> Re GSOC: Being as quiet and toothless as they have been towards the Gardai strongly implies corruption. What have they done regarding the Templemore scandal, or the Penalty Points scandal, or the breath test scandal, the dodgy evictions with balaclaved anonymous unlicensed Northern thugs, or how Shell protesters were treated, or even the surveillance of their own office which you yourself brought up? What use are they at all? Every week on the ireland subreddit there's a huge thread, where people complain about how utterly useless the GS are - ignoring serious crimes, ignoring theft when there's video proof. The buck for that stops at GSOC. GSOC aren't just not doing anything about all this, they're not even opening their mouths!

Again, if there's a hub for corruption in Ireland, it's centered on the Gardai, I'm not going to argue there. But the blame should be placed on the police force themselves, and the Department of Justice (don't get me started) rather than their relatively (some would say deliberately) toothless regulator.

> Re the CB: What did the CB do after 2008? Next to nothing. What did they do after Sugarman was proven right - congratulate him? Apologize? Give him a job? Nope, nope nope - they did nothing. Sugarman has been blacklisted all over the globe. Have you seen your bank fees recently? Ever noticed how they always rise across every Irish bank at the same time, or how the CB is fine with that?

Erm, lots of stuff? I mean, one of the biggest reasons that people can't afford to buy houses now is the debt to income ratios the CB introduced and held out for over a decade's worth of pressure from the great and the good of Irish society.

> Re Coillte - I for one find the forest and woodlands regulatory destroying our land and soil, selling it off for cheap wood, corrupt; as do many groups who try to protect our biodiversity. If you think there aren't brown envelopes involved, and it's just incompetence, I've a lovely wooden bridge to sell you.

It's just money. Sitka spruce is profitable and grows really quickly in the Irish climate so it gets planted everywhere. I believe that this should stop happening as much over time, because of commitments in the Programme for Government, but we'll see I suppose.

> Re CRH - you don't see how a massive industry acting like a mafia doesn't point to corrupt regulation? Dunno what to tell you on that one so.

Construction is horribly corrupt literally everywhere. Can you provide some sources for the CRH stuff? I probably knew about this at one point, but can't recall right now.

> Re RTE - yes, it's tens of millions. It wasn't just Tubridy you know. They were giving quiet kickbacks of at least 50 million euro to ad agencies as well. And they've a long, long history of ignoring corruption in Ireland, unless there was someone left wing involved. For example, there's been eight attempts by PrimeTime to do a story on CRH - each time, a higher up has scuppered it last minute.

Again, have you ever worked in the advertising industry? This sort of weird accounting is basically everywhere. I hesitate to call it corruption, but it's super problematic. That being said, do you have a source for this claim as I haven't heard it before?

> Re blaming FF and FG's victims - us - When the judiciary, the gardai, and the media are all bought and all corrupt, I myself find it hard to put too much blame on the people who have been robbed, lied to, gaslit, pressured, and put upon for decades; just trying to scrabble enough together to own their house and pay their bills, which has gotten so much harder in the past couple decades.

Hey look, I've never voted for either of them. And I was dirt poor during the boom and have been paying for the consequences ever since.

But yeah, the Irish people demand low level fixing from their public representatives. Do you remember Mervyn Taylor? He removed divorce, legalised being gay (in the 90s!) and fixed a whole bunch of important laws. His reward? Losing his seat, because he didn't do enough constituency clinics.

Meanwhile, Michael Lowry tops the poll every. freaking. election. (Not to mention the Healy Rae dynasty).

> Re the DPC - You think no one in power benefits from a weak DPC? You might want to see how close of a link there is between big Tech and FFG leadership. The history of quiet unlogged meetings, the shared, unadvertised conferences, the statements of support, etc. You think any politician wants FB's algorithm going against them?

I worked at Facebook for five years, and knew lots of the policy people (who would deal with politicians). Any close relationship existed only in the heads of gullible politicians.

> And they've a long, long history of ignoring corruption in Ireland, unless there was someone left wing involved.

Again, this is not true. RTE broke both the Ansbacher scandal (where all the rich had offshore accounts) and lots and lots of the planning corruption stories that became all the 90s/00s tribunals.

>I may be wrong about this, but I'd imagine it's not only EU people who have their data moving through FB's Irish centers. The legal complexities and implications are over my head on that one, but can we at least agree that ~10% of the world is still a lot of people?

The only people covered by the GDPR are EU citizens, AFAIK. Yes, the ToCs for all non-US users are (or were) managed through FB Ireland, but I'm pretty sure that's changed since GDPR.

Also, it turns out that this particular court judgement has almost nothing to do with the Irish DPC, as it arose from a case taken by a German regulator: https://www.ft.com/content/1e6587a7-4fb4-449f-8424-29a819b3a...