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THE ROAD SAFETY Authority (RSA) and gardaí have appealed to parents as new research showed how 10% of children travelling in vehicles were not using proper restraints such as child car seats or seat belts.
Last year. the RSA conducted a nationwide study that observed seatbelt usage by 3,861 children both in the front and the rear seats of the vehicle.
As part of that particular study, 93% of children were wearing seatbelts. However, when observing children in the rear of the vehicle only, the number dropped to 89%.
According to the RSA, the figures show that some parents are still allowing their children to travel in cars without being securely buckled in.
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Transport Minister Shane Ross urged parents to make sure their children are safe when they are in a car.
“With children returning to school over the coming weeks, traffic levels will increase, and motorists need to be mindful of our most vulnerable road users. I am asking parents to ensure any child travelling in their vehicle is using their seatbelt or the correct child restraint, and to educate children to be vigilant when out walking or cycling to school.”
The RSA’s chairperson, Liz O’Donnell, said that the latest stats are “very worrying”.
She added: “This is very worrying especially when you consider that the most dangerous thing a child does each day is travel as a passenger in a car. A child cannot be responsible for their own safety.
It’s up to us as responsible adults to do the right thing to ensure their safety. Every child travelling in a car must use a child car seat or wear a seatbelt. I am urging parents to ensure that children are safely and securely restrained, even on the shortest trip.
Assistant Garda Commissioner David Sheahan, of the National Roads Policing Unit, said: the non-wearing of seatbelts by children under 17 is not only against the law but is extremely dangerous.
“We continue to see fatalities where a vehicle occupant was not wearing a seatbelt and therefore had no protection in a collision. By law, all children under 150cms in height or 36kgs in weight must use a child restraint system (CRS) suitable for their height and weight while travelling in a car.”
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It’s amazing how landlocked countries in eastern Europe don’t have as many water shortage as an island that is surrounded by water and where rain falls the majority of the year.
@Roy Dowling: Exactly Roy. Ive learned that its just one thing after another in Ireland. No rant neccessary, its just a given. All it took was 4 days of no rain for us to have a water shortage
@john smith iv: So the people conserving water is going to make a big difference. If only the government, councils and Irish water wanted to conserve water and fix the infrastructure and save all the water that gets lost before it gets to the people.
@john smith iv: John your heads in the clouds if you think water charges would help here. There solution then would be to hike them up again and again. Mean while the network pisses out water, cause the government deemed it more nessacary to pass the buck, spend billions on setting up corporate red tape rather than actually investing in the network by funding speficaly to local authorities to invest in the underling infrastructure to stop said water pissing out of the network.
@Frank Cauldhame: many. Irrelevant to the argument about water charges. Water charges ringfence money for the water provider and encourage people to not use so much water as it costs them money. Same as any consumption charge.
Anyway that’s the reason as to why other countries on Europe do better.
@john smith iv: We already pay, its not our fault that FG & Labour tried to (and failed spectacularly) double tax us on water consumption by setting up a billing company without fixing the infrastructure first. This is all old hat by the way. What political party do you think will attempt to reintroduce billing people for something they already pay for?
@Frank Cauldhame: I think the point being missed here is that other countries pay by volume of water used and treated… and this encourages conservation. Yes we already pay though other taxes but not in a way that relates to use so no-one is bothered to conserve.
@Frank Cauldhame: you seem to have a counter argument for anything John says. VRT has nothing to do with water conservation. Neither does USC, or PAYE or PRSI for that matter. Factual information proves that taxes on water encourage the population to conserve water. Just because we are against water charges doesn’t make the facts fake.
@Ross McCarthy: The solution is to spend the money already collected in taxes on repairing the infrastructure, all that water currently leaking away will then be conserved.
@Frank Cauldhame: you are not getting the point here. We pay for water but you pay the same if you use/waste a liter or 1000 liters. I hope it’s clear now.
@Ross McCarthy: Point being missed here those incharge of the water system ignored the crumbling infrastructure for decades. Then rather than actually fix it they spend over a billion settings up a utility company and installing meters to try force people to pay for water and then use less and conserve water as a result. Reality is conserving water won’t make a difference until they fix the infrastructure as most of the water is lost before it gets to people’s houses.
