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“Hosepipe Ban” – Are they for real??

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
“Hosepipe Ban” – Are they for real??

When I read this, I thought it was a Waterford Whispers News story. (Waterford Whispers News is an Irish satirical news website that usually hits the nail on the head with their brilliant headlines.) The announcement that made me think it is a joke was the announcement by Irish Water on Friday that from Monday 02 July a “hosepipe ban” would be in effect in the Greater Dublin area.

At first I thought it is Irish Water nonsense, but checking into it a bit more I realised that a piece of Irish Law really mentions that the “use of water drawn through a hosepipe” can be prohibited for the use of “watering a garden, watering recreational parks or sports grounds […], irrigating or spraying crops […], or washing a mechanically propelled vehicle or a trailer”.

Water conservation makes sense if there is a shortage and due to the idiotic way public water supplies in Ireland are ONLY served from surface water in lakes and reservoirs (instead of using water from underground sources) we are currently entering a period of water shortage. BUT a “hosepipe ban” just sounds like a ridiculous piece of law.

The ban will be in place for the whole month of July and if someone is found in breach of the ban, they could be fined EUR 125.

But here comes the interesting stuff:

While the wording above is taken from the “Water Services Act 2007”, Irish Water is NOT banning all wasteful water use. Instead they reduce the ban to “watering a garden, cleaning a private motor-vehicle using a domestic hosepipe. […], filling or maintaining a domestic swimming or paddling pool (except when using hand held containers filled directly from a tap), […]” so that means if you use a domestic hosepipe you are not allowed to clean the car, but if it is a commercial hosepipe, you can go ahead without any issues. It also means that your swimming pool must not be filled via hosepipe, but if there is a tap above the swimming pool OR if you get LOTS of big containers and fill it by hand, you are all above the law.

Dublin, Environment, Irish, Odd, , ,

Bloomsday!?!?! What is that?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Bloomsday!?!?! What is that?

You either love it or you don’t care at all about Bloomsday, there seems to be nothing in between. It is a HUGE day for some and others don’t even know what it is about. If you belong to the latter group, let me help you a bit.

Bloomsday is a made up day and nothing of it is based on real events. James Joyce wrote the book Ulysses between 1914 and 1922 and the book describes one day, Thursday 16 June 1904 when Leopold Bloom, a fictional figure in the book, went about his business from 08:00 to the early hours of the next day. This invented day, lived by an invented person became Bloomsday.

You could compare it to McClane Day! Which doesn’t exist!!! But would be the day just before Christmas when we copy all the things that John McClane did in Die Hard. We go to Nakatomi Plaza for a Christmas Party, have a disagreement in the toilet and then spend the rest of the day to fight against Max Gruber and some terrorists/thieves with all sorts of weapons. So if McClane Day makes sense to you, then Bloomsday will also make sense.

The James Joyce fans dress up like characters from the book in clothes that were worn by people around 1904, then they have a breakfast like Leopold Bloom and visit the locations he went to during the day.

Does that help a bit? If not, get a better description here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsday :-)

I think we should plan for McClane Day! We just have about 6 months to prepare for it! :-O

Dublin, Events, ,

200 new Stationless Bikes For Hire

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
200 new Stationless Bikes For Hire

Two companies, BleeperBike and Urbo, got a licence from Dublin City to operate stationless bikes for hire and to compete with Dublin Bikes. This is a big step! And it also a development that has advantages and disadvantages.

One year ago, Dublin City threatened BleeperBike to remove their bikes from Dublin’s streets if they launched as they had planned back then. Now they got the licence and are ready to launch immediately. The bikes are white and are already available in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown. The great thing about the new bikes is that they will allow us to hire bikes in and to areas that are currently not covered by Dublin Bikes (and that might never be reached by Dublin Bikes). The disadvantage the new bike hire schemes might bring is that Dublin Bikes membership will be less attractive for some and therefore the Dublin Bikes charges might go up when less people subscribe.

For users the big difference is that there is no yearly charge, instead you pay from the first minute of usage after you unlock a bike with an app. Dublin Bikes allow you to use the bike for free for the first 30 minutes as often as you like during the year, but you pay a yearly fee. Bleeperbike also have a 3 Month membership and 12 month membership plan that also gives you the first 30 minutes for free if you don’t want to use the Pay as you Go plan, but these membership plans are a lot more expensive than the Dublin Bikes plan and Dublin Bikes could use that as a justification to increase their charges too.

And another important thing to note: “Stationless” doesn’t really mean completely stationless!! You are not allowed to park and lock the car anywhere, instead, the bike has to be locked to a “recognised public cycle parking space” and these spaces are identified in the BleeperBike app.

www.thejournal.ie/dcc-stationless-bikes-4044090-May2018/
www.thejournal.ie/share-bikes-dublin-urbo-bleeperbike-2-4046606-May2018/

Dublin, Dublin City Council, Taoiseach, ,

National Museum at Collins Barracks hikes up Parking Fees

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
National Museum at Collins Barracks hikes up Parking Fees

We have something great in Ireland! All our four National Museums do not charge any admission charge. That’s the National Museum at Collins Barracks, in Kildare Street, in Merrion Street and in Turlough, Co. Mayo. This is a bit of a luxury that not many countries have. Sure, it is not really free because in the end we all pay for it through our taxes, but at least you can go there without paying as often as you want.

