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 Leaking Victorian Water Pipes The lack of public information & indeed public debate regarding the Thurles Regional Water Supply Scheme paid for by tax payers & the future proposed construction of a local Water Treatment Plant, both estimated at €26 million, prompts Proinsías Barrett to ask some pertinent questions.
Proinsías writes: “It is good to see that Thurles and environs are to receive a modern water system, but I have some reservations about the motives and procedures involved.
It is only now that the Troika and IMF are in town that emphasis has been suddenly placed on water charges and centralised provision, allowing easier ‘management’ and thus easier systems of charging.
I am not completely against water metering because as I have said before, it has proven to be a disincentive to waste and the ridiculous practice of leaving a tap running during cold spells to prevent the pipes from freezing, instead of insulating pipes properly. However with the financial problems in the nation, a reasonable charge is acceptable, provided our water is crystal clean and the infrastructure remains in the public domain.
However so far indications would suggest that these conditions may not be realised.
The €10 million initial cost is obviously coming from the national coffers (Tax payers), but it seems it is impossible for tax payers and citizens (Who just may be interested.) to have any input into or to ask any questions about these projects. I know the majority of the public are possibly not concerned or care little regarding the technicalities of water provision, but some are and all are entitled to know what is planned with their money.
I visited Croatia last year for a month and travelling around its various towns and cities, I was very impressed at the cleanliness of the country and the abundant fresh tasting clean water, which all the tourist publications insisted, was absolutely safe to drink from any tap anywhere in the country, and this is a country with a Mediterranean climate and scorching summers with little rainfall.
I was puzzled. I only purchased one litre of bottled water during that month travelling, and re-filled it as I went.
Continue reading Chemical Fluoride & Our New Thurles Water Treatment Plant
 Machined Turf Cutting When I was young and restless, my mind was ill at ease,
Through dreaming of America and the gold beyond the seas.
Oh, sorrow take their money,`tis hard to find the same,
And what´s the world to any man if no one speaks his name.
I´ve had my day and here I am, a building bricks per load.
A long three thousand miles away, from the Old Bog Road.
Proinsías Barrett reminisces, taking us on a ramble down the old bog roads of Tipperary, yesterday and today.
Jimmy Deenihan buckled under the influence of the IFA, and rightly so, many might say. It is unfortunate however that the scores of other citizen reaction groups do not have the same access to an organisation as ‘influential’ as the IFA to rally to their myriad of causes.
We have all read the debates in the ‘Nationals,’ concerning turf cutting, not just as a relatively cheap fuel or source of modest income for owners of ‘bad land,’ but the debate also included submissions on the grounds that the practice of turf cutting was a social and cultural feature of rural, small town and village tradition.
I remember from my own teenage years in the 1980’s being rounded up for the day in the bog, turning, footing and heaping sods. Plots were laid out and us ‘townies,’ arriving en-masse, disembarking from Ford Cortina’s, Volkswagon Jetta’s and Datsun Sunny’s wearing their ‘bog-duds,’ (work clothes) and the women in pink and yellow marigold gloves, stooped over working a seemingly endless row of freshly cut, water sodden turf. There was a strange language associated with bog work, unique even and which only referred to the task at hand. Expressions like:- ‘There’s great dryin in it today,’ ‘She’ll have to be turned twice before you can foot her,‘ or ‘The bog would put a fierce hunger on you,‘ ‘By God there’s a breeze in the bog today and t’would skin you….‘
There was politics too, a sort of ‘bog-etiquette,‘ or ‘bog sense.‘ No-one wanted to be ‘The disgrace of the bog‘, your work and progress would be routinely (often covertly) inspected by other bog men/women under the guise of coming over to have a chat, with the introduction of ‘God bless the work,’ and if you weren’t following the un-written turf saving procedure, you might end up being the ‘Talk of the bog,’ as ‘That turf is washed away into the ground‘ or ‘If he doesn’t get that into foots soon it’ll be useless,‘ or ‘Be jaesus his heaps are awful lookin,’ ‘Who’s plot is that?… Ryan winkle a Galboola’s…. and the grass growin up through it.’ The term ‘bog standard,’ had a completely different meaning, once you entered the realm of the bog men, and once you had proved you ability to foot and save with the best of them, you might hear ‘By God that’s great lookin turf Frank, good black turf, she’ll burn well.’
