|
|
As one eye said to the other, “Don’t look now but something between us smells.”
Graffiti, it’s everywhere in Thurles; on every Street; on the Doors and Walls of trading business premises; on Electrical and Telephone interconnecting thingamajig metal casings; Car Parks, River Suir Walkway walls, Signposts, the new Source Theatre and yes we know who is responsible, armed nightly with ladders, it’s ‘The Fairies’.
Down in Co. Kerry that celebrated and wise old Teachta Dála (TD) Mr Danny Healy-Rae spotted it first, claiming ‘The Little People’ or the fairies were interfering with roads.
He claimed fairy mounds (or ‘Liosanna’) were impeded by the National Roads Authority in the area of the main Killarney to Cork traffic route, resulting in a surface dip mysteriously re-appearing on a regular basis. Those living abroad may not be aware that Fairy forts and prehistoric Tumuli (ancient burial mounds) were seen by previous generations of Irish people as the entrances to the fairy world. Even the cutting of a ‘Sceach-thorn’ bush (Whitethorn) on fairy mounds was punishable by these “Good People”, resulting often in the death of all who performed such acts.
When Graffiti first appeared in Thurles, many of our residents believed that Banksy, the anonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and film director of unconfirmed identity, had come amongst us to reside. Local Banksy experts within Tipperary Co.Co., however, quickly confirmed that this doodling was not his work; claiming instead that this was the mere scrawling of some 6 of our 2,569 Thurles town unemployed persons, armed with ladders, lending further credence to the well known phrase, “the devil finds work for idle hands”.
However a ‘leaked document’, recently seen by this website and emanating from a prominent Tipperary Councillor, rejects this belief, claiming that this graffiti is the work of ‘migrant fairies’; foreign nationalists if you will; latter forced to flee across the border from persecution in Co. Kerry.
This Councillor in his statement, claims that proof; (as if further proof was needed), is that these fairies are totally invisible, with the Thurles closed-circuit television (CCTV), (which cost one hundred thousand Euro to install just 3 years previously), now unable to visually capture the images of these fairies at work, due to night fog.
This leaked document also states that despite efforts by Tipperary Co. Co. to attract employment to Thurles, through the Industrial Development Authority (IDA), alas no site visits by the latter have as yet materialised. This we understand is not due to the lack of broadband speed, nor the fact that Tipperary hospital patients are the worst affected by overcrowding, in the country and most likely to die in an ambulance.
Keep it to yourselves but the remarks reported by one senior official in the IDA and quoted in this leaked document, states; “The town of Thurles looks like shit, and those on paid salaries and tasked with the job of upgrading its profile, are believed to be either dead or in deep slumber”.
To those politically motivated individuals who will send me emails in the coming days, claiming that I am showing Thurles in a poor light; I say get out of your SUV (Sport Utility Vehicle), your BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, Audi, Ferrai or Porsche; come, take a walk on the wild-side.
 The heated exchanges experienced by Tipperary Co. Council last week, were replicated in Dublin last night; as Dublin City Councillors (unlike Tipperary), voted 42-11 against a hike in their Local Property Tax, (LPT).
Their LPT had been reduced by a maximum of 15% since it was first introduced, but Dublin Council Management here once again, had recommended cutting that reduction to 10%, to generate extra revenue.
Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and People Before Profit all voted against any further increase, while the Labour Party and the Green Party voted in favour, latter using the argument that keeping the existing state of affairs would mean that services would suffer. (Dublin is a city where despite public transport poverty, few currently bother to buy a ticket to ride Luas (tram/light rail system), because no one bothers to check any more. After all the Red and Green Lines only cost €770m in reality, or three times the original estimate of €254m.)
TD’s “Taking the Piss”
Meanwhile today Government have approved salary increases for politicians, same totalling an estimated €2.2m over a full five-year Dáil tenure. This estimate is said to include more than €1m for the Chairperson’s of Oireachtas committees and €543,000 for TD’s who serve as Party or Assistant Party whips.
Headlines which have included; “Let’s Keep the Recovery Going,” – “Tipperary – The Place – The Time,” – “University Hospital Limerick, Most Overcrowded Hospital In Ireland” (attempting to serve the health needs of residents of North Tipperary on trolleys) – “Resurrecting Ireland’s villages” (a forgotten promise to ensure that our rural towns and villages are not left behind, as a Dublin economy continues to become obese), must surely now be revisited, and if necessary, by a General Election.
