Politics « Thurles Information

Failte Eolas Cuartaiochta – Welcome Visitor Information

Where exists the Welcome Visitor Information in Thurles?

“A shade of sadness, a blush of shame, over the face of the leader came,”
Extract from the poem “Barbara Frietchie”, by John Greenleaf Whittier .

As people will be fully aware, the Thurles.Info website has in the past; and indeed, is fully committed to the continuation of granting assistance to Thurles Municipal District Councillors; latter persons difficult to predict because of their perverse and self-glorifying comportment.

So, here our elected representatives, are a few thoughts worthy of sharing at the next County Council meeting. Keep in mind that same in turn will give the impression to the Thurles local electorate that councillors are fully awake, when, having reflected, they announce on their facebook accounts, “what they thought they ought to have stated”.

Thurles Tourism

As one of the great unwashed members of this community, I am not sure if the word ‘Tourism‘ ever appears on Co. Council monthly agendas, despite fully committed promises given every five years by Municipal Councillors prior to local elections.

HolyCross Abbey, Thurles, Co Tipperary from HiddenTipperary

Regardless, we are informed that a minimum of 250,000 visitors come to visit Holy Cross Abbey each year. The now welcome new motorway entry signs, erected last October, (of which Thurles.Info were first to highlight the need), stand clearly visible on the Dublin / Nenagh / Horse & Jockey and Templemore roads, entering into Thurles.

However the Holycross Road, which possibly points most of the few tourists to visit Thurles, in our direction, has been totally overlooked, in favour of signs “Welcome To Thurles Home of Erin Foods”, (Factory Closed some 12 years ago), and requesting that visitors take advantage of ‘Disc Parking’, latter no longer in vogue for many years and which was first introduced by greedy / grabbing Co. Council officials, leading to the total destruction of a prosperous Town Centre, that was Thurles town.

Thurles Town Centre

Talking about Thurles Town Centre and tourism; we note that the filthy dirty Victorian cast iron ‘Welcome Visitor Information’ signs (Irish: Failte Eolas Cuartaiochta) have now been hijacked by “The Source” Theatre, in Cathedral Street, controlled by Tipperary Co. Council.

The signs; one positioned outside of the Ulster Bank building and one more central on Liberty Square, were originally introduced to indicate tourism information, e.g. Lár Na Páirce GAA Museum; Angling; Numerous excellent Sporting facilities, Hotels; B&B’s etc. etc.. Yesterday, January 7th, 2020 same signs displayed ‘Theatre Posters’; programmes dating back to last year, 2019, and a poster by Thurles Chamber, dated prior to March 29th, 2019, latter calling for a Public Rally & Protest March to stop a business from moving their premises in Liberty Square, just 500 meters, to the more profitable area of Thurles Shopping Centre.

Many Thurles people have remarked on the divisions being driven between Liberty Square and Thurles Shopping Centre, latter demonstrated by the failure to provide public Christmas lighting, which should have joined both business communities for the benifit of all. After all, is Christmas not the time to display that kind of love which is devoid of hostility and ill will.

Management at ‘The Source’ Theatre; officials within Thurles Chamber and elected Municipal councillors, should and must now immediately remedy these issues, explaining the reason for their lethargic and lacklustre attitude currently being played out on the ratepaying business people of Thurles.

13,941 Patients Without A Bed At UHL In 2019

Some 118,367 patients found themselves without a hospital bed in 2019, according to an end-of-year analysis supplied by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO). Of those affected patients, some 1,300 were children under the age of 16 years.

The figures clearly demonstrate that in 2019 we saw a rise of some 9% above similar figures produced in 2018, making it the worst-ever year for hospital overcrowding, since records initially began.

The worst month for overcrowding, during 2019, was November with 12,055 without a hospital bed. Figures for the months of October and September remained nothing to write home about either, with same analysis showing 11,452 and 10,641 patients, respectively, experiencing similar difficulties.

To the shame of our elected representatives here in Co. Tipperary, the worst-hit hospital in the state, in 2019, was University Hospital Limerick, with 13,941 patients left waiting, latter serving the residents of North Tipperary. Same hospital is situated some 79 kilometres (49 miles) from Thurles, via the M7, or some 1 hour & 10 minutes driving time, subject to traffic density.

South Tipperary General Hospital, serving the south of the county, had 6,942 patients in 2019 without a hospital bed.

The INMO end-of-year analysis conclude that under-staffing and the lack of bed capacity remain the key drivers when it comes to overcrowding. They point out that 411 fewer in-patient beds exist here in Ireland’s hospitals today, than existed a decade ago, despite our emerging larger and older population.

St. Pat’s Graveyard Gates Returned, Beautifully Restored

Here in Thurles, Co. Tipperary, our St. Patrick’s graveyard gates have been returned, fully restored for Christmas 2019.

Over the past number of days, the five entry gates to the cemetery have now been hung back on their respective pillars. Congratulations to those who undertook this physical work; demonstrating true ability and craftsmanship, through their skilled restoration.

**Fifty-Eight Years Without A Coat Of Paint.**

The issue of the state of these gates was first raised here on Thurles.Info on July 9th, 2018. [Click Here]. The matter was totally ignored for 12 months, despite Tipperary Politicians, Cabinet Ministers and Municipal District Councillors, of all political affiliations, passing through these graveyard portals, several times per week in some cases; in their efforts no doubt to ingratiate and influence their particular political groupings, with the family members of deceased persons being interred.

