Thurles, Co. Tipperary did not decline overnight. It has been weakened over decades by the loss of major employers, the failure to replace them at scale, and town-centre decisions that have made Liberty Square less convenient for the very businesses it is supposed to support.
Over the past 50 years, Thurles, has lost some of the employers that once gave the town real economic strength. The Sugar Factory closure remains one of the deepest blows in local memory. Later came further losses: GMX, BSN Medical, Erin Foods and others. In the Seanad in 2007, the pattern was described clearly; since the loss of the Sugar Factory, Thurles had suffered repeated job losses in Barlow, BSN Medical, GMX and Erin Foods.
These were not minor losses. BSN Medical announced in 2006 that it would cease manufacturing in Thurles, with 80 jobs to go. Erin Foods, which had operated in Thurles for 46 years, was then marked for closure with the loss of 95 jobs. The closure of GMX / Moulinex had already removed around 230 jobs from the town. When these losses are added to the Sugar Factory and smaller vanished industries, the picture is obvious: Thurles lost a serious employment base and never got it back.
Yes, there have been minor replacements announced and some investment. Dew Valley Foods, Lidl, smaller enterprise supports, the university presence and the ThurlesShopping Centre have all brought activity. But they have not replaced the scale or quality of what was lost. A town cannot lose major factories and long-standing employers and then be told that scattered retail jobs, short-term construction work and small-scale schemes are the same thing. They are not.
[Song hereunder ,“Rust & Rain”, is AI-generated entirely by Dallas Ray Little(operating under the label Crusty Records)]
Even An Taoiseach Mr Micheál Martin appeared to acknowledge this failure in Dáil Éireann on June 10th 2026, when he said he had “often thought Thurles would have done better because of its location” and noted that not everywhere near the motorway had received the same degree of foreign direct investment. That single comment says a great deal. For decades, Thurles was told that its central location, rail access and proximity to major routes should be an advantage. Yet the town watched major employers disappear, while replacement investment went elsewhere. If even the Taoiseach is surprised that Thurles has not benefited properly from its location, then local people are entitled to ask why successive governments, state agencies and elected representatives allowed that failure to continue for so long.
Tipperary County Council’s own Thurles Local Area Plan confirms the weakness of the employment base. It states that Thurles has a relatively low jobs ratio of 1.01 compared with Clonmel at 1.39 and Nenagh at 1.22. It also records that just under half of resident workers are employed in Thurles, while many others work elsewhere in Tipperary or outside the county. That is not the profile of a town that has been properly protected or rebuilt after decades of industrial loss.
The same plan says Thurles is a “Key Town” and speaks of supporting employment, prosperity, regeneration and revitalisation. But people in Thurles have heard plans, strategies and promises for years. What they can see with their own eyes is different; empty premises, weakened footfall, businesses struggling, and employment lands that have not delivered the kind of jobs once provided by the town’s former industrial base.
Liberty Square is the clearest example of the problem. Tipperary County Council’s Phase 2 public realm proposal includes wider footpaths, raised crossings, road-layout changes, a one-way system on Cuchulain Road, and the relocation of 12 parking bays from the central island car park. The Council presents this as enhancement. Many traders see it differently. For a rural market town, convenient short-stay parking is not a luxury; it is part of how the town trades.
The long-awaited Thurles bypass is another example of how the town has been pushed down the road for decades. The need is obvious; heavy traffic and HGVs continue to pass through the heart of Thurles, including Liberty Square, while the town centre is simultaneously expected to become a more attractive public realm. Those two aims are in conflict. Press reported in November 2025 that the “long awaited and badly needed” bypass was back on the Government agenda, noting that it would ease congestion in the heart of the town where heavy goods vehicles regularly clog Liberty Square. Yet Tipperary County Council’s own 2026 budget material stated that while a route had been selected and a reserved corridor was in place, the Council would continue lobbying for the project to be included in the National Development Plan. By March 2026, the project had only received a €50,000 allocation to progress early design work with TII. After so many years, that is not delivery; it is another promise pushed into the future.
