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FROM JANUARY 1ST, new rules on the restrictions of how to use pest controls that have been agreed by the European Union will be enforced in Ireland.
The new restrictions will mean that stores that sell rat poison will have to keep a record of how many rodenticides are sold, and professional pest controllers will have to sign up to a register to ensure they have the proper training.
In a statement to TheJournal.ie, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine said that the rules would also affect the farming community.
As of the 1 January 2018, a Pest Management Users (PMU) will be required to provide their PMU Number to purchase rodenticide for trained professional use. Farmers will be required to provide their herd/flock number to purchase professional use product.
As of the 1 January 2018, retailers/wholesalers will be required to keep records of rodenticides purchased and sold.
EU rules
The EU has voted to introduce new restrictions for AVK rodenticide products because of their “potential risks to people and animals from primary and secondary poisoning and to the environment”.
AVK rodenticides – short for Anti-Vitamin K rodenticides, a name used to describe the way in which rodents are poisoned – are the most widely-used type of rodenticides.
Despite AVK rodenticides being classified as toxic for reproduction, particularly in the high quantities that are found in rodenticides, their “use is permitted… since there is currently no satisfactory alternative product available to control rodent pests”.
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But, from the New Year, new restrictions will track the use of these pesticides in stores, on farms and in the professional pest control sector.
According to the Department, under the new rules, the general public will be restricted to using rodenticides only indoors for mice control, and in and around buildings for rat control, in both cases in tamper-resistant bait stations.
The concentration of poison in products available to the public will also be reduced:
Due to the classification, the content of the active substance in the products was also reduced to <30 mg/kg for the general public. Consequently, the toxicity of rodenticides available to the general public will be reduced.
Professional pest controllers can also use rodenticides in open areas, waste dumps and sewers, but will be required to sign up to a register.
“Trained professional users will be required to register with the Department as a Pest Management Trained Professional User. In order to register they need to be appropriately trained and must carry out CPE to maintain their status on the register.”
Brendan Ryan, co-founder and director of Irish Pest Control Association said that there were pest controllers out there that operated “below the standard that should be expected”.
Farmers will also be affected by the new regulations – they will only be allowed to use specific types of rodenticides (anticoagulants) in and around buildings and only in tamper-resistant bait stations unless they complete additional training.
They won’t be permitted to use permanent baiting or pulsed baiting techniques, as professional pest controllers can.
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Waffler will be along soon to tell us how, capitalist pigs will exploit the robot workers and that AAA stands shoulder to shoulder with cyborg 1′s right to toilet breaks
Tesla , Google , Apple , ford and all the major car companies have the technology in cars. The Luas is in tracks and doesn’t need steering wheels, the lights work in unison with it. And a vast majority is off the road. The technology exists and the requirements for the Luas are even simpler
@Proinsias! Seen as driverless cars and trucks have been developed and road tested by Google and Samsung i doubt its ‘very’ difficult to automate the trams as the technoligy already exists. Seen as the luas drivers can cost upwards of 50k a year i would imagine dropping the drivers wpuld offset the cost nicely….
Just back from the euros and the tram/monorail is automatic. At a guess it’s at least 15 years old but amazingly effective. Any current and all future small intercity lines should be set up on this model. Drivers simply aren’t needed
A lot of the luas drivers are also taxi drivers . I wonder will management give them the letter they need for the NTA to operate as a taxi after the strike. I see a lot of bus drivers are also taxi drivers. The baseball cap doesn’t completely hide your faces lads.
I know it’s unpopular opinion, but that sucks for the drivers.
What does it cost these days to give a child a nice upbringing, ensure they have affordable healthcare, make sure they go to a good college, and make sure you aren’t working unsociable hours so you get to see them?
They went out and took a stand to receive a piece of the profit they helped to create, and now they are to be replaced by Robots.
When we all have technology that is able to do our jobs, will they give us more time off? More time to spend with loved ones?
Yes but it isn’t because they went on strike that this is happening, rather the direction the world is moving in. They can retrain in something else if they don’t want this argument in 20 years time.
Innovation is constantly replacing mundane ‘simple’ jobs performed by humans. There is no area that has not been impacted. The type of jobs people do just changes.
The “Luas” train in Dubai runs driverless and has done for the past 8 or nine years with no issues you get your ticket and hold it against the ticket machine and your in. Simple . Hasn’t been one ounce of trouble with it and no drivers strikes so it can be done , just not in Ireland .
Problem is ALL jobs can be automated. Apparently the technology exists to turn IPads into mobile MRI scanners! When big intellectuals like Stephen Hawking are expressing concern about AI and the growth of machines…it’s time to look up and think about where the world is going.
Nick…its not just “mundane jobs” that are going. Survey after survey highlights “the professions” as being at the greatest risk from automation. Finance is one of the areas at freatest risk. Look at how few traders now work on wall street compareed to 20 yrs ago.
I’ll tell ya what it costs – working your way up through school over 14 yrs and achieving a decent leaving cert. Taking another 4 yrs to earn a degree or apprenticeship then possibly another 2 yrs to earn a masters or further training at the very least. It’s about working and constantly bettering yourself and your skills and abilities to make yourself more employable and higher skilled so you can achieve higher pay better conditions and a better lifestyle based on your merits and achievements. Not a 7 week course after which you expect to earn as much as people who save lives and keep the peace, people with vast amounts more training with much less pay, more risks and equally unsociable hours. Many who also don’t hold the population and economy of a city to ransom to get there way.
