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Bright New Horizon for Thurles.
Independent T.D. Deputy Michael Lowry has confirmed that the Lidl group architects Clarman, have completed extensive pre planning consultations with Tipperary County council and have lodged a formal planning application.
As most people are aware Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG is a German global discount supermarket chain, based in Neckarsulm, Germany, that operates over 10,000 stores across Europe and the United States.
This application also includes planning for the construction of 60,000 Sq. Ft. of modern business accommodation. This will be marketed as “Thurles Business Innovation Centre”.
The accommodation will be finished to a very high specification and will be enabled for fibre broadband connectivity. The campus will have the capability to act as a regional hub for technology and research. There is a very strong demand for such facilities at present, given the lack of suitable accommodation at competitive rates.
The planning application will include the demolition and removal of all existing buildings along with the clearance of the entire 8.5 acre site. Lidl will construct a modern new store of approximately 22,000 sq. ft, with associated car parking to be serviced by means of a new entrance.
This project will comprise 3 phases:
Phase 1 :- The demolition of the existing buildings and full site clearance. This in itself is a very substantial contract requiring specialist contractors. It involves the removal of huge quantities of asbestos. This is a hazardous waste. There are stringent regulations governing its removal and disposal. I have been assured by Lidl that this sensitive material will be handled in full compliance with International standards.
Phase 2 :- The construction of a new site entrance. The site will be accessed by means of a proposed new roadway which will form the initial phase of the inner relief road for Thurles, linking Slievenamon Road to the Mill Road. Also to be included as part of the development works, are significant improvements to the River walkway at the rear of the site.
Phase 3 :- The construction of the new state of the art retail store and 60,000 sq. ft. business centre. The Lidl decision to locate a new store on the old Erin Foods site has enabled the entire site to be redeveloped. The very substantial investment by Lidl in their new store including infrastructure such as roadways, car parking, water, waste water, power supply and high end IT capability has made the remainder of the site extremely attractive to Castletown Capital. The entire project creates an exciting opportunity to revitalise a prime site which has been dormant for many years. It will generate significant job opportunities and revitalise the local Thurles economy.
The project will take 2 years to complete after planning is granted. Both Lidl and Castletown Capital have committed, where possible, to use local materials and trade suppliers.
Announcing the project, Deputy Lowry stated, “This is fantastic news for Thurles. Like every rural town it has struggled to recover from the recession. This project, with an investment of €24 Million, will give Thurles a new lease of life and reinvigorate the economy. This exciting project together with the €6.5 Million set aside for the re-development of the Town Centre, will have a transformative effect. Thankfully, after many dark days, there is the prospect of a bright new horizon”.
Following representations by Tipperary Independent T.D. Mr Michael Lowry with Minister for Rural and Community Development T.D. Mr Michael Ring, Mr Lowry is pleased to confirm that The Millennium Family Resource Centre, Glengoole, Thurles, Co. Tipperary, will now receive funding of €32,875 from the Dormant Accounts Fund.
 In personal correspondence sent to Deputy Lowry and today viewed by Thurles.Info; Minister Ring states:
Greetings Michael,
Further to your representations, I wish to inform you that I will shortly announce the allocation of €2 million in funding from the Dormant Accounts Fund, to 52 social enterprise projects across the country. The allocations are contained in the attached document. I can confirm that “The Millennium Family Resource Centre Company”, at Glengoole, Thurles, Co. Tipperary will receive €32,875, for the purchase of an Opel Astra van, a commercial washing machine and dryer, an air conditioning unit and two hot box containers, latter for the transporting of food.
I also wish to confirm that my Department is at an advanced stage in finalising Ireland’s first National Social Enterprise Policy. I expect to publish a draft of the policy shortly for public consultation, and to publish the final policy early in 2019.
The Social Enterprise Measure of the Dormant Accounts Fund Action Plan is overseen by the Department of Rural and Community Development and administered by Pobal.
Kind regards,
[Officially Signed: Michael Ring, (An Roinn Forbartha Tuaithe agus Pobail)]
In a short statement by Deputy Lowry, he confirmed that the main aim of such funding is to increase the impact of social enterprise, by further enhancing the capacity to deliver services and where possible generate trade income, through the provision of small capital grants.
“This allocation, I am happy to state, follows on from numerous representations made by me, since July last.
Social enterprise operates in a similar fashion to businesses, selling goods or services to individuals, private businesses and the public sector. However, social enterprises are set up to also deliver or contribute towards a social, community or environmental goal and any surpluses which emerge from the activities of social enterprise, are reinvested back into its goal”, Deputy Lowry stated.