Continue reading Turf Cutting In A Fast Changing Environment
 Thurles.info was created to provide a community news, discussion and information portal for the people of Thurles and indeed the County of Tipperary as a whole.
Currently this successful website is viewed by up to 1,100 visitors and growing each day. Close to 400,000 visitors world wide, will have scrolled through it’s pages in just the past 3 years alone.
Most welcome are the daily contributions from our readers, many of whom comment on our daily blogs or advise us regarding countywide events, happening in their area.
Persons wishing to use this site, be it to advertise their business or to make their feelings known on important issues, should contact us by using the “Contact Us” Tag on top of our Home Page.
Meanwhile back to today’s business.
This morning I received an interesting letter from Joan Pollard Carew, who because of her positive community action in Thurles and it’s environs, down through the years, and particularly her association and promotion of the Arts, hardly needs an introduction from me.
However, may I also state that the sentiments expressed in Joan’s letter, which I for one fully support, must also reflect the thoughts and views of many business people experiencing trading difficulties in Thurles at this time. Please read on.
[To Thurles.Info: I would be happy for you to publish this on your website – Joan Pollard Carew.]
“The Tipperary Star newspaper, dated Thursday 8th September, ran a featured article on its front page, advising readers that yet another shopping centre was being proposed for Thurles. Development of our town is close to my heart but not at the expense of our town centre.
This new facility will have 397 car parking spaces, no doubt free for customers to this centre. Surely this begs the question of our shoppers, “Why would we shop in the town centre and pay for limited parking, when we can do so for free?” Traders in the town centre need to immediately form a “Traders Association,” to have a representative body arrange an urgent meeting with Thurles Town Council.
As a trader and rate payer in the town centre, it is imperative that we lobby for free parking for our customers. This would enable us to compete on a level playing field and give shoppers a fairer choice.
When parking charges was introduced we were told that the money earned was to be utilised for traffic management. I wish someone could point out that project to me. Apart from unnecessary traffic lights, there is no visible traffic management that I can see.
Most retail businesses in our town centre are family run and employ local people. Most of these shops are in business for decades and in some cases are being operated by second and third generation family members. It would be a very sad day to witness the demise of these family run businesses, at a time when we should be encouraging people to cherish the old Thurles.
Regarding local employment for this new shopping centre, I would like to believe that locals would be employed, but anyone with any knowledge of such undertakings in Thurles, can contest that statement.
Will our town centre be like the historic market house that once existed on Liberty Square, removed because someone in Thurles planning thought it was an eyesore?
Yes folks history is often repeated but sadly no lessons are learned.” Letter Ends.
With the recent resignation of the Thurles Marketing Group and the inactivity of other elected representative groups within the town, do you have any thoughts on this matter? Why not contact us with your views?
Your future livelihood appears to be about to be decided by others, whose ability is far from proven.
The monetary long term value of a proposed cycle lane, to be developed as a joint project between Limerick County Council and North Tipperary County Council, along the old R445, and due to start in early October (To finish by the end of the year,) must surely and immediately be called into question by those still sane in our community.
 Dublin's rough surface cycle paths crying out for maintenance This proposed planned route will run from the Stereame Roundabout on the R445 via the Carrigatoher Junction in Birdhill, through to the Carrowkeel Junction on the east side of Limerick city and from there to the Annacotty Roundabout, immediately west of the Mulcair River.
The funding for this proposed project has been secured as part of a €4million Department of Transport plan, to create cycle lanes on our national potholed roads, and has been much criticised, even by cyclists as “Poor use of public money.”
Firstly, it seems that no past lessons have been learned by our present government and the nonsense rule of ‘Use money or lose it,’ still remains and continues to dominate the wise decision making process. Under this rule of ‘Using money or losing it,’ as is the case with this project, the usual decision is always use it, regardless of the fact that it makes no sound productive or financial sense.
Many travel groups have suggested that this money could be better spent on more worthwhile projects such as road realignments, potholes, removal of present traffic hazards or on the forgotten town pedestrian footpaths, the latter which presently cry out for repairs here in Thurles.
Many also see this €4million Department of Transport plan, recently hailed by Minister for State, Mr Alan Kelly, as the answer to unemployment in North Tipperary, as being nothing more than a ‘Lets be seen to create jobs scheme,’ that simply ignores the cyclists’ real needs for a safer interaction between motorised vehicles and bicycle riders on our public roads. While this project will create some work for those already employed, it’s benefit to the presently unemployed will be minuscule if any and certainly short lived.
