Poll: What you said in 2019
The results are in, the readers have spoken.
FROM PREDICTING BREXIT to chiming in on whether an accent has impacted their career, Fora readers have been giving their opinions on some of the pressing issues of the last year.
Brexit
Back in March, we asked if the UK would leave the European Union on the original divorce date.
Most of you were pessimistic – and rightly so – voting that it wouldn’t leave Europe at the end of that month.
Nine months later, another deadline has passed, along with a general election. Nevertheless, it will most likely happen this year, with a stronger conservative party who are more united as they move towards leaving the trading bloc.
The majority of readers voted yes when asked if Dublin should relax its building restrictions after a row broke out over developer Johnny Ronan’s Salesforce tower back in March.
Dublin City Council has since refused Ronan’s request to secure permission for an additional two storeys at Salesforce’s new European headquarters at Spencer Dock.
It came at a time when there have been calls to relax height restrictions to reduce urban sprawl and accommodation shortages in the city.
With an increased number of multinationals setting up outside the capital, such as US tech firms Overstock, E3 Retail and LivetTiles creating jobs in Sligo, almost 80% of readers said they would move out of Dublin for work elsewhere when asked back in May.
Overstock told Fora at the time, employees would be paid less but the overall cost of housing in Sligo meant anyone who joined the company in Sligo would be saving money.
The fear of a global recession started to rear its head in August this year when the US yield curve inverted - historically it goes south when a global recession is on its way.
Just over 60% of readers that voted said they were worried about it too.
Since then things seemed to have cooled with the yield curve reverting. Two Goldman Sachs economists said this week that recent recession indicators don’t seem as concerning as they did back in September.
Parental leave improved in Ireland with the government adding two weeks paid paternity and maternity leave from the start of November.
Nevertheless, recent reports suggest that employer's attitudes aren't keeping up with the legislation.
The majority of Fora readers thought similar, with over 62% saying they think taking parental leave has negatively impacted their career.
Accents
It seems the most divisive poll this year was one a local one, with Fora readers disagreeing on whether their accent has affected their career.
After a recent survey in the UK pointed out that accent bias still exists today, 45% of readers said they thought it had affected their career opportunities, while 45% said it hadn't.