Don’t believe what the press tell you it’s lot more to it then 7months training. . Don’t blame them because your salary is low why don’t you and your fellow workers protest for better money.
Can they automate the executives first? If there are no drivers to drive, there’s no need for overpaid executives to pretend to make important decisions.
Pah they’d end up still sitting in the drivers seat as some kind of Automation Supervisor, no doubt with a hefty pay rise thrown in for the inconvenience of no longer having to push anything at all
Not that simple the balance between safe operation and speed is difficult to achieve.
Err on the safety will make operation very slow with the tram coming to a stop for something like a pigeon on the line. Err on the other side and the LUAS runs over a little old lady.
Automated rail systems only have one possible route and limited areas of tram /vehicle/ pedestrian interaction. It runs in a rail bed that can fitted out with sensors and triggers and all sorts of monitoring gear to relay telemetry to aid decision making. It doesn’t need to consider the myriad of other factors that a car would and autonomous cars are around the corner. While it would mean extensive retrofitting of the system most likely it would be a one off cost offset against the redundancy packages and pay and benefits of drivers over time. Entirely achievable and only a matter of time before the cost outlay matches the wage bill and someone makes the decision.
Skynet begins with the automation of a light rail system in Dublin?.. Well that’s a bit of a let down… was expecting something a little more.. well.. whizz bangier…
Not with a whizz bang but with a “mind the gap”…… Possibly an “I told you to mind the f-ing gap” as someone is dragged down a tramline trapped in a sliding door!
Some chance benny. Qualifications, eh i push an apple and you may of heard about me and me driver mates tryin to shaft the company. Thank you, we will be in touch mr luasdriver.
Wouldn’t matter if they’re fully automated, they’re on street light rail so they would require someone to man the drivers seat in case of emergencies ie if a car broke a red light or people walked out in front of it. The DLR in London is fully automated because it doesn’t share the road. The central line is too and it still uses drivers
Darragh, they’d have plenty of sensors with built in redundancy. There won’t be a problem you should look up how self driving cars work.
The sensors are better than a drivers eyes as they don’t need light and react better
Driverless trains are, even on the London underground. Driverless cars will everywhere soon, too. Airplanes really fly themselves also, with the crew there to step in for emergencies. Nobody flys the lethal bombers either, now known as drones.
Dones are not automated. They are flown by pilots. The only difference is the pilots do not need to be on the aircraft, they are sitting in a remote cockpit but still flying them.
It’s true – drones are often programmed to complete missions. Eye in the Sky, a new movie (Helen Mirren) about autonomous drones showed how it’s done – but there’s a lot about this new technology on google.
Amazing technology. When the drone’s scan shows up napalm, explosives or large heroin quantities for example – it’s programmed to destroy, without authorisation or communication.
Nick, you seem surprised! There are also submarine drones, that only surface every few years – but can be deployed in any ocean, at any depth. With nuclear weaponry: These are not autonomous.
Wow Ger that was a great book you were reading, Asimov was it? Yes drones can fly on autopilot to a specific area but the kill chain is controlled by humans. Humans pull the trigger. Humans pick the targets. Yes I’ve seen that movie and do you honestly believe everything you see in movies? Do you think that yer man’s phone controlled flying bug camera actually exists? And if it does why would they need a dude to be within sight of the place to control it? Also submarines, yes can potentially stay submerged for years but the crew would be long dead from starvation before that so what would be the point? Also how can they be drones if they are not autonomous? Surely that’s just a submarine then?
This joker should stay in medicine. No workers means no taxes so Paddy were do you think your wages from St James Hospital comes from. I sometimes despair at the mentality of people in this country.
As you can drive on some areas of the luas track what would happen if a vehicle stalled and couldn’t move , or someone lost there footing and fell on to the track . how would the tram be stopped? It is not normal working conditions that would cause problems if trams were automated but abnormal ones
Do you honestly think that those scenarios have not or would not be considered. I would hazard a guess that the use of sensors and cameras with people and machines remotely managing the system may be used.
In the long run it would be cheeper and easier than using human drivers.
-Never gets tired.
-Never calls in sick.
-Never needs a holiday.
-Never goes on strike and demand more pay.
-Plus it can always be upgraded with newer and better software.
Luddites
-a member of any of the bands of English workers who destroyed machinery, especially in cotton and woollen mills, which they believed was threatening their jobs (1811–16).
Technology makes old jobs obsolete but at the same times creates far more new jobs in different sectors that never existed beforehand.
The industrial revolution and age of modern science of the 20th century created far more employment than it destroyed.
Can some of the greedy tram drivers comment to give their views on how their greed has now cost the country jobs, also I don’t think I heard any comment from then to justify there demands that there paid more than new nurses, engineers, managers etc etc.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your automatic driver, a sophisticated computer. I tell this tram when to accelerate, when to slow down, when to stop and when to start. With a precision of which no human operator is capable. We are now going a little too fast and there is a curve ahead, so I shall instruct the tram to slow down, down, down, down, down, down, down …
The counciller is only seeking popular opinion he knows it to expensive to get that kind of technology the strike is over why would he want to rob people of their jobs .i would suggest that the councilors be made redundant they haven’t any power the city manager as the final say on any decisions.They are only parasites drawning ahefty salary and expenses and that’s probably only a sideline to them
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