Yes, cycling numbers in Dublin have increased, but are still a long way short of the previous Government’s dream targets, foreseeing 10% of trips to work by bike, being undertaken by the year 2020. Soon, more of the public purse will be spent in the Dublin area, on increased bike parking, segregated cycle lanes, lowering speed limits for motorised traffic and mandatory laws introduced, forcing employers to provide better facilities for cyclists with the introduction of showers and lockers in the work place. It is not unreasonable to foresee a road tax on bicycles now being introduced, after all who would have foreseen a tax on one of mankind’s basic human rights, I refer of course to the limed, chlorinated, Escherichia Coli ridden infected water, currently pumped to many householders in the land.
Continue reading Tipperary Cycle Lane Waste Of Taxpayers Money
 Our recent post on Illegal Dumping and Weee collection here in Thurles, forces Thurles native Proinsias Barrett to put ‘pen to paper ‘ or should I say, in his case, ‘fingers to keyboard.’
More is the pity that others of our discerning readers do not follow suit, (Hint, Hint ) and express their views, remembering the quote by Irish political philosopher Edmund Burke “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
(Note: Leave a Comment tag is directly under each daily Post and we do really love hearing your views.)
Proinsias Comments:
“Where do we recycle unwanted politicians, or indeed unsuccessful former City Council Managers?
In Ireland Seanad Éireann is a good hiding place for rubbish politicians. They can keep their heads down and draw a good salary, or as recently mentioned in a national press article, they can decide to slip away to spend more time with their outrageously generous pensions…. and reminisce on all those great deeds they performed for the sake of Ireland. City Council Managers who presided over numerous fiasco’s simply find a gullible County Council to take them on as ‘County Managers‘, it’s great!
I see Thurles now has a third recycling bin added lately, a brown bin for food waste and garden clippings, grass etc. We got the full three bin system here in Galway City back in 2000/2001 and in general we are told is working out well enough. But where is this ‘fly-tipping ‘ (illegal dumping) epidemic emanating from? Obviously there are people who don’t subscribed to any collection service and these facts are well known by Councils. If a household is not signed up to a collection service then what are they doing with their rubbish?
The simple remedy for this situation is to ensure that everyone is subscribing to a collection service, and if they are not then it is up to the Council to find out why? If it is for financial reasons, then some arrangement has to be made with these ‘go-it-alones‘ until such time as the three bin system evolves and recycling achieves an 80% re-use rate and charges are substantially dropped for the household. Recycling will have to become just another routine in everyone’s life.
But I have always disagreed with the flat charge for household waste collection. From the first introduction of the wheelie bin system here in Galway a decade ago, I submitted my ideas to the City Council (for all the interest they showed) when the public was invited to submit ideas relating to waste management etc. If households are properly separating their refuse, with intent, into the corresponding bins, the only charge on the household should be on the land fill bin, the one which contains items which cannot be recycled.
I went so far as to suggest that if households comply completely with recycling directives and recommendations, they should be paid for the raw materials they are giving the collection companies every week for free.
The Recycling industry is obviously a financially viable one, else no-one would be in the business. Why charge for what is essentially a raw material being collected and re-used (paper, cardboard, plastic, tin etc)
Again it’s a case of just not following through on introduced legislation. People are left to their own devices as usual. There are no inspectors (yep, bin inspectors, we had them in Galway for about two months when the bins were first introduced, then removed due to a lack of funding). Still almost twelve years on from the recycling initiative in Galway many apartment complexes are still operating a communal skip system … just throw in your black plastic sack full of everything and off it goes to land fill, and the Council aren’t interested. Some apartment dwellers share a three bin system with their neighbours resulting in one apartment making huge efforts to recycle everything and their neighbour dumping black sacks of mixed refuse into which ever bin appears least used.
Without a common sense approach backed up by information, encouragement and finally enforcement, our recycling system here in Ireland is becoming another half hearted attempt, handed over to private operators, and now there is a multinational demanding that an incinerator be opened at Poolbeg in Dublin which will require massive tonnage to ensure viability, this is a complete reversal of recycling initiatives…. one hand doesn’t seem to know what the other is doing! Oh Man! “
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