Long awaited Thurles bypass selected route/reserved corridor still only receives early-stage funding/progression in 2026
A town centre like Thurles depends on easy access. People call in to collect prescriptions, go to the post office, visit the butcher, chemist, café, solicitor, barber, newsagent or bank, and then move on. If parking is removed, made awkward, pushed away, or controlled in a way that does not suit shoppers, people change habits. They go where parking is free, plentiful and easy. In Thurles, that increasingly means the shopping centre or edge-of-town retail or indeed another nearby town.
The pull of the shopping centre is not imaginary. Thurles Shopping Centre is marketed as having more than 55,000 visitors per week and 550 free multi-storey parking spaces. That is a huge advantage over Liberty Square with its parking charges. When the Council reduces or reconfigures central parking while the shopping centre offers hundreds of free spaces, it should surprise nobody that trade drifts away from the historic core.
Parking charges resulted in the relocation of the post office, seen as yet another major blow. In 2019, An Post moved from Liberty Square to Thurles Shopping Centre. Local concern at the time was that the move would reduce footfall in the town centre. An Post said the old building was not viable and that the new location would provide improved services, but the result for Liberty Square was still the loss of a key daily footfall generator.
This is the core issue; decisions may be justified one by one, but their combined effect has damaged the heart of Thurles. One decision removes jobs, while another fails to replace them. Another moves a key service while another reduces convenient parking and then another produces a plan promising regeneration at some later date. Over time, the town centre is weakened not by one single act, but by a long chain of decisions that fail to protect how a real town works.
It would be unfair to claim that every closure was caused by councillors, the Council or TII. Companies close for many reasons: restructuring, costs, competition, building condition, online shopping and changing consumer behaviour. But it is entirely fair to say that successive politicians, councillors, agencies and planners have failed to secure a proper replacement employment base for Thurles and have failed to protect Liberty Square as a practical commercial centre.
The people of Thurles do not need more glossy language about regeneration. They need jobs, occupied buildings, realistic parking, fair access, active streets and a town centre that serves local traders as well as public-realm theory. A square can look tidier on a drawing and still fail commercially. A plan can sound modern and still damage small businesses. A town can be called a “Key Town” in official documents and still be treated like an afterthought in practice.
Thurles deserves better than managed decline. It deserves leadership that understands the town’s history, its losses, its trading patterns and its people. After 50 years of industrial closures, weak replacement employment and the hollowing-out of Liberty Square, the question is not whether Thurles has been let down. The question is who is finally going to take responsibility for reversing the damage.
Ireland’s new approach to AI chatbots is not a blanket ban on automated customer service. It is more subtle, and potentially more important; consumers should not be trapped inside an automated system when the issue is serious, confusing or financially significant.
The immediate change comes from Ireland’s implementation of updated EU consumer rules for financial services sold online or remotely. The new rules give consumers a right to request human intervention instead of being forced to rely only on an AI chatbot or automated online tool when dealing with certain distance-marketed financial services. The point is practical; if a person is buying, cancelling or trying to understand a financial product online, they should be able to speak to a real person where automated tools are not enough. Recent Irish reporting described this as a consumer-protection measure aimed at giving online buyers protections closer to those they would expect in person.
That matters because chatbots are no longer simple FAQ boxes. Many are becoming front doors to essential services. They answer billing questions, process account requests, triage complaints and increasingly use generative AI to produce conversational answers. Vodafone Ireland’s TOBi is a useful example. IBM says Vodafone Ireland worked with IBM Expert Labs to redeploy TOBi on watsonx Assistant, using generative AI capabilities, large language models and retrieval-augmented generation designed to ground answers in Vodafone’s own content.
For customers, that may mean faster answers and more convenient support. But it also raises a basic consumer-rights question: when does “digital assistance” become a barrier between the customer and a human being?
