[†] https://www.foodwatch.org/fileadmin/-INT/pesticides/banned_p...
This is fine-ish, except that the imported oranges get checked only seldomly (if that) and are given a lot of leeway, making it very hard to compete if you grow them locally. Last couple of years saw some profit for growing them locally, but it's been times where there was literally no profit at all for 5+ years.
Funny story: he requested a permit to build a well, and ofc it takes forever so he just waited. After 4-5 years waiting, having even forgotten about it, someone called him: "we're here to inspect the well". What well? You haven't given me permission yet. "yes, we know, but people build them anyway before getting permission so we thought you'd do the same".
Friends of mine recently got planning permission for a house they've been living in for about 3 years already.
So you can def roll the dice on such things, maybe you get away with it for decades, maybe your house gets flattened.
My (also an immigrant like you) take on Ireland is that many of these systems are run and controlled by humans, and you can get pretty far by trying to make that human connection with the people controlling your fate. My wife was initially refused maternity benefit, because she did not have enough social security contributions. She works part-time, and she was missing 1 contribution (about €120) out of something like 38 for the year. After friends (the same from above) suggested we phone them and talk to the people, the maternity benefit application was approved. I find that there is a lot less "sorry can't help you, computer says no" here.
Might be worth noting that the house you mention was built 20 years ago. https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/housing-planning/2026/05/...
And indeed, rules against mobile homes are actually enforced in Dublin, but outside the pale we definitely had a different experience.
Unless of course you need assistance with a privacy issue concerning US big tech. Then suddenly you'll be met with nothing but silence in Ireland, as the stream of incoming billions from being a compliance haven for criminal US companies must continue flowing.
It's really just places culturally untouched by Calvinism, Puritanism and the like, all of which put emphasis on order.
The last thing to attempt bringing order to them were various forms of authoritarianism and they didn't last. I think we can agree this is not the right approach.
A presupposition of confession is that you have contrition and the resolve not to sin and wish to receive absolution (which doesn't remove the need for temporal justice btw). Premeditation and without remorse turns that confession into an empty act, and indeed, another sin.
Calvinists also believe in confession. Indeed, it doesn't even require the uncomfortable encounter with a priest. You can just do it privately in their view.
This touches on the purpose of sacraments in the Catholic Church. They are meant to be visible signs that give assurance and certainty that something has taken place. If a human being were to show perfect contrition (very rare), then there is no need for the confessional (and ultimately, God is not bound by the sacraments). But for the penitent, the confessional gives assurance of absolution, provided there is some measure of requisite contrition. You don't have to wonder about your eternal fate after leaving the confessional.
The idea that Catholic societies are corrupt or and Calvinist societies are tidy and ordered is a stereotype, and it is silly and ahistorical to claim that you need authoritarianism to bring order to Catholic countries. Catholic societies have a greater tolerance for the messiness of human life. It views itself like a field hospital ready to provide people with means to get back up and to heal. Calvinists, on the other hand, are strangled by their constant anxiety about whether they are part of the elect or not. That can translate into rigidity, rigorism, scrupulosity, and OCD. These, in turn, can resort in a backlash of moral laxity.
(Another stereotype is the Protestant work ethic. Apparently, no one ever heard of the Benedictines and their influence on Europe. There is also a healthy attitude toward work and an unhealthy one.)
Ireland supposedly cares about nature too, but you can still buy truckloads of turf off the side of the road in Offaly. Good luck getting those rules enforced.
When we still lived in Dublin I got pretty tired of having to push my baby in her pram in the street because the pavements (sidewalks) were completely covered in cars, even in the city centre trying to get to the YMCA creche.
Our experience wasn't limited to "victimless" crimes though. I think when you're threatening your neighbours and letting dangerous dogs loose on other people's land where there's kids or sheep then authoritarianism is called for.
It really is a place where crime is legal.
Authoritarianism would be you and your family getting picked up and interrogated sometime at night for this critical comment you just made.
