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LAST UPDATE | 29 Aug 2018
Source: Liam McBurney/PA Images
PRIMARK HAS SAID it will meet with staff members of its flagship Belfast store over the coming days to provide them with "support and information" after a major fire broke out in the building yesterday.
Usdaw trade union, which represents members in the retail sector, has said that staff at the store will be paid up until the end of the week.
The fire broke out on the top floor of the landmark Bank Building at around 11am yesterday, and quickly engulfed the whole building.
Emergency services rushed to the scene, and more than 100 firefighters fought the blaze as dozens of onlookers viewed from behind a cordon.
Source: Liam McBurney/PA Images
In a statement this afternoon, Usdaw area organiser Michala Lafferty said that its members are "extremely distressed and concerned as they now enter a period of uncertainty".
"I have been in regular contact with [the] company to offer them our full help and support," she said.
Today, we had a constructive meeting where the company confirmed all staff will be paid up until the end of the week. Over the coming days, further discussions will take place to agree what happens next week.
"The company has reassured me that the welfare and job security of the staff is their priority."
A spokesperson for Primark said in a statement that the welfare of its colleagues "remains our most important concern".
"We are fully committed to supporting them during this difficult time," the spokesperson said.
"Our management team in Belfast are meeting their colleagues over the next few days to provide them with the necessary support and information."
It added that it is working with the authorities to determine the cause of the fire.
Closed off
Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) said earlier today that firefighting operations will continue throughout the day.
There was a structural collapse within the building this morning and a 45-metre exclusion zone remains in place, the NIFRS said.
Operations are expected to be scaled back to three fire appliances later this evening, it said on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/NIFRSOFFICIAL/status/1034833361880137728
Concerns over structural integrity
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, NIFRS group commander Alan O'Neill said that the concerns about the structural integrity of the gutted Primark meant that the area remained cordoned off this morning.
"There are questions around the structure," he said. "The internal floors have more or less collapsed throughout the building."
Source: Liam McBurney/PA Images
O'Neill said that as well as getting the fire under control, the top priority for fire service personnel was to prevent the fire spreading to nearby buildings.
He said: "It did spread very quickly. Thankfully everybody got out of the building safely, and thankfully we were able to contain it.
We would have made every effort to contain it to the top floor. But we made sure it didn't spread to surrounding buildings.
Source: Liam McBurney/PA Images
The group commander said there was nothing at this stage to suggest that the cause of the fire was suspicious, but emphasised the main priority at this stage was ensuring public safety.
"This is certainly the most extensive fire I would have dealt with, going back 10 or 15 years," O'Neill added. "Thankfully our crews are well trained to deal with this."
Source: Liam McBurney/PA Images
Also speaking on Morning Ireland, the Lord Mayor of Belfast Deirdre Hargey said she was just back from the site of the fire describing the scene as "devastation".
"Our priority is focused on relocating those 36o members of staff into alternative stores and trying to get the surrounding area back up and functioning again.
"There are three surrounding Primark stores in the wider Belfast area and we are hopeful that we will get a sizeable number of those relocated," she said.
With reporting from Adam Daly and Hayley Halpin
Half a million. they could get prisoners to do it for free if the justice system was worth anything.
@Brendan Hughes: it would cost in excess of €500k to put measures in place to ensure the prisoners were properly supervised and didn’t do a runner!
@Brendan Hughes: prisoners would go to court saying it’s not fair and want to be compensated for their time…courts and lawyers would cost millions…and then it could be a shocking job
@Brendan Hughes: why prisoners.. Social welfare claims…for generations can help
@Brendan Hughes: they might smoke the weeds.
@Ajax Penumbra: and you came up with that number using how many fingers
@Brendan Hughes: top marks. Bring in welfare for work & probation/ early release categories.
We are now at historic low unemployment level, so the residual, probably disengaged element , need to be drawn into formal work disciplines to get them into action. Doesn’t have to be chain gangs style either, but maybe even that should be considered for recidivist criminal convicts.
Lots of rehabilitation to be achieved by such reforms, apart from beneficial community services.
so , no directives regarding the kind of weedkillers used?
@Ixtrix Net: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/10/health/monsanto-johnson-trial-verdict/index.html
It all contains glyphosate with its side effects.
Let’s hope they don’t use any RoundUp
@⚡ Seánie ⚡:
Don’t hold your breath.
Alternative please?
@Patrick Nolan: How about a herd of Shetland ponies left loose on the city
@Tweety McTweeter:
Elephants have a bigger appetite.
@Patrick Nolan: horticultural vinegar
@Michael Henvey:
Roundup is a residual spray, it would not need to be repeated for about 6 weeks (depending on weather) and is rainfast (shower proof) in about 1 hour.
Horticultural vinegar needs at least 4-5 hours to absorb, might not work on “waxy” leave weeds and would need to be re-applied after 2-3 weeks.
Bottom line your alternative will cost at least twice as much to do half the job.
@⚡ Seánie ⚡:
I use Gallop.!
Seems grand and a value for money tender. are we supposed to be outraged?