The revered Hungarian statesman, humanitarian, political thinker, novelist and poet Baron Jozsef Eotvos (Born 1813), having visited Ireland in 1837, stated that no amount of hard work will ever be enough to pay what the landlord requires in rent. No freedom from debt will ever be attainable. Tenant’s debts keep growing year by year, as does their misery and resentment, and this dance ends with non-payers being evicted and sent out on the roads with his wife and children, with begging left as their only hope of survival. The Irish man, he states, who prospers will ultimately fare as badly as the pauper. As soon as he becomes profitable the landlord will raise his rent, until he ends up sharing a similar fate to the beggar.
No, I am not just simply referring solely to 21st century ‘Homeless People’ or indeed to the payment of taxes. What I am highlighting is the right of individuals to raise taxes without voter consultation and “tarring all citizens with the one brush” without due regard to their income, e.g old age pensioners and those unemployed are not likely to avail of the full benefits from future personal taxation reductions.
Elected members of Tipperary Co. Council have voted to approve a 10% increase in our Local Property Tax levy (LPT), which householders throughout the Premier county will be forced to pay in the fiscal year 2018.
Following two hours of often heated debate, the decision to hike up this controversial tax, was eventually formally passed, after Co. Council Management declared that there would be cuts to local authority services e.g. housing maintenance, roads, arts centres, leisure centres, burial grounds committees, sports clubs and tidy towns, in the year ahead if the proposed increase was not fully endorsed. It would appear that none of the above services for which we are already taxed (motor taxation / rates on business etc); which we purchase (theatre / graves / parking etc); which we pay rent for (Local Authority housing rents); are profitable or run as a profitable business.
Eventually, 22 of our Councillors, mainly from Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, voted in favour of the proposed increase, while 14 councillors including five from Sinn Fein and some Independents opposed the measure. This 10% increase in our Local Property Tax levy is expected to raise a projected €1.1829m revenue for Tipperary Co. Council.
So, in 2018 dwellings valued up to €100,000 will see an approximate increase of €9 in tax, while dwellings valued up to the €150,000 can look forward to some €22.50 of an increase and homes valued at between €150,000 and €200,000 will have an extra €31.50 approx. added to their already existing tax bill.
Fingal County Council on the other hand have broken ranks with other Dublin authorities and imposed a 10% reduction in LPT, thus taking advantage of a rule which allows them to reduce the maximum amount of property tax in their administrative area by 15%.
But don’t worry folks, Mr Leo Varadkar is going to reduce all of our personal taxation in the next Budget, particularly if you get up early in the morning; so one is bound to cancel out the other, if you pay personal income tax.
 Mr Nedal Izddenm gratefully accepts the 2016 Tipperary Peace Award, on behalf of the ‘White Helmets’ at a ceremony in the Great National Ballykisteen Golf Hotel, in Co Tipperary. Tipperary Politicians and County Councillors, this week, failed dismally to raise their dubious profiles, when given an opportunity to voice their support for Chairperson Martin Quinn and his Committees decision to award the prestigious 2016 Tipperary Peace Prize to a most deserving Syrian Civil Defence, (a.k.a. the ‘White Helmets’).
Choosing instead to associate themselves with ventures in which they had no hand, act, or partial involvement, (e.g. €3.15 million allocated for the upgrade of the Stannix Home in Thurles,) as informative public representatives their silence was deafening.
“Whoever is trying to bring you down is already below you”
A protest did take place, mounted by a small number of myopic, mean-minded and begrudging members of Anti Imperialist Action Ireland, the latter who no doubt had individually recently returned from fighting ISIS in Syria, hence their intimate knowledge of Syrian affairs, (or was their decision to protest based on a diet of Facebook and YouTube Russian/Syrian propaganda).
Before a gathering made up of An Garda Síochána, the Defence Forces, the Irish Syria Solidarity Movement and the Irish Refugee Council; Mr Nedal Izddenm gratefully accepted the 2016 award, currently Ireland’s most outstanding international award for humanitarian effort; on behalf of the ‘White Helmets’ at a ceremony at the Great National Ballykisteen Golf Hotel, Limerick Junction, in Co Tipperary.
Thankfully the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and Deputy Leader of Fine Gael, since June 2017, namely Mr Simon Coveney was wide awake and in a press release warmly congratulated the Syrian Civil Defence (a.k.a. the White Helmets) on receiving the Tipperary International Peace Award.
Minister Coveney stated; “The White Helmets are extremely deserving recipients of the Tipperary International Peace Award. These 3,000 volunteers risk their lives every day to rescue their fellow citizens in the most dangerous and challenging of circumstances. They have saved almost 100,000 lives to date. Sadly, many of their members have paid the ultimate price and have themselves fallen victim to the violence from which they have sought to save others. I am very pleased that their heroism and sacrifice have been recognised with this award”.
