In reply to baron:
> You're the one who brought Ireland into the discussion with your idea of how great their benefits system is/was.
No i was simply proving that the UK is hardly the envy of the neighbourhood never mind the envy of the world when it comes to benefits. I have my own opinions on the irish social welfare system but that's not the conversation we're having here. Whether you chose to pay attention or not.
> I simply pointed out that as a net recipient for many years Ireland might have had money available to it that the UK as a net contributor did not.
This is unlikely. Like i've said before EU contributions and subventions are individually calculated on different metrics. Perhaps a better analogy is ireland chooses to spend our money differently for instance we don't go around getting into wars with other nations or feel the need to big ourselves up by having a nuclear deterrent or trident. So money your nation is spending on it's military could otherwise be spent elsewhere if your priorities were different.
> Ireland could have, in fact, been using the UK's contributions to fund its benefits.
> You think this is OK, I don't.
> That's not a cheap dig it's an opinion.
Do you think at the start or the end of each year the EU sits down and rights a cheque for each country to add into their annual budget how they say fit?
Cause believe or not the UK is the only country that gets this as part of Thatcher's rebate. EU payments are generally made individually to either as the case is farmers, development projects or development organizations which have an element of EU funding. National Governments have little or no say in how the EU gives out it's money to them. So to say that "Ireland could have, in fact, been using the UK's contributions to fund its benefits" is flagrantly wrong as that's not how the EU works no matter what the Telegraph et al would have you believe. How the democratically elected irish government decides to spend the money it raises in taxes is it's own business. If the EU decides to spend more money on development projects in rural Ireland using some development calculations is the EU's business. These are not monies coming from the same pot. It's your entitlement to get angry about, especially so seeing as you've been proved wrong elsewhere, but at heart you're confusing matters and it would appear deliberately so and playing to the braying mob as you continue to push this particular angle in spite of the fact that was not where the conversation was headed when you first brought it up.
> Thanks for the history lesson.
> I'm surprised my dad didn't tell me about all that famine stuff, what with him being Irish!
> Must have slipped his mind.
What does that have to do with anything?