Dáil Éireann operates today, following exactly in the ancient footsteps of the days when Irish politics was merely the hobby of the English landed gentry class; all who had time on their hands, and sat in parliament only at convenient times which suited its membership.
Today, as in the more recent past, in line with most others of our workforce, Dáil Éireann should be sitting five days a week from Monday to Friday, to accommodate these full-time politicians. Instead it sits only part-time, with its elected membership excessively paid, well over the rate applicable to the vast majority of all other full-time employees.
From sources close to the government, we learn that Fine Gael have agreed with their Fianna Fáil supporters, that there should be no ‘Live Crib’ in Dáil Éireann this Christmas Season 2018. [Well, to be honest, after their most recent referendum success what parent would trust them with a baby].
On top of all that; we understand from leaks from behind the scenes, that while asses and sheep were everywhere in abundance, not one wise man and not one virgin, could be located anywhere.
Take a look at the allocated holiday schedule 2018 /2019
By the time our elected employees return to Dáil Éireann, (yes, lest we forget, our elected politicians are employees of you the taxpayer), for every other State employee, Christmas 2018 will have been a distant memory, with the pine needles and the withered holly and ivy already disposed of, some 8 days prior to the date they, our politicians, commence their next stint of three-day weeks.
Therefore, to place things in proper perspective, the average five-day week operative will have his/her thoughts focused on that ‘cocks’ stride’ in improved day lights, while our TDs will still remain celebrating Christmas right up to January 15th, 2019.
Then there is that St. Patrick’s Day break 2019, when politicians finish up their two-day week on March 14th for a twelve-day disruption. In keeping with the criterion set by St. Patrick and further obeying the instructions of Jesus Christ as stated in St. Matthews Gospel, (Chapter 28, verses 16-20); senior and junior ministers head abroad, becoming missionaries, to, “Go (ye) into all the world, to preach the gospel to every creature”.
Then cometh the Easter holidays four weeks later, starting April 19th to May 8th, followed by an eleven-day break, beginning 31st May until 10th June.
Latter break of course gives time to plan the Summer holidays, beginning on July 12th, until the middle of September 2019.
And you were wondering why Mary Newman Julian [Fine Gael] (#MaryForTipperary); Sandra Farrell [Fianna Fáil] and Garret Ahearn [Fine Gael], were using their worker bees to push election pamphlets through Thurles letterboxes.
To be honest folks apart from the €94,535 paid to TD’s; the €94,535 plus an additional salaried allowance of €104,601 to our Taoiseach; and the €94,535 plus an additional salaried allowance of €89,211 to our Tánaiste; sure wouldn’t the paid holidays alone be enough to tempt anyone to go for the job.
Amateurish and naïve newly proposed Fine Gael Candidates are unlikely to claw back seats in Co. Tipperary come next election, despite being photographed standing beside An Taoiseach Mr Leo Varadkar.
Have you read their election pamphlets? In recent weeks, in fact three newly appointed party faithful have been suggesting to us that, come the next General Election they should be granted a substantial salary; expenses and eventually that much sought after and coveted State Pension. Names like Mary Newman Julian [Fine Gael] (#MaryForTipperary); Sandra Farrell [Fianna Fáil] and Garret Ahearn [Fine Gael], are using their worker bees to push their election pamphlets through our letterboxes.
Personally, I appear to live in the darkest of nebulae, when it comes to recognising even just one tiny achievement that has been accomplished by any one of the above named in the past. All of the election pamphlets contain the same ‘Cacamas’ (crap), ‘Truflais’ (garbage), agus ‘Raiméis’ (rubbish), e.g. worthless promises regarding Infrastructure, Agriculture, Education, Broadband, Banks, Rural Affairs, Housing, Pensions, Equality, Crime, etc. etc. etc.
The people who are being targeted by this ‘Cacamas’ are fully aware that the only one person who ever entered parliament with ‘honest intent’ in the last 413 years was an English Catholic by the name of Guy Fawkes, latter as you know, who had planned to blow up the English House of Lords, (The Gunpowder Plot of 1605).
In all of the ‘Cacamas’ (crap) printed on these election pamphlets, the words “Tourism” and “Thurles Ring Road”, remain absent from the conversation. All competing with Christmastime election pamphlets have failed to give credence or ‘call for’ both of these issues to be addressed.