We realised in April 2019 that local elections were imminent and the double jobbing, Municipal District Councillors, would once again appear on radar, each applying for that attractive little extra bonus of €20,000 per annum, before vanishing yet again into the woodwork, emerging every Monday to spew the party line on TippFm radio.

So, on April 28th, 2019 (almost one year later) we again raised this graveyard gates issue, using the heading “Suitable Doorstep Discourse For Campaigning Thurles Councillors”. (Viewed by some 2,508 silent readers, the composed article also contained video, shown hereunder.)

This latter article [View Here] also laid bare the designated misnomer that Tipperary County Council; under the leadership of Mr Joe MacGrath (Chief Executive), and through its ‘Community and Economic Development Statement’, continued to maintain the widely held false belief that Tipp. Co. Council continually strives to provide a place where its people can enjoy a ‘great quality of life’, ‘Fairness’, ‘Co-Operation’, ‘Communication’, ‘Teamwork’, ‘Partnership’ and ‘Collaboration’.

Three months after the May 2019 local elections; in early August of 2019, the gates were removed for restoration, no doubt by order of red faced officials of Tipperary Co. Council, who charge €90.00 for planning permission to erect your own headstone.

Had even one of our double jobbing, €20,000 extra salaried, disinterested, Municipal District Councillors, or their officials, taken the slightest notice of this project back then last August; a power-hose would have been summoned within the last 4.5 months, to undertake the descaling of the grimy walls. [Watch the slideshow again and weep.]

But not so; this week the gates have now been hung on dirty pillars, attached to walls, solidly engrained by half a century of black mire and moss.
A stagnant 10 years of dead moss and leaf mold, sheltered from the wind piles up on the ground outside the main entrance.
Giant pot holes and muck; same demanding visitors to wear wellingtons, still exists; the holes permanently full of water.
The continuous dumping of weeds, excess gravel, dead flowers and wreaths goes on, without any reduction in intensity; same clearly visible, particularly on the east side.
The unsupported banks of clay remain to erode unto the pathway.
The ivy, with an added two more seasons of growth, further hangs over the exterior graveyard wall, forcing pedestrians, unnecessarily, to walk out, unto a narrow, unlit and dangerous roadway.
We won’t discuss the new carpark and the money wasted. To publically discuss how taxpayers money was spent afterall, outside of Co. Council meetings, could be seen as rather trivial and banal; and should not be overheard by the ears of the great unwashed or the less desireable RTE’s “Prime Time”.

We have listened to councillors “calling” for a Sensory Garden for Thurles in recent months. Thurles already has two Sensory Gardens, [See Here and also Here], we also have a graveyard that is ignored and is a public disgrace, demonstrating utter disrespect to those currently interred.

But worst of all, our community residents have now given up on the idea that they can in some way influence change; hence, for now at least, their continued deep and deathly silence remains deafening.

Danger: Water Abstractions Bill Affecting Tipperary Brought To Cabinet

**Part of Tipperary’s Lough Derg shore line.**

The present Fine Gael Cabinet has approved new legislation that should allow for the development of a controversial aqua pipeline that hopes to extract water from the River Shannon to feed Dublin’s continuously leaking water pipes.

Minister supposedly in charge of Housing, Planning and Local Government, Mr Eoghan Murphy yesterday, Tuesday December 17th, conveyed a memo to Cabinet, proposing the drafting of a Water Environment (Abstractions) Bill. This Bill would allow for the licensing of large-scale water abstractions, within the Irish State.

However, the real aim of this Bill is to allow by law for a massive, controversial €1.3 billion Shannon pipeline to proceed. Backed by Irish Water, this project, proposes to use water from the River Shannon to supply water to Dublin.

First mooted in 2011, the scheme was estimated at €470m. In 2014, three years later, estimates for cost were €500m. The project today, just a five years later; and reminiscent of the National Children’s Hospital Project, same is now estimated at costing taxpayers €1.3 billion and rising; all for the benefit of Urban Dublin.

The project has been already fiercely opposed by Tipperary landowners, latter the owners of property along the proposed route. Same argue that its impact will be detrimental to the Lower Shannon region. They further argue that the 40% to 50% of leaking pipes first introduced under British rule in Victorian times within the Dublin region, if repaired, would fully negate any need to abstract water supplies from Ireland’s 224-mile-long river, named after ‘Sionna’, a Celtic goddess.

For readers unaware of this aqua pipeline project; same proposes to extract some 330 to 350 million litres of water from the Shannon river, piped through a 170km pipeline, from Lough Derg’s Parteen Basin in Co. Tipperary, across Ireland to Dublin city, overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), latter who recently declared that there are now just 20 pristine river sites within the Republic of Ireland; same down from over 500 such sites in the late 1980’s.

Today 106 People Wait For A Bed In Tipperary Hospitals

Some 614 patients are being treated on trolleys at hospitals across the 26 counties of Ireland this morning, all waiting for beds to become available.

Some 433 patients are waiting in emergency department, while 181 other patients are in wards, spread elsewhere in affected hospitals.

As usual, University Hospital Limerick, serving north Tipperary, whose staff remain under intolerable pressure; are once again the worst affected with 74 people awaiting beds. Clonmel General Hospital, latter serving the needs of South Tipperary, have 32 patients on trolley’s awaiting beds, according to figures supplied by INMO Trolly Watch.

In all, over 17.26 % of all patients nationally, who are without a bed this morning, are to be found located, waiting in hospitals supposedly serving the people of Tipperary.