“A country which prefers guns to flowers will live the beauty of the flowers only in its graveyards!” – Quote by Turkish author Mehmet Murat ildan.
Tipperary County Council under the leadership of Mr Joe MacGrath (Chief Executive), through its Community and Economic Development Section, maintain they continually strive to provide a place where its people can enjoy a ‘great quality of life’, ‘Fairness’, ‘Co-Operation’, ‘Communication’, ‘Teamwork’, ‘Partnership’ and ‘Collaboration’.
Health & Safety Ignored
But, when the local residents sought a little financial funding to improve a set of steps leading up into the Moyne Road / Bellevue Housing Estate on a long established ‘right of way’, District Director Mr Matt Shortt (Director of Services, Director of Roads, Transportation and Health and Safety, for the Templemore / Thurles Municipal Council.) had other notions and made a decision to block all future access via this right of way, proving, not for the first time, that ‘verbal agreements are not worth the paper they are written on‘.
Fearful for pedestrians rushing out onto the nearby roadway, Mr Shortt sanctioned the building of a wall across the residents right of way, ignoring the fact that briar’s and uncontrolled, hanging, ivy (see Video) currently remain, forcing pedestrians unto a nearby stretch of road with no footpath. So much for Health & Safety.
Fifty-Eight Years Crying Out For A Coat Of Paint.
The costs of a double grave site in St. Patrick’s cemetery, together with the opening of a grave, especially on weekends, and later the granting of a ‘planning permit’ to erect your headstone (latter permit currently costing €90.00), sees little change out of €2,000.00, when loved one’s finish tidying their grave site.
Most especially in Spring, Summer and Autumn, you will find more footfall in St. Patrick’s cemetery of an evening, than in Liberty Square, Thurles. Grave sites are meticulously maintained by family and friends, through the introduction of floral arrangements, shrubs and planted containers.
So, the very least one would expect to see, is a can of paint being splashed about on entry gates and on existing seating, courtesy of Tipperary Co. Council, to justify their annual revenues collected. Here again is ample evidence of money wasting by Tipperary County Council. Several thousand Euro in payments for new gates will now have to be found, purely because rusty iron work has not been painted since 1961, well over half a century ago (58 Years).
Of course, this will result in grave prices increasing in the future and as usual in their annual accounts a JCB will be claimed in full, showing financial losses of €120,000. Note, Tipperary County Council’s digger works daily everywhere in the Templemore / Thurles Municipal District and is not any more solely for use in St. Patrick’s Cemetery, or indeed was it ever.
This also begs the question; how can they use a digger in the centre of the graveyard? Most grave kerbs are less than 5cm (2ins – See Video) apart, with no access to transport any digger between the gravestones.
Note also, the last person to sweep outside of St. Patrick’s Cemetery gates, in the last 58 years, was the wind.
Currently, weather is eroding earthen banks unto walkways. Wreaths from graves are being dumped in the open, as are the mounds of loose earth, rocks and abandoned path edging kerb stones.
Here is where we should be planting vast swathes of wild flowers, on vast vacant land, instead of wasting money in weekly grass cutting.
It remains a source of great wonder, that politicians and elected councillors, all who have attended funerals in St Patrick’s Cemetery, over the past 40 years; have failed to notice this unforgivable neglect by Tipperary environmental officialdom, turning our graveyard into a place for the disposal of waste; turning it into no better than a common dump.
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