Skipness One, you had better research your FACTS before putting your thoughts on paper. Oil accounts for 1/3 of the WHOLE of the UAE's GDP, of which Dubai has but 6%, and 2% of its gas revenues.
By every measure from the World Bank, IMF and various other sources, in 2007 Ireland had a larger GDP and more GDI (Gross Domestic Income) than Dubai.
The CIA World Fact Book states in its 2008 edition that the WHOLE the UAE, with an almost identical population to the Irish Republic and with all its oil revenues, was the third richest country in the world by GDP in 2007, after Luxembourg and Equatorial Guinea. Then came Norway. FIFTH was Ireland, followed by the USA.
You obviously don't understand the potential of an Atlantic seaboard multi-modal hub. It has nothing to do with the range of the 747 but everything to do with diverting shipping from the overcrowded lanes of the English Channel. Had such a hub been established at Shannon in the 1960s Europoort Rotterdam would not have achieved its significance.
A Shannon multi modal centre would have had Europe at its back door and excellent access by sea to the US, Middle and Far East.
Studies conducted in the late 1980s by the WTO listed a number of countries with sites ideal for multi modal cargo centres due to their deep water access, membership of alliances or economic unions, willingness to develop "Freeports", availablity of airports, room in physical and airspace terms for intense air freight expansion and railhead/road networks.
Dubai was one of the front runners and Shannon was listed in the top 20 potential sites, even given Rotterdam's pre-eminence as a port, Shannon's major drawback being lack of continental rail and road links - which also applied to Dubai.
Dubai has grasped the concept and gone ahead, Shannon hasn't - but then redeveloping the simple country road on which I live and adding street lights and drainage, a task achievable in weeks anywhere else, has now taken 12 months for a 600 yard stretch and, as work has now finished until next year, it will April before we see the project completed.
There has been more than enough cash in this country in the last 15 years. The problem is it has been sqandered with millions spent on, for instance, electronic voting machines which have never been used and are costing added millions a year to store. I could go on but anyone living here knows the score only too well.