TOBi is not automatically caught by the new finance-specific right to human intervention in every situation. Vodafone is primarily a telecoms provider, so ordinary mobile, broadband, top-up, billing, roaming or account-support queries are not the same as buying a regulated financial product online. The finance rules are targeted at financial services contracts concluded at a distance, not every chatbot used by every company.
However, that does not mean TOBi or similar systems sit outside regulation. First, the EU AI Act introduces transparency duties for AI systems that interact directly with people. In simple terms, users should be told when they are dealing with an AI system, unless that is already obvious from the circumstances. EU guidance on Article 50 states that providers must inform users when they are interacting directly with an AI system, and that AI-generated or manipulated content may also need to be clearly marked.
Second, GDPR still applies where personal data is processed. A chatbot dealing with account details, identity checks, complaints, billing information or customer history is likely to involve personal data. That means companies must consider lawful basis, transparency, data minimisation, security, retention, accuracy and user rights. If a generative AI assistant produces inaccurate information about a customer’s account, mishandles personal data, or makes it difficult to exercise rights, the issue is not just bad customer service; it may become a data-protection problem.
Third, Ireland is preparing a broader AI enforcement framework. The Irish Government published the Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Bill 2026 to give effect to the EU AI Act domestically. The Department of Enterprise says the Bill will establish the AI Office of Ireland as an independent institution at the centre of Ireland’s AI regulatory system and give competent authorities investigative and sanctions tools. The European Commission says the AI Act entered into force in 2024 and becomes fully applicable on August 2nd 2026, with some provisions applying earlier.
So where does this leave Vodafone’s TOBi? A fair reading is that TOBi should, at minimum, be transparent, accurate, privacy-conscious and supported by clear escalation routes. Customers should know they are using an automated or AI-powered assistant. They should be able to reach a human where the issue cannot reasonably be resolved by automation, especially where the matter involves complaints, cancellation, vulnerability, account access, fraud, security, disputed charges or important contractual consequences.
The strongest legal right to human intervention currently appears in the financial-services context. But the direction of travel is wider. Regulators and lawmakers are recognising that automated customer service can create real-world harm when it blocks access to help. A chatbot that works well can be useful. A chatbot that traps people in loops, gives wrong answers, refuses escalation or hides human support can become a consumer-protection issue.
For companies, the lesson is clear: AI assistants should not be designed only to reduce call-centre demand. They should be designed around customer rights. That means clear disclosure, good records, safe handling of personal data, tested accuracy, accessible alternatives and visible routes to a human.
For consumers, the message is equally important. When dealing with a chatbot such as TOBi, keep screenshots or transcripts if the issue is serious. Ask clearly for a human agent where the automated answer is inadequate. Use formal complaints channels where necessary. And where the matter involves regulated financial services, remember that the new rules strengthen the case for human intervention.
Ireland’s chatbot clampdown is not anti-technology. It is a reminder that automation should serve people, not replace their rights.
Sinn Féin, like Father Murphy, will attempt to “Spur up the rocks with a warning cry”, here in Thurles.
There is no doubt that households in Thurles, across Tipperary, and throughout Ireland are under real pressure. Electricity bills, grocery prices, rents, mortgage repayments, insurance, childcare and transport costs have all eaten into family budgets. Nobody in Government should dismiss that. But equally, nobody in Opposition should pretend that reliefs, credits, freezes and subsidies come without a cost.
That is the part of the cost-of-living debate that too often gets lost. The crisis Ireland has faced was not invented in Leinster House, Dublin. It came from a series of international shocks; the aftermath of Covid-19, supply-chain disruption, the surge in gas and oil prices, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, higher food and fertiliser costs, and interest-rate rises across the eurozone. Ireland, as a small open economy, cannot simply opt out of global energy markets or European monetary policy. The Government can cushion the blow, and it has done so, but it cannot abolish reality.