@Fionn Darland: I wondered when you’d arrive fionnUALA. Well Mr FG, if you think it’s a good idea forFG to try and reintroduce double charging for water then let them try, see how it hits them at the polls!
@john smith iv: John, people have no respect for saving and conserving water in Ireland, and comments ‘re other taxes paying for water and sewage services are disingenuous.
@Patrick St Lawrence: Including the government who get taxes to ensure such water is conserved through leakage but the money was squandered. So they now want MORE money to hand out contracts to councillors and ministers who have companies that facilitates pipe laying.
@Eoin O Shea: The final deletion right there, should have brought up the Childrens Hospital funding to cover the water costs while we are at it for maximum deletion!
@Mary Nugent: The worst thing about it was they actually sent me a DM on Twitter saying they had repaired it. It is still spilling water out onto the road.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: It is outside my window. I have sent them numerous pictures of it. For a long time they said they couldn’t find it now they have the painted arrow pointing to it. Ridiculous.
@Brendan The Godfather: IW have a contract with the local authorities to fix these leaks. This was forced on them by unions. If it is still leaking, it is because the local authority has not repaired it.
@Brendan The Godfather: it should be fairly obvious. The network was taken off the local authorities because they had destroyed it; not repairing or upgrading and granting plannings where the infrastructure didn’t have the capacity. Now, all new connections go through IW and they inspect all new sites and enforce any corrections. Any development that they don’t have the capacity to take gets refused planning. The contract with the local authorities ends this year so then they have total control of the network.
FFS, 3 days of sunshine in this country and we run out of water, Dublin water restrictions today, it will be followed by the rest of the country in a few days, 16 months with the toughest and longest lockdown in Europe because our health service is a joke with no spare capacity to deal with covid and now 3 days with no rain and we have run out of water, lol, what an embarrassing country, there must be giant crater like holes in all the reservoirs, once again another national embarrassment, cue the government cheerleaders, go :)
@Hugo Bugo: Not cheerleading the government but the use of “embarrassing country” and “national embarrassment” shows that you known very little outside your own tiny bubble. Every country deals with issues and you should spend some time in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa or South America to gain some perspective on how good you have it here.
@Denis Ryan: We pay first world rates for third world services. We have the best little country in the world for those who are connected. The rest of the population are cash cows. It’s managed like a kip and there is no getting away from that.
We have the potential to be a serious country to live it. We just keep electing underqualified failures to manage our resources.
@David Corrigan: Your very first sentence tells me that you have never spent any amount of time in what you call third world countries. The term that is used these days is developing nations. To address your last point you are suggesting to remove who you thing are underqualified elected officials with what. Even less qualified TD’s like the bomb maker from Dublin or the anti vaxxer from Clare or the brilliant decision making of a td who brought a garda killer who then tried to kill her into her life. Genius.
A couple of days of sunshine and heading towards a water shortage. Thankfully I harvest rainwater to look after my garden. Plenty of it and it is very cheap. Whoops cats out of the bag the tax spy will see this post and rain will be taxed.
@Tommy Mc Quaid: Good work, I do the same, I have plenty of 2-litre bottles of rainwater, with sprinkler heads, to last through the hot spell. Also handy for flushing if it comes to that.
In Nevada someone drives around and hands out $80 dollar fines for wasting water – dripping taps, watering the garden, using lawn sprinklers and hoses, etc. An approach like that could work wonders in Dublin as a deterrent.
@Sean: And don’t they offer citizens any incentive to conserve? We could all have rain barrels installed by now for a fraction of the cost. I’ll say no more in case they start taxing the level of rainfall next and you need a licence to carry a brolly.
What a surprise. It gets hot and Lidl & Aldi have their “family size” inflatable pools on sale. No one has an idea how to maintain the water in the pool, impulse buys this crap and a week later dumps 1000 litres of water as it’s getting green because it’s not treated…
And don’t for we’ve a half million new residents in Ireland in the last ten years using water it all adds up to a water shortage after four days without rain
@David Corrigan: On the contrary, we pay through the nose for everything in this country and get little to no value for it. We also pay for services provided to the church who can well afford to pay for it themselves. The taxpayer is the cash cow for the few.
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