We will just discuss the Thurles Ring Road: The 12th century narrow streets of Thurles were never designed to carry 21st century, 18-wheeler, freight carrying trucks.
If you view the two pictures above you can see in picture (1), not for the first time, the destruction by large vehicles attempting to corner our junctions, while staying in their own lanes. Two people at least in recent years have both lost their lives as a direct result of our narrow streets.
At the Junction of Clongour Road and Slievenamon Road, Tipperary Co. Council Engineers, have reduced the turning space available (On both Sides) by two meters, in recent months, [See picture (2)]. Obviously constructed with health and safety in mind, of course the opposite is the truth, as large vehicles attempt to stay in one lane are forced to regularly mount the kerb in order to do so. The now green muddied area shown on right in picture No.2, was once a cycle lane, introduced by Labour Party TD Mr Alan Kelly, days prior to the last election. Since introduced, same, due to a lack of space, have and continue to remain a necessary parking area for local residents. More wasted money.
A podcast on Radio TippFM by Tipperary Co. Council’s District Director Mr Matt Shortt claimed that his Council could not afford a miserable, one off three days of free parking for Thurles, to aid retailers in the town’s centre. Yet we can afford this type of unnecessary dangerous road reconstruction. [No Mr Shortt, I won’t mention six fully detached houses, built by Tipperary Co. Council, at a cost of €300,000 each, (Total 1.8million), which currently have been left unoccupied for at least the past six months. I won’t even mention the “Mexican Border Wall” built on that 8ft expanse of mesquite and barrel cacti growing area, better known as Moyne Road, Thurles, in an effort to stop illegal migrant residents from getting to their local shop. I will also refrain from mentioning the binding contract that now sees the Thurles public toilet (Superloo in Thurles Park) costing Tipperary Co. Council €56 per each visiting person wishing to void faeces (Cacamas) from their bowels.]
Engineers responsible should now be made to drive an 18-wheeler over this road course, in an effort to fully understand the difficulties being experienced by truck drivers, each attempting to manoeuvre around on a 12th century road-scape.
Time now for all Pretenders to Dáil Éireann each wishing to be granted that substantial salary and expenses and more importantly that eventual and much coveted State Pension, to rewrite their Election Cacamas and ‘call’ for what Thurles needs, rather than continuing to indulge themselves in meaningless, mind wandering, personal reveries.
A group of some 50 General Practitioners (GP’s) walked out of an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM), held by the Irish College of General Practitioners today, each furious that their voices have not been heard, prior to the introduction of abortion services, latter due to be introduced in January of next year. Some 300 doctors were in attendance at the EGM. The group, understood to be largely made-up of anti-abortion doctors, had wanted to vote on a series of motions, but were refused that right.
 (1) An existing fragment of the Hippocratic Oath & (2) Bust drawing of Hippocrates. As our readers are aware, a General Practitioner led abortion service is expected to be introduced from January 2019, funded by taxpayers, once the legislation is passed in Dáil Éireann.
From January next, patients are most certainly going to be asking their current GP whether or not they support and participate in a General Practitioner led abortion service. Those, like myself, who condemn the introduction of abortion, will most certainly be requesting their medical records and moving on to an anti-abortion GP. County Councillors, Politicians and their respective Political Parties who were known to support the removal of the 8th Amendment from our Constitution, can also expect to see a reduction in their Dáil membership.
Doctors and the Hippocratic Oath.
To be honest I remain unsure of just how many doctors take the Hippocratic Oath in the Ireland of the 21st century.
Hippocrates of Kos (c. 460 – c. 370 BC), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician and considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is often referred to as the “Father of Medicine”, and a physician of experience and common sense, when recognised for his founding of the Hippocratic School of Medicine. This intellectual school revolutionized medicine in ancient Greece, establishing it as a discipline distinct from other occupations, with which it had traditionally been associated, thus establishing medicine as a profession. By ‘profession’ I mean an occupation or career that demands specialized educational training, unlike Dáil Éireann type politics.
Very little is known about Hippocrates, but he is portrayed as being a paragon of the ancient physician, and credited with having coined the Hippocratic Oath, which is still relevant and in use today. Some 60 medical documents associated with his name, including the famous Hippocratic oath, have survived to this day. The Hippocratic oath, is an ancient code of ethics for doctors, which states:- “I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God“.
Alas, in current times this oath is valued as more of a historic example of medical ethics and principles, rather than one to be taken completely literally.
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