Budget 2026 shows the Government trying to do that difficult balancing act. It increased most weekly social welfare payments by €10, increased Fuel Allowance by €5 per week, extended the 9% VAT rate on electricity and gas to the end of 2030, extended the Rent Tax Credit, and adjusted the USC band so minimum-wage workers would not be pulled into the higher rate because of the minimum-wage increase. These are not slogans; they are practical measures aimed at helping people, while keeping the public finances under control.
That is the difference between responsible government and permanent protest. Government has to decide not only what people would like to receive, but how it is paid for, who pays for it, and what is sacrificed elsewhere.
Sinn Féin’s alternative budget proposed a €2.5 billion cost-of-living package, including €450 energy credits, a double child benefit payment, higher welfare and pension increases, rent measures and the abolition of USC on the first €40,000 of income. Those proposals may sound attractive when listed at a public meeting. Who would not like lower bills, higher payments, lower taxes and cheaper rent? But politics is not a wishing well. A €2.5 billion package must be funded by someone.
And that “someone” is usually the worker, the taxpayer, the business owner, or the next generation.
If the State pays for broad energy credits, the money comes from taxation, borrowing, or less spending elsewhere. If taxes are raised on “someone else,” they rarely stay neatly confined there. Business taxes can affect investment and jobs. Higher taxes on workers reduce take-home pay. Borrowing passes today’s relief bill to tomorrow’s taxpayers. Cutting or delaying spending elsewhere means less money for housing, schools, hospitals, roads, disability services, Garda resources, water infrastructure and energy investment.
This is why the Government is right to be cautious about turning every pressure into a permanent spending commitment. Ireland’s public finances look strong on paper, but independent watchdogs have repeatedly warned that the headline figures hide real risks. The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council warned in June 2026 that Ireland remains heavily reliant on corporation tax from a small number of foreign-owned multinationals. It also said that, excluding excess corporation tax, the State is forecast to have an underlying deficit of €11 billion this year. That means we are not as flush with money as some political speeches expected from Sinn Féin suggest.
The same watchdog warned that most corporation tax receipts are being spent rather than saved, with only €1 in every €6 being set aside under the Government’s plan. It also warned that spending growth is running faster than the sustainable growth rate of the economy. These are not Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil talking points. They are warnings from Ireland’s independent fiscal watchdog.
The Central Bank has also warned that Ireland faces downside risks to exports and corporation tax receipts if US tax or industrial policy changes, with possible effects on investment and incomes. In plain English, the tax money we are relying on today may not be guaranteed tomorrow.
That is why the Government cannot responsibly govern as though every surplus is permanent and every demand can be met by writing another cheque.
Of course, Opposition parties will always say more should be done. That is their job. But there is a danger in turning every genuine hardship into a rallying cry against the State. Public meetings can easily become exercises in stirring-up anger, rather than solving problems. The old cry of “Arm, arm” may be poetic, but it is not an economic policy. Ireland does not need a politics that spurs up resentment while avoiding the hard question: who pays?
The responsible answer is that support should be targeted, temporary where possible, and affordable. Help should go to those most exposed: pensioners, carers, low-income workers, families with children, people with disabilities, and households facing energy poverty. But permanent giveaways funded by unstable revenues or future borrowing are not compassion. They are deferred taxation.
The Government’s position should be defended because it recognises both sides of the truth: people need help, but the State must remain solvent; households need relief, but workers cannot be taxed into the ground; today’s pressure is real, but tomorrow’s taxpayers also matter.
There is no such thing as free cost-of-living relief. There is only a choice about who pays, when they pay, and whether politicians are honest enough to admit it.
Ireland needs action, yes. But it also needs prudence, honesty and responsibility. Demanding everything immediately may win applause in a public meeting. Governing requires asking whether the applause today becomes the tax bill tomorrow.
Rise In Assaults On Healthcare Workers Raises Urgent Safety Questions.
New figures show that 2,373 assaults against healthcare workers have already been recorded this year, including 23 sexual assaults.
