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1-0 it ended. France managed by Hervé Renard, the suave ultra tanned Frenchman with the crisp white unbuttoned shirts who managed Saudi Arabia at the last World Cup. Megan Campbell back for Ireland with her long throws. Good to see. French dominated but Ireland did well to hold them to 1. England up next at Aviva. They drew 1-1 with Sweden tonight.

France 1-0 up at half time in the women's Euro away qualifier. France goal came early and Irish women under a lot of pressure that half. Big step up in standard and they've done well to keep it to one. But they got a horrid hard group with 3 of the top 5 teams in the world in a 4 team group. RTE covering with commentary from the ever green George Hamilton.

It should be noted that Windsor Framework only applies to goods, not services. North is not in EU for services. That would be biggest benefit if a UI as the difference in exports of services North and South is astronomical (even allowing for sleight of hand reporting by MNCs in South). Republic exports over €300 billion in services and North £20 billion. Varadakwr and Coveney were shrewd enough to prevent services from being in protocol as it would have been to the detriment of ROI economy and given UK financial services a direct gateway to EU via North instead of having to relocate parts of business to Dublin/Frankfurth/Paris.

John Doyle from DCU did a full study on that - showed that Irish gov would only incur about £2-3bn of the UK subvention cost when you extract the security/defence costs, NI's contribution to UK national debt and pensions.

Everyone wants a plan from Dublin for a UI but the biggest problem is the North has 225,000 public sector employees and 590,009 private sector while the South has 370,000 public sector and 2.3m private sector. This is not even addressing the high economic inactivity rate in North at 25%. The unemployment rate is however only 2% (a great example of joke statistics).

I've often seen this statistic about extra public sector in NI. But what is unclear is where exactly these people are? Are they teachers, nurses, social workers, police, civil servants? When there is detail then we can understand what to do, all of this discussion in big totals is unhelpful. An actual detailed account of where the extra are would be a good service.

Also, public sector employment in NI will tend to decline over the next few years, there isn't the money. There is now a reasonable availability of private employment in NI, and so the public bill will decline and the income will increase a bit.

I was using NISRA Dec 2023 (copied below) stats but not sure if it goes deeper detail where they all are. I doubt it's in important areas like health and education however. But overall compared to South or GB (where it's 15%) the public sector in North is huge as a percentage versus private.


Public sector jobs decreased over the quarter (-1,710 jobs) but increased over the year (+1,110 jobs) to December 2023, reaching 224,070 jobs.
Private sector jobs decreased over the quarter (-3,630 jobs) but increased over the year (+5,310 jobs) to December 2023, reaching 593,150 jobs.

Everyone wants a plan from Dublin for a UI but the biggest problem is the North has 225,000 public sector employees and 590,009 private sector while the South has 370,000 public sector and 2.3m private sector. This is not even addressing the high economic inactivity rate in North at 25%. The unemployment rate is however only 2% (a great example of joke statistics).

So well over 100,000 public sector employees in North will have to lose jobs and find a job in the private sector. Where? That will have to be in the first paragraph of Dublin's plan but no one wants to read that and there's no political will in North or GB to solve that problem.

On the plus side, the South will have a €100bn sovereign wealth fund by 2035 and the Yanks might throw in a few bob to help a smooth transition.

if derry got knocked out by donegal what will derrys seeding be  is derry guarenteed pot 2 or can they go into pot 3

Pot two is for the provincial losers I think?

If same as last year:

Pot 1 - provincial winners
Pot 2 - provincial losers
Pot 3 - top 4 remaining league rankings
Pot 4 - 4 next league rankings/Tailteann Cup winner

Thanks Mod and congrats Mortified. The board majority did well and there may be an algorithm there for the future:

"Board Majority" minus "Own County Optimism" = Not Embarrass Yourself

Congrats Derry. For the neutral, that was a thoroughly enjoyable game of attacking football. Derry deserved the win but Dublin will be happy enough too to only lose on penalties. Derry are improving all the time and are playing a nice brand of football. Can they keep that level of intensity up? If so, will be hard beaten.

Laois v Leitrim - Leitrim by 1
Down v Westmeath - Down by 3

Donegal v Armagh - Armagh by 2
Derry v Dublin - Dublin by 4

Mary Lou now calling for Ireland to opt out of EU Migration Pact. The winds are blowing to the right and SF want their own far right vote back. Farage did always like them.

Knowing the FAI, the mystery new manager could be A.N. Other. Would not put it past the blazers to pretend they had someone lined up and then if John O'Shea doesn't F up too much (the bar was low, very low), come out with his promising performance in the two matches has led them to change their mind.

[current senator]

Former AG
Former Minister for Justice
Former Tánaiste
Long time TD, current senator

Most importantly, massive gobshite. I've always thought of him as the southern, Fenian Jim Allister. Sees the 'ra everywhere he looks.

Ahh, voters rejected him then a 'job for the boys' case.

Never liked him. But he was one of the leading voices - if not the mastermind - of the No campaign on the changes to the referendum. There's a significant base that would be aligned with his views on many issues.

The world class lad opted for the North. Class goal for Conor Bradley against the Scots.

He opted for the North so he could stay in Liverpool's Academy. If he declared for the Republic he'd have to leave under Brexit rules.

I doubt that Brexit rule would have applied to him, as it didn't to Trent Kone Doherty who is still U.18, from Derry, and has opted for FAIreland.

The world class lad opted for the North. Class goal for Conor Bradley against the Scots.