And saying "crime is legal" when referring to cars parked on the sidewalk or you having had a bad experience with a neighbours dog? I think if you reflect a little you'd realise that these are the kind of "crimes" you probably have committed yourself countless times.
Societies where there is high amount of respect towards each other and rules tend to perform much better over long time, ie Switzerland. Its a pleasure to live in such society especially when coming from more messy ones, triple that with small kids.
How do you know? Do you know of all of the protected species of bug in your country for instance?
In my town there are laws about using profanity in public. I'm sure they would be deemed illegal if charges were brought but the law is still on the books.
But regardless, I’m much happier since leaving.
Happy that you are happier :) I'm German, so in general I find it refreshing when people manage to live peacefully with each other without having a rule for every single thing. Obviously a dog endangering children is not such a case.
Apparently the couple just recently come back from a trip in Ireland and lost the new Samsung phone there. Someone has stolen the wife's baggage from the bus when it's doing the routine transit stop by the bus stop while opening the bus baggage conpartment. By the time they realised the thief already going away from the bus with the baggage with the new Samsung phone inside it. They reported to the police but nothing happened. In UAE, Singapore or Japan this type of crime is just not worth it since the petty thief will be punished severely. A lady can incidently left her Louis Vuitton bag inside a restaurant in Dubai, left it at her seat, then after a few hours come back to fetch the bag without losing anything inside.
https://nypost.com/2025/08/19/world-news/uk-free-speech-stru...
Now before you say that I need to check my white privilege, I am brown. everytime one of these people commit these crimes and the police look the other way in the name of political correctness, it gives legitimacy to the racists who want to cast all of us in a bad light. Law and order needs to be a applied equally and its very strange to me how people are getting arrested for speech when they are a direct consequence of government policies. don't make teh speech illegal, correct the issues the=is speech is surfacing.
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/unite...
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/10/uae-reporters-un-cl...
It doesn't have to require authoritarianism to keep the peace. It also doesn't seem like it could only be solved by an authority. If there's a dangerous dog on your property, shoot it if you can't get it to leave and fear for the safety of your kids or sheep.
It and to be handled though. Yes, there may be retaliation for shooting the dog but there may be retaliation for calling the cops as well. All you can do is deal with the situation at hand, there is no magic bullet authority or otherwise.
I know too little about this specific situation, but did the neighbour not stop despite being asked to?
I haven't been to Ireland or the Netherlands (aside from driving through of course), but from what I've heard I would not like it in the latter. Nature appears to be scarce there, as for some reason the Dutch insist on being an agricultural superpower despite the population density.
Maybe it's a language thing, but authoritarianism is never called for.
Rule of law that is just and enforced fairly is what is called for.
You jumped straight to authoritarianism? How about trying self-defense?
Boy you really are a Calvinist
Hobbes. we create the Leviathan so we don't have to constantly act in self defense. The alternative was cold, brutish, and short.
They also routinely trespassed and shot fireworks over our thatch roof (the roof was part thatch, part modern) - very concerning when your roof is more flammable than kindling. Finally they left a dead crow in a bag by our door which felt like a threat, so we sold the place at a €100k loss and moved to the Netherlands.
Gardai were absolutely lazy, uncaring, and useless, and did absolutely nothing.
Now I encourage everyone I can to stay as far away from rural Ireland as possible.
I eventually gained some biases that the former-me who lived in the lefty "Dublin 2 and https://irishtechcommunity.com/" bubble wouldn't have been particularly quick to espouse. Now that it's been a few years I think I'm a little better at seeing different sides of things politically, at least.
Organic labels are a different thing than official regulation though. IMHO organic labels optimize for the wrong things.
What do you mean?
I only know of "Demeter", that also has some very esoteric requirements (homeopathy, cosmic energy flow rituals) - but otherwise organic label optimize for:
- no or little pesticides and herbicides
- more space and better condition for the animals
My only other grievance is that they also all ban GMO
As for the animal welfare, true, but there are also labels specifically for that that.
