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CORK CITY COUNCILLORS this evening agreed to give the ‘robo trees’ on Grand Parade six more months rather than dumping them, after two separate studies found the data collected from them to be inconclusive as to their effectiveness.
The council is facing another €18,000 maintenance fee for the five CityTrees this year, which were produced by a German company and are supposed to use moss walls to clean pollutants from the surrounding air.
This week the council published a report on the data collected from the robo trees which summarised the findings of two studies on the effectiveness of the trees, which found that the data is inconclusive.
The study conducted by the company that made the appliances suggested that Grand Parade is too windy of an environment for the data collected from the trees to be reliable, while the UCC study on the trees stated that the data cannot prove that the robotic trees are improving air quality.
The robo trees also double up as public seating, and have become a popular spot for members of the public to sit and chat.
Tonight, councillors informally agreed to give the robo trees project six more months in the hopes that the effectiveness of the trees can be proven, as they weighed up options including dumping them, plugging them out and keeping them as “street furniture”, and giving them to an educational facility.
Labour party Councillor John Maher suggested that it was time to “pull the plug” on the robo trees, and admit that purchasing them was “a mistake”.
Fine Gael Councillor Des Cahill weighed up the options facing the council at tonight’s meeting.
‘What happens if we dump them? We admit defeat, we don’t know what the cost of dumping them is, but we dump them anyway. Keep them unplugged? Not a bad compromise. Or, we keep them and wait for six to 12 months to see if the data remains inconclusive… and it also gives the directors enough time to explore the many educational facilities in Ireland to see what use they might have for them,” he deliberated.
Cahill ultimately advocated for the latter option.
“It would be foolhardy to quit and run now. While it will be very easy for the radio stations and everyone else to say we are as mad as a bag of cats, I would be supporting saying, let’s give it another chance.
“Let’s look at the other values that it has, and I think, for fear that in two years’ time it turns out that we could have used them in other circumstances, either internally or externally,” he said.
Cahill’s was the most popular view, as eight other councillors agreed, while four wanted to go for other options.
There has been some backlash to the robo trees project from academics, and local representatives, including Labour candidate for Cork City South East Peter Horgan, who said that it is essentially a “greenwashing exercise”.
“It’s time this experiment came to an end. This project is damaging climate mitigation projects elsewhere in the city. This is Cork City’s version of the E-voting machines. Keeping this as a rolling item isn’t viable,” Horgan said.
The five robo trees each cost €64,995, and a considerable amount of money has already been paid out for their maintenance.
The funding for the project came from a Government grant rather that the council’s budget.
During the same council meeting, councillors heard from management that the budget was not in place to have an event to mark the Christmas lights being turned on in the city this year, as it would cost somewhere in the region of €50,000.
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Seems fairer to 24/7/365 staff, I’m happy.
Wow, look what happens when there is meaningful negotiation instead of bullying
To keep the economy growing, the civil and public service must pay their fair share.
They do
See what happens when there is genuine dialogue.
Shame the unions had to threaten strikes.
Wait and see the details. Not sure this is going to float yet.
It is sad that it had to come to that.
Yet look at the Bus Eireann dispute. Once the strike started the Management realized that they too would have to share the pain and it was quickly resolved.
The previous agreement was about protecting the people at the top. The people at the top here in Ireland do not see any difference between public or private. They just want to ensure that everyone else tales the pain and they are protected.
The Unions have been forced by the membership to finally do their job and share the burden equally.
Yes but will the politicans take substanial paycuts like bus eireen bosses.
I dont think so.????????????????????
Nobody in bus eireann is taking a pay cut! Part of the saving comes from them agreeing to give back one of the four self certified sick days they all take on full pay! Farce!
Look, over there, a Unicorn! Haven’t we seen this movie before?
‘This will be the last ask of the public service’s
y should anyone believe this, the 1st Croke Park “deal” is supposed to run for another 12 months, what’ll stop them coming back during the term of this deal.
Also when money has to be made next year and usc is increased on everyone it will affect public service then too, and it will be use increased as its a charge and they said they wouldn’t increase taxes so paye will not be touched
Get a clue..It is not that we don’t tax enough. Our governrment spends too much. Our government has given up its obligations to the unions, so they don’t have to be on record for votes for/against anything. All our politicians do for us is put us farther in debt buying votes. That is the problem……That is why the are up for re-election every 2 years. The public sector benchmark needs to be revised and compared to other European countries.