@Gulliver Foyle: yes considering bees are dying out
Weeds no longer a mark down with Tidy Towns committee
@Quentin Moriarty: Turns out bees need Dandelions as they flower early and are full of nectar…
@TamuMassif2019: better to see a dandelion than an empty snack box on the path
@Quentin Moriarty: You see anything on footpaths now including human excrement…
No matter how careful they are with spraying, it will more than likely affect the honey bee population. Studies have found that the herbicide can interfere with the bees causing infection and subsequent reduction in the bee population. It’s probably more costly to remove the weeds manually, but what price continuation of healthy pollinating species.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/09/common-weed-killer-believed-harmless-animals-may-be-harming-bees-worldwide
Sounds like a terrible contract for the company that wins the tender. I’m all for getting value but a company that wins a tender should expect to carry out the work without fear of the tender process continuing run looking for a cheaper price. Respect needed on both sides.
@Alan: I think it might mean that the contractor also can’t prevent tidy towns, or resident groups etc from touching ‘their weeds’.
Maybe they could collect the leaves and then maybe clear the gutters and drains and finally the weeds.
So DCC will cancel contract if job not done good or someone else comes with cheaper price, no matter how long into contract!!!
Sounds like a race to the bottom , why don’t they do the same with council staff wages?
@Brian Smith: they should do the same with most of their contracts,paying company’s that do f##k all,give it to the community employment schemes,with a decent living wage.
Project for unemployed? Salary for an overall agent, wages for team leaders, a bit of a bonus on top of unemployment benefit for those who volunteer … a lot less expense in total, but, sorry, no brown envelopes exchanged with that idea
@WoodlandBard: technically as it would be a labour intensive job it will increase employment.
@WoodlandBard: People like Dewayne Johnson, a former school groundskeeper?
@John Murphy: indeed, John, my point, perhaps an inceptive for unemployed to work out some ideas for a job or a small business that costs little to start up.
Seemingly untidy and overgrown areas can be a haven for the wildlife of our city. These areas can be tidied up with a little bit of hard work. Last year I was horrified to see two guys on ride-on weed sprayer machines pulling up to spray most likely carcinogenic weed-killer in every direction while they remained seated. Some days later the area was entirely wilted. It is the lazy mans approach and it is killing our city and verges.
@Sean:
but they look tidy!!
The only weed control I’d be interested in is taking the control from criminal gangs and making it freely available for all who want to use it
‘damage is not done to trees and shrubs that are in the same areas as the weeds’ need to enforce that one,
Let’s hope that whoever gets the Contract that they train the Guys to recognize Weeds. I had to reseed my Grass verge a number of years ago after some Clown sprayed around the Tree that had Flowers
@Seosamh Mc Gabhann: That won’t happen. There is no definition of a weed except a plant growing where you don’t want it.
@Sean: I agree ☝️, but you would have to see the result , a mature tree surrounded by Howth Stone and planted with Flowers with a ring of dead grass, not a weed in sight !
Another angle of this is that what we call weeds includes a lot of useful plants. It may be that this need not be a chemical splashing clinical clean up but an opportunity of some nature preservation and education. I sometimes offer foraging nature walks myself. However this idea is tricky as a lot of these ‘weeds’ are constantly exposed to exhaust fumes, but some may be in quiet places? Hard to set up, though, as people want easy quick solutions that put fast money in their pockets … and the last thing they will think of is eco, and natural low cost health alternatives. Even so, wish there was more thought about this.
And they wonder why people get cancer – dogs sniffing on the verges too – bees wiped out – but hey it looks tidy. Dublin Council should be sued for using these sprays.
How about spending more money on combating illegal dumping in the north city centre?
Why not break the contract up into smaller sections and offer it to multiple small local companies to look after A designated area which would encourage competition and potentially get jobs for local people but this contract is only open to a small section of Big contract company’s the small companies do not have a hope even though they can offer much better value for money.
The smaller companies just don’t do brown envelopes and arse pockets
@Chris Turner:
What makes you think it would be cheaper to offer it to let’s say five small contractors rather than one big one?
Surely there would be economy’s of scale?
Brilliant! The public service offering a contract for €500,000 when they could have got it for €350,000!
@Dotty Dunleary: how so?
@Dotty Dunleary: Sound like a trumpism there
They should just legalise it man
They should just legalise is man
They should tax it and use the money to invest in infrastructure
It two cold for the muppet to come out and inspect the work
Just did a bit of research and this company had it before. Surly we should be giving contracts like this to Irish Company’s.
http://greentownenvironmental.com/
In other words a large contractor who already does work for the council , cause nobody could borrow against a risk like that
Wouldn’t it be cheaper if they just leagalized it?
What abou the whooommeless?
I don’t mind the weeds. Maybe they should see what the public wants their money spent on. I consider weeds wildflowers.
Ragwort is one of the most noxious weeds in Ireland and farmers are required by law to remove it from their land. One method recommended is during land inspection the farmer is advised to close his eyes and pull like a dog just like the rowing O’Donovan Brothers.
I thought the Garda were doing a great job of “Weed control “
Give me a decent wage and the tools and I’ll work the hours needed to do this job for a tenth of that price. I am hungry for work and I would take great pleasure doing the city a great service
Let the corpo dig the weeds out of the ground. It’s part of the road sweepers job.
Lots of those ‘weeds’ are edible and eating them would be a much more environmentally sound way of dealing with them!
About time too
Ah Jaysus half a million.. For weeds? Have they housed the homeless and fixed our hospitals yet? Another effing waste of money
That money would be better spent getting rid of rodents
Kevin How about getting out there and cutting the grass yourself. It is a community area that needs attention and you are part of the community.
Answer them better to spend it on housing
You wanna see the state of the green areas in my estate. Ploughed up by vans and cars. Not cut more than twice a year. I give up
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