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Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland

'You can't even buy a pair of socks in Ballymun these days'

Plans for regeneration of the Dublin town have stalled, says a local councillor.

THE REGENERATION OF Ballymun has stalled completely, a local councillor claims.

Sinn Féin’s Noeleen Reilly was speaking after the closing of the iconic Towers pub today.

While the closure had been planned, some staff reportedly found out through social networks that their workplace had shut down.

Reilly says that the closure, coupled with the imminent demolition of the Ballymun Shopping Centre mean that the town lacks enough commercial development for its size.

“There’s been zero economic regeneration of Ballymun at all.

“There has been great things in terms of community centres and local service, but there’s been no economic regeneration.”

Reilly says that a proposed €900 million shopping complex shows no signs of being built and the shelving of the Metro North project has severely hampered the commercial heart of the town.

Currently, Ballymun Regeneration Limited (BRL) and Dublin City Council are in negotiations with the remaining tenants in the centre about possible alternative retail sites and the cessation of operations in the centre.

“They’re looking to de-tenant the existing shopping centre, but there’s been no incentives for people to start businesses.

“People have ideas to start businesses in Ballymun but there’s no support there.

You can’t even buy a pair of socks in the place. People are going elsewhere and so is their money.

Read: Dublin City Council to take over Ballymun Shopping Centre

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51 Comments
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    Mute Jed I. Knight
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    Feb 5th 2014, 7:38 PM

    I’m guessing their target audience isn’t rural Ireland???

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    Mute Ina Smidiríní
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    Feb 6th 2014, 1:24 AM

    No they would be talking about places like Africa I presume.

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    Mute SuperFry
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    Feb 5th 2014, 7:47 PM

    Great another reason for people to think I’ll email them back immediately.

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    Mute Gobblor
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    Feb 5th 2014, 8:10 PM

    End world hunger? No! Wifi for all!

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    Mute PerkyBeans
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    Feb 5th 2014, 9:50 PM

    You can download food,
    Torrent a bag of spuds

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    Mute Drew Clarke
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    Feb 5th 2014, 8:31 PM

    please hurry up. I’m being charged e80 a month by onwave for a 20mb connection and I rarely get above 1.5mb. In fact my upload speed is 4 times faster than my download speed 9 times out of ten.

    Someone needs to do an expose on satellite broadband speeds in Ireland. It’s a rip off and needs to be exposed.

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    Mute John Horan
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    Feb 5th 2014, 8:10 PM

    One way, so more like aertel then actual internet then.

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    Mute SuperFry
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    Feb 5th 2014, 8:12 PM

    WAP is back!!

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    Mute John Horan
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    Feb 5th 2014, 10:11 PM

    WAP was still two way. This, like aertel, is one way, so you would receive all the possible pages in one small subset of the internet and hopefully whatever page you want to look at is contained in there.

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    Mute family guy
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    Feb 5th 2014, 8:03 PM

    The mother in laws house has very bad mobile and broadband coverage. Nice to go out there and forget about the phone for a while. This might put an end to this.

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    Mute Gobblor
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    Feb 5th 2014, 9:11 PM

    Or you could just turn it off? DUH!

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    Mute John Swan
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    Feb 5th 2014, 9:38 PM

    What’ll happen to all those fiber optic cables being put in all over the country then? Also, hate to be a stickler about this, but what about the EMF/radiation exposure this would cause? The health implications would really need to be thoroughly and independently investigated.

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    Mute Gabrielle Humphreys
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    Feb 7th 2014, 10:04 PM

    What do you mean John, can you explain to me a wee bit more, gay

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    Mute Alien8
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    Feb 5th 2014, 9:15 PM

    Minimum orbit is 300km, max wifi usually 30m (Max theoretical TDMA range is around 15km). I get the feeling this is an investor trick, but they’ll have to come up with new ideas. Also transmitters for 2 way are over a metre in size for rubbish internet – even Niall Quinn couldn’t sell you that.

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    Mute Daniel Rea
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    Feb 5th 2014, 8:38 PM

    Well if the scientists are right there’ll be no bees left and say goodbye to fertile men

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