As does the cost of living deficit enjoyed by the Profit Sector shithawks on high, compared with other EU countries!
Sounds like industrial peace at any price. More taxes in the next budget for us all because the government caved in.
How you figure?
If your self employed then push for your own changes. I presume you chose to be self employed. Fight your own battles
Looks like industrial chaos has been averted , I have never seen such willingness to bring the country to a standstill, Why not go after the Semi state employees and take at least 14% off of them and the bank employees who the tax payers bailed out, This would generate huge savings and then ask the public workers to make more savings.
Certain local disk jockey in Cork lambasted the public sector last week saying they wanted to not take any pain , he conveniently forgets the public sector were the first to be cut but him and his ibec buddys dont want to acknowledge that fact.
First to be cut after 10 years of benchmarking sham made the public service 40% better paid than the private sector workers who are funding this circus
Jack, the union activists are voting you down because many of their members populate this journal.
Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean you’re not an aspiring IBEC lacky!!
Will Union members go for deal?? Not sure teachers etc will go for a 5 year hit. what if circumstances change?? will government row back on their word that this is last paycut in public sector?? Also unions who don’t sign up?? legislation for cuts will come in for them.will their members be happy??
Why should the government roll back these pay reforms in 5 years time?
1)THE COUNTRY IS BROKE.
2) IRELAND PAYS MORE THAN MOST OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.
I am not sure any real progress has been made, based on the snippets released to the press:
• Health sector:
- nurses work another 1.5hr/week and “starting” nurses will get slowly have their pay brought normal (3 years)
- “overtime” payments will be maintained
Unless those earning over 65K take a major pay cut (8-10%), it hard to see hor the 150M/year savings can be made. If so, will the doctors play ball – when they cannot hire staff at present due the low remuneration (in relation to international rates)?
• Education sector
- Teachers lose supervision/substitution until 2017/2018
Will they tolerate a 5 year pay cut?
- I presume university staff will be continue to be offered a 5-8% pay cut either way, which they have soundly rejected to date.
There could be war, I fear.
The real rage in the teaching sector is over the substitution. It closes off much of the work for young teachers for years to come.
There is no way teachers will agree to this. The government’s “promise” to restore paycuts in 2017/2018 just will not happen so basically there is no change to what has already been rejected. Farce!
My household cannot spent more money that it makes. My business cannot spend more money that it makes. How are we, in Ireland, not absolutely freaking out about nearly €200 BILLION in freaking debt?
Maybe Inda should have asked those fine vulture capitalists whilst over the pond the other day, they’re $16,000,000,000,000 in the hole apparently, yet can still find hundreds of billions each year for a global war on secularism!
What about the self employed. What say have they in their future you moron?
Are you calling Aoife Barry a moron?
I’m self employed. I have the final say.
I take the risks, the rewards (don’t make me laugh) and the beatings. I couldn’t work for others.
And next year when they have introduced legislation where there is no choice ; cutbacks !
A leopard never changes its spots ; even if it can only afford 5 or indeed if it is too mean to buy any more than five !
So far this appears to be a flaky deal to save the governments face. What about the ‘absolute necessity’ for the reduction in public sector payroll? Sounds like another smoke and mirrors deal.
The Minister thanked all those involved in the talks, particularly the LRC, and restated that Government “had sought at all times to make the necessary savings by agreement”.
That’s like saying “if you do not jump off this cliff, we will push you”.
Hopefully it all works out.
Industrial Peace? Class, I suppose the lad in Tesco will accept a token of industrial peace towards the cost of me feeding myself….never read such rubbish in my life.
Unions and membera are idiots if they accept a deal it isnt a deal it is robbery.
Can a distinction be made, in terms of reducing pay, between the civil service and the public service?
For example, does a nurse have the same contract of employment with the HSE as, say, an administrator in the HSE?
I don’t know the answer to this; I’m just curious. Perhaps someone can tell me.
I’ll be delighted if a new deal can be agreed that protects our valuable, hardworking public servants. But I do feel that there are certain elements of the civil service whose salary needs to be reduced even more than this agreement envisages.
Of course, it’s hard to really debate the issue before we have more details…
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