Minister Coveney continued; “Since 2012, Ireland has contributed €87.5 million to the humanitarian response to the Syria crisis – which is Irish Aid’s largest response to a single crisis in recent years. I urge all sides to work for a political transition, an end to violence, the lifting of all sieges and barriers to humanitarian relief and for accountability for the atrocities and crimes committed against the Syrian people. Ireland fully supports the UN-led Geneva peace process and the work of UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, and remains committed to supporting efforts towards a peaceful resolution to the conflict”.
It is not possibly fully perceived by residents of this State, but ‘surprise’, ‘surprise’ my friends, but any person who parks a car on any roadside,, with a ‘For Sale’ sign plastered across its windows and bearing a mobile phone number with which to contact the seller, can in fact be fined and / or have the offending vehicle impounded.
Such ‘For Sale’ vans, lorry’s and other vehicles parked regularly on our roadsides are seen as a distraction to other passing drivers (under Section 71 of the Roads Act 1993) and Gardaí are in fact duty bound, to seize all such vehicles, under the aforementioned legislation.
Section 71 of the Roads Act 1993 Reads:-
 VW Beetle For Sale !
71.—(1) (a) Any person who, without lawful authority or the consent of a road authority—
(i) erects, places or retains a sign on a public road, or
(ii) erects, places or retains on a public road any caravan, vehicle or other structure or thing (whether on wheels or not) used for the purposes of advertising, the sale of goods, the provision of services or other similar purpose, shall be guilty of an offence.
(b) A consent under paragraph (a) may be given by the road authority subject to such conditions, restrictions or requirements as it thinks fit and any person who fails to comply with such conditions, restrictions or requirements shall be guilty of an offence.
(2) Without prejudice to the liability of any person under subsection (1), where there is a contravention of that subsection in the case of any sign or advertisement, the person on whose behalf the sign or advertisement is exhibited shall be deemed also to have contravened that subsection.
(3) Notwithstanding any other enactment, an authorised person may remove a sign, caravan, vehicle or other structure or thing to which subsection (1) applies.
(4) An authorised person may store, or procure the storage of, a sign, caravan, vehicle or other structure or thing removed by him under subsection (3).
(5) Where the name and address of the owner of a sign, caravan, vehicle or other structure or thing removed and stored under this section can be ascertained by reasonable inquiry, the road authority or the Commissioner shall serve a notice upon the owner informing him of its removal and storage and of the address of the place where it may be claimed and recovered, requiring him to claim and recover it within one month of the date of the service of the notice and informing him of the statutory consequences of his failure to do so.
(6) A sign, caravan, vehicle or other structure or thing removed and stored under this section shall be given to a person claiming it if, but only if, he makes a declaration in writing that he is the owner of the sign, caravan, vehicle or other structure or thing or is authorised by its owner to claim it and, at the discretion of the road authority concerned or the Commissioner, pays the amount of the expenditure reasonably incurred in removing and storing it.
(7) The road authority concerned or the Commissioner may dispose, or procure the disposal, of a sign, caravan, vehicle or other structure or thing removed and stored under this section if—
(a) the owner of the sign, caravan, vehicle or other structure or thing fails to claim it and remove it from the place where it is stored within one month of the date on which a notice under subsection (5) was served on him, or
(b) the name and address of the owner of the sign, caravan, vehicle or other structure or thing cannot be ascertained by reasonable inquiry.
(8) A sign, caravan, vehicle or other structure or thing shall not be disposed of under this section within six weeks of the date of its removal under this section.
(9) In this section – “authorised person” means:-
(a) a person authorised in writing by a road authority for the purposes of this section,
(b) a member of An Garda Síochána.
In this section – “sign” means:-
Any sign, hoarding or other structure used for the purposes of advertising.
(10) This section shall not apply to a sign which relates to a presidential election within the meaning of the Presidential Elections Act, 1937 , a general election or a bye-election, within the meaning, in each case, of the Electoral Act, 1923 , a local election, a referendum, within the meaning of the Referendum Act, 1942 , or an election of members of the European Parliament, unless the sign has been in position for seven days or longer after the latest day upon which the poll was taken for the election, bye-election or referendum concerned.
Now you can see why General Election and other Political Posters are permitted to take precedence over the ‘Health & Safety’ issues affecting already over taxed motorists; with giant posters often placed blocking roundabouts, long before and up to seven days after an election has taken place.
It would appear that “What’s sauce for the goose is not necessarily always sauce for the gander” after all.
|
Support Us Help keep Thurles.info online by donating below. Thank you.
Total Donated 2026: €300.00
Thank You!
Daily Thurles Mass Livestream
|
Recent Comments