The data, provided by the HSE, confirms that up to June 4th there were: ► 1,765 direct physical assaults. ► 585 verbal assaults. ► 23 sexual assaults. ► 103 incidents classified as “moderate”.
Thankfully, no incident so far this year has been classified as “major”, but that should not hide the seriousness of what frontline staff are facing every day.
A “moderate” incident can mean a significant injury requiring medical treatment, counselling, a report to the Health and Safety Authority, more than three days off work, or a hospital stay of several days. Healthcare workers should not have to accept violence, intimidation or sexual assault as part of their job.
One question that now needs to be examined more openly is whether alcohol and illegal drug use are contributing to some of these incidents. The current figures do not break down how many assaults involved intoxication, but the HSE’s own safety guidance recognises that people under the influence of alcohol or drugs can create sudden risks for staff.
If substance misuse is part of the problem, it must be part of the solution too, alongside safer staffing levels, proper security, better reporting, staff supports, and a zero-tolerance approach to violence in healthcare settings.
Our healthcare workers care for us in our most vulnerable moments. They deserve to be protected in theirs.
Thousands of children across Ireland are still waiting for an initial appointment with a Child Disability Network Team, with families in North and South Tipperary among those affected by long delays.
HSE figures show that 8,200 children were on waiting lists for first contact with a CDNT at the end of March, including 5,261 children who had been waiting for more than 12 months. The overall figure marks a fall from 8,648 children recorded at the end of 2025.
The figures show that Tipperary is split across two HSE regions, meaning waiting-list pressures affecting families in the county are recorded under separate regional totals.
North Tipperary falls within HSE Mid West, which also covers Clare and Limerick. In that region, 1,109 children were awaiting first contact with a CDNT, including 599 children who had been waiting for more than a year.
South Tipperary is counted within HSE Dublin and South East, alongside Carlow, Kilkenny, Waterford, Wexford, most of Wicklow and parts of South Dublin. That region had the second-largest waiting list nationally, with 2,078 children awaiting first contact. Of those, 1,432 children had been waiting longer than 12 months. The split means there is no single headline waiting-list figure for Tipperary in the regional data, despite children in both the north and south of the county being affected by delays.
Nationally, HSE Dublin Midlands had the largest waiting list, with 2,252 children awaiting first contact. Of these, 1,669 had been waiting longer than a year. The area includes Dublin South City and West, Dublin South West, Kildare, West Wicklow, Laois, Offaly, Longford and Westmeath. HSE Dublin North East recorded 1,908 children waiting for first contact, with 1,269 waiting over a year. The region includes North Dublin, Louth, Meath, Monaghan and most of Cavan.
HSE West and North West, covering Donegal, Leitrim, Sligo, West Cavan, Mayo, Galway and Roscommon, had 452 children awaiting contact, while HSE South West, covering Cork and Kerry, had 401 children on waiting lists. The figures come amid continuing staffing pressures across CDNT services. A report showed that, as of October 2025, the vacancy rate across CDNT posts stood at 18%, with 457 positions unfilled.
The HSE is the lead agency for 43 of the country’s 93 CDNTs. Enable Ireland operates 20 teams, while Brothers of Charity provides six. Among providers, Enable Ireland had funding for 502.3 whole-time equivalent posts, with 85% filled. Brothers of Charity had 208.9 funded whole-time equivalent posts, with 89% filled. The highest vacancy rate was recorded in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, where 54% of posts were vacant. Gorey in Co Wexford and Waterford North City each had vacancy rates of 52%.
At regional level, Dublin and South East had the highest vacancy rate, with one quarter of posts unfilled. Occupational therapy posts remain under pressure, with 27% vacant, equivalent to 40.9 unfilled positions. Clinical psychology vacancies were also high, with 44% of posts unfilled, or 41.6 vacancies. There are 93 Child Disability Network Teams aligned with 96 Community Healthcare Networks nationwide. The teams provide services and supports for children and young people from birth to 18 years of age.
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