we live in, with the news that Apple owe Ireland 13bn in Tax and the even more disturbing news that Enda has said Ireland wont take the tax off Apple?
Yesterday I visited a University town near where I live, they had spent £40m on a new "arts centre" and I wanted to have a look around, before I did I walked up the High Street and was really saddened to see shop after shop shut down and boarded up. I hadnt visited this town for a long time and so I was upset to see what it had become.
So................. off to view this new building, it boasted 3 cafes/bars, one cinema, and one lecture room, the rest of it was vast open spaces inside the building, that were not being used for any purpose and given that each University building already had their own lecture rooms, and cafes I couldnt help but feel shocked and stunned at this huge waste of money, that provided one lecture room.
Leaving the building I pointed out to my son's girlfriend that £40m had just been completely wasted on an almost empty building, while just streets away peoples businesses and livelihoods lay in ruins.
It also made me remember Holyhead Port, and how Holyhead is also a ghost town and I feel the same way each time I visit there too, to view empty rows of shops, while Holyhead paid out £7m for a bridge to link the port with the town, at a time when Stena stopped thier day trips into Holyhead from Dublin, and at a time when most people come into Holyhead to get a train to London, or drive off the ferry and go on thier way.
The bridge which is mostly used by school kids, was a huge waste of money because while it does lead to the High Street, there are no shops there to visit, and no one gets off the ferry and visits the High Street.
Some years ago I remember being blasted on a Dunleary page for pointing out that the 32m Euro being wasted on the library in Dunleary was scandalous when Dunleary had the highest population of homelessness in the Country, I was told that it would be a lovely place for children to learn and a building to be proud of, despite the fact that Dunleary too, just like Holyhead and the University town I visited yesterday has rows of empty shops.
I can already hear some of you say, that the money allocated to these huge wastes of money is separate money to that for housing and poverty and for small businesses, and I already know that anyway, but who thinks up these monstrosities and giants of architecture which seem to fly in the face of reality and in the face of children queuing up with their parents at food banks, and who or what organisation gives the go ahead for these huge wastes of money??
These buildings could actually house so many families, and as I pointed out when I wrote about the library, children with empty stomachs or with no home of their own, would prefer a bed or a meal before somewhere to read a book, and would prefer if their mammy or daddy's shop stayed open to earn them a living, they would even prefer if Enda took the 13m Tax money from Apple, so that he could build them a house and get them out of hotel rooms where they have been living for years in cramped and often damp conditions away from their extended families.
Isnt it time, these morons were stopped reaching their architecture dreams, were stopped being allowed to use scandalous amounts of money in an era where our kids are hungry or homeless, build houses, not libraries, or bridges for no one to cross and not arts centers which when we asked the receptionist yesterday what part of the building that was in told us "there is no point going there its never open, we dont really use it" some wont agree with my saying this but if Jesus was alive today, he would hang his head in shame and confusion.
Has no one even had an idea that money should be pooled together not kept in separate accounts that are used for things our societies dont need, or want anymore, how can anyone in authority justify any of these disgraceful wastes of money, while ignoring empty high streets, homeless children and unemployment????
In this day and age can these learned men and women not come up with the simple idea to pool all available money together and then see where it is most needed? And allocate that money to human needs, not to a few who dream about lavish buildings and bridges that no one needs or wants?
This isnt rocket science, its time to do things differently. Oh and of course its time for Enda to get some sense and take the money, please sign the petition below. Thank you.