I ignore all the magic stuff (in fact, if you have some spiritual devotion to the food you're growing I think that's just fine)
From Wikipedia:
> Pesticides are allowed as long as they are not synthetic.[28]
See also:
Sure, the agreements say that whatever is imported needs to comply with this or that standard, but customs rarely inspect these. So you end up importing produce which is much cheaper than the local-grown one and which also doesn't comply with the strict local laws. That's where the "unfair competition" happens.
Sure, I bet French farmers aren't too happy to see tomatoes or whatever grown in other EU countries with cheaper labor flood the local market. However, anecdotally, I never see produce from eastern Europe here in Paris. Non-French usually means Spanish or Netherlands if it's EU, or northern Africa if not. You can mayyybe find son specialty cheese or meat from abroad, but outside the very common Italian varieties and Gouda, it's really not easy to find in regular supermarkets.
However, for some reason, apples from freaking Chile and South Africa seem very common, even in season, although apples grow fine here, including that specific variety (pink lady). And when I do find locally-grown ones, they're usually at the same price.
Edit: I've asked that myself multiple times. There's also some stubbornness there as well TBF.
What happened next? Please continue the story~
> but it's been times where there was literally no profit at all for 5+ years.
But "organic" also targets soil health, biodiversity, animal well-being, and the environment in general.
Some synthetic pesticides / herbicides / fungicides hardly break down in the environment. Which leads to accumulation of a cocktail of such chemicals in soil & ground/surface waters. Ultimately appearing everywhere in air, drinking water & food. Not unlike microplastics, PFAS etc. How this affects humans' health is largely unknown.
Generally, chemicals produced by plants also break down naturally. So they don't accumulate in soils over time.
So it's kind of "exclude nature as much as possible, cleanroom style" versus "work with nature to keep things in a healthy balance".
This was just after the Gros Michel had gone basically extinct because of monocropping. The banana companies hired scientists to figure out what to do that almost universally recommended diversifying the crop. But they calculated that it'd actually be cheaper to just double down on pesticide application and start again with another monocrop.
There's an incredible documentary about the banana industry history (and practices that continue to this day like banana companies paying gangs to assassinate local labor leaders) called Bananaland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoRmtQht8-E
So what's really the difference?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_19...
[3] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11/26/a-timeline-of-cia-...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
They also have a few on Bernays because of course they do
Now we're dealing with TR4 because of the Cavendish being grown in the exact same way but with an even heavier reliance on pesticides, slavery, and violent control over local power.
Shouldn't EU ban ideally exports of good that it bans internally?
And then, after all of that, you still have: the solution to pollution is dilution.
What's toxic on a fruit tree for human consumption, is likely not toxic on thousands of cubic yards of dirt or millions of gallons of ground water.
How can anyone entertain that belief unless:
a) they think people in other countries have a different biology
b) profits matter more than the health of people in other countries (mostly former colonies of Europe)
Capitalism is the most effective driver of progress known.
Capitalism has lifted enormous numbers of people out of absolute poverty and is a great positive for the world.
Inequality is an unavoidable side-effect of capitalism.
The optimal risk:benefit tradeoff depends on the resources you have available.
It can be rational behavior for a poor person to take greater risks with their health than a rich person, because the value of wealth has strongly diminishing returns. I personally believe we should have state-enforced wealth redistribution to limit this scenario to a reasonable minimum, but I'm not so naive as to think eliminating it entirely would be the globally optimal solution. In practice, "everybody gets identical protection from pesticides" means "everybody is poor".
Concretely, my friend, I'm afraid this is not quite the world the power imbalances lead us to.
It is amazing that we have regulations for everything and that when they cannot enforce it, they blame someone else.
Different way of dealing with people depending on who, not what.
Also one of my worries with the mercusour trade deal. And any deal that involves meat imports from the US, with specific laxer regulation requirements (at least what Trump would like).
So using these pesticides only on products for export makes utterly no sense!
So EU makes pesticides that itself bans from being used on their own fields. Which isn't that weird, it isn't the chemical that is banned it is using it as a pesticide that is banned.