Collins Barracks is a huge site with only half of it open as a museum and the other half is storage for a huge amount of additional exhibits. Collins Barracks also has is – as a former barracks – on a huge site that has its own car park.

Until 2013 parking was free there, but due to budget cuts in 2013 it was announced that they would have to charge for parking and the fees were a very moderate
+ EUR 2 for 0-3 hours
+ EUR 4 for all day parking.
That was still a good price and you could go to the museum for up to three hours for a low cost.

But last week on 19 May this substantially changed. The new charges are now
+ EUR 2 for just 1 hour
+ EUR 5 for up to 4 hours
+ EUR 12 for all day

That is a HUGE increase! If you assume maybe 2.5 hours for an extensive visit it will cost you EUR 5 instead of EUR 2 before. That’s 150% of an increase!! :-O

And no! Your taxes didn’t go down!

Dublin, Events, Tourism,

Bad news for us – TD Kevin Moran will remain in his job

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Bad news for us – TD Kevin Moran will remain in his job

Kevin Moran is an Irish politician and TD from Longford-Westmeath. He usually and oddly is referred to as “Kevin “Boxer” Moran” and it seems that the “Boxer” nickname – which he personally seems to love – is based on a story from when he was 8 years of age and punched another child on the football field. twitter.com/SineadHus/status/703728764564467712 It is quite odd that a grown up would use a nickname he got as a child (even worse that it is about punching another child) and with his website constantly referring to him as “Boxer”, you definitely get the impression that this guy is – let’s say “different”! From his website: “Boxer lives in Cornamagh, Athlone, is married to…… Boxer has been a keen angler all his life…” Boxer this and Boxer that! kevinboxermoran.com/about-kevin/

But back to his role in society! He is a politician and once was a Fianna Fail member until 2011, when he left the party NOT in a disagreement over some relevant party principle, but because he was unhappy that his party didn’t want to chose him as a candidate. IN 2016 he got elected to the Dail as an independent candidate and when Fine Gael needed to strike a deal with the Independent Alliance to get into government, Sean Canney and Kevin Moran were offered a shared role as the junior minister for the Office of Public Works (OPW).

As you would expect it from responsible politicians working in the interest of the Irish public, the two decided to toss a coin to decide who will take on the role first. :-O

Sean Canney won and took over the first term (he really lost, as you will see in the next sentence). One year later, in May 2017 then Kevin Moran took over the role and this week it has been confirmed that unfortunately he will remain as junior minister for the OPW as long as the Fine Gael government is in place and will not swap the role again with Sean Canney.

You might wonder why that affects us. So let me tell you what the OPW does. The Office of Public Works is responsible for all properties in state ownership. This includes all buildings that are owned or rented by the state, for example for offices for departments or semi-state agencies and it also includes historical and cultural sites like Newgrange, Dublin Castle, Kilmainham Gaol, Phoenix Park, all National Museums, Farmleigh House etc

We have a great situation in Ireland with free admission to the National Museums and the National Gallery, but other historic buildings usually charge admission charges. There is nothing wrong with that, after all the maintenance of these buildings and staff costs etc are very expensive and money either needs to come from the visitors OR from tax payers.

But in 2011 a great idea was implemented that brought the historic sites so much closer to the population in Ireland and not just visitors: While Brian Hayes was Junior Minister for the OPW and Clare McGrath was Chairman of the OPW the “First Free Wednesday” scheme was introduced. www.rte.ie/news/2011/0706/303306-heritage/ Every first Wednesday of the month all OPW properties were free to visit for everyone and it was a HUGE success. People in Dublin visited Kilmainham Gaol or Dublin Castle or the Casino in Marino often for the first time and there was a great buzz every first Wednesday.

But as soon as Sean Canney became Junior Minister and Maurice Buckley became OPW chairman in 2016 things changed. First Kilmainham Gaol was removed from the First Wednesday scheme, then Dublin Castle and recently Newgrange also is not free anymore on that one day every month.

But this April things even went one step further. For as long as I can remember, the guided tours in Farmleigh House were free, but in April when Farmleigh House re-opened after a long winter closure suddenly and completely quietly an admission charge was introduced for the guided tours there. The tour is just about 45 minutes long but the charge is bigger than you might expect: EUR 8 is the price of this tour that last year was completely free.

There is no doubt that “free programmes” cost money and in the end we all pay for it, but the justification for offering it for free (at least one day per month) is to bring the local touristic sites attractive and appealing to non-tourists in Dublin. We travel around the world and wherever we go we go to museums and visit monuments, but back on our home patch we seem to think that museums and historic buildings are only for visitors. The free programmes can – as we have seen from 2011 until 2015 – change that around and it is a big mistake to cancel this programme.

I can’t say for certain if the Junior Minister is the person responsible for cancelling the free programmes or if it is the OPW Chairman, but ultimately the responsibility lies with the Junior Minister and Kevin Moran (or Sean Canney) certainly hasn’t impressed with ANY great initiatives. So it is bad news that he will stay in the job for another while!

 

Dublin, Politics, Tourism, , , , , ,
 
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