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Joe Biden
What roads will be closed as Biden attends his first events in the Republic?
Phoenix Park will be closed to all access, traffic and pedestrians, from 5pm today until 5pm tomorrow.
4.01pm, 12 Apr 2023
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US PRESIDENT JOE Biden will no longer travel by helicopter from Dublin to Co Louth due to bad weather conditions, Irish Government officials have said.
Biden is due to travel to his first set of engagements in the Republic of Ireland at around 4pm via motorcade, which may cause some disruption on the M1.
From 6pm this evening there will be traffic restrictions/ temporary closure along the R173, R175, N52 between Carlingford and Dundalk.
Until Biden’s departure late this evening parking restrictions and road closures will commence in Carlingford at the following locations:
Public Car Park – Tourist Office
Dundalk Street
North Pier
Newry Street
Old Quay Lane
Castle Hill & Back Lane
R173 Greenore Road
As a result of Biden’s planned visit to Aras an Uachtarán tomorrow, Phoenix Park will be closed to all access, traffic and pedestrians, from 5pm today until 5pm tomorrow (arrangements are in place for local access only).
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The Office of Public Works (OPW), which operates the park, confirmed over the weekend that all gates, including pedestrian gates, will be closed during the 24-hour period.
Access will be provided to essential park staff.
From 7pm today until tomorrow evening road closures will be in place at the following locations:
Kildare Street
Molesworth St
Merrion Street
Merrion St Upper
Fitzwilliam Lane
School House Lane
Merrion Sq West
Merrion Sq South
It is unclear if weather will permit Biden to return to Dublin tonight via helicopter or if he will be travelling by motorcade again.
Gardaí have said:
“Members of the Public travelling in the affected areas, Louth 12 April, Dublin (Phoenix Park/ South City Centre) 12/13 April and Mayo 14 April are be asked to plan their journeys during this period to ensure to leave enough time for possible traffic disruptions and to expect some localised delays.”
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@Stephen Grehan: perhaps if the public had of actually paid their bills, and before anyone says it, the act creating Irish water removed previous revenue streams for Irish water treatment, then IW would actually have the money to upgrade the plant faster to solve the simple problem that Dublin is growing faster than the infrastructure can handle and has been doing so for years
@@mdmak33: This is just another example of how we struggle to implement infrastructure, there literally isn’t a positive example in the country, maybe Education, but transport, health, housing, etc. We are a pretty good example of how not to do it. Ah well who wants to live on Dublin anyway, it’s a kip.
@Vocal Outrage: Even when IW set up,water services and infrastructure continued to be financed through the LGFs plus partial Exchequer funding into the LGF.
Following recommdations from Committee re Future Funding of Water …voted for and agreed in Dail certain changes were legislated for.On January 1st 2018 Motor tax is now being paid directly into the Exchequer and water services and infrastructure now paid by Exchequer funding.
The DBO contracts re Ringsend WWTW Extension had been in place since 1999& those contracts plus another 325 contracts were transferred to IW on 24/4/14.
In 2012 the Councils had 660 different contracts,schemes&water conservation projects!
@Vocal Outrage: Oh, that explains where all previous revenue went. By that logic we should all pay quadruple fees for TV licences, on the grounds that RTÉ would like to spend more money.
@thesaltyurchin: The EPA and the FSA are doing a good job. Credit where it’s due. Road safety’s improved thanks to the RSA. Em – okay, that’s all I can think of.
@thesaltyurchin: good point, but I heard (from teachers!) that we’re falling behind on the educational front also. So no good examples there. We’ve a good taxation infrastructure, if you’re a multinational I suppose :/
@Oscar: Yes,from 2008-2010 even with FF Government achieving 2/3rds adjustment required by Troika CAPITAL expenditure on water on water supply &waste water treatment was €2,17B.With FG Government in 2011, capital expenditure was slashed o €1,32B(2011-2013)!
@Fiona Fitzgerald: You’re right, I guess my sarcastic posting is more aimed at a government/organisational level, the people that are handed these buckets with holes are hardly the problem, and speaking from experience, (3rd level ed.) these people are usually doing way more than they signed up for just trying to deal with the tsunami of problems (Frustrating, because you can see how it could work really well and the government tell you that they want it to work really well but then the turn their backs and cover their ears,’ in my experience we need to run these institutions like businesses, not privatising but way more transparent, there’s no way you get a job at 20, do nothing for 40 years and get promoted along the way! It’s bonkers). As a young-ish country we don’t yet understand the value in ‘things’. At some point we will have to deal with our ‘Leprechaun economics’ or we’ll have no where to drive our brand new cars. (went off piste a little there).
Incorporated in July, 2013 as a company under the Water Services Act 2013, Irish Water brought water and wastewater services of the 31 local authorities together under one national service provider. We are responsible for the operation of all public water and wastewater services including:
-Management of national water and wastewater assets
-Maintenance of the water and wastewater system
-Investment and planning
-Managing capital projects
-Customer care and billing
We are also responsible for all of the capital investment decisions and implementation of the capital programme delivery across the country.
@Tim Pot: From 2008-2013(5 years) the Councils got 199 supplies off the EPA Remedial action lists from 339 supplies in 2008- 140 supplies in 2013.
Why did IW just get 61 supplies off the EPA Remedial action lists in 5 years?There’s still 60 supplies on the latest RAL on last Report this year & 63% of those supplies have THM exceedences.In August last year didn’t the European Commission take a case against Ireland re THMs!?Will IW have those supplies with THMs reduced to 20 supplies by end of 2019 as promised?
1)cost of billing in 2015 was only covering itself as there was only a portion of the households paying at the time.
2)If Ireland would achieve even half the savings that scotland managed when they created a national utility then that could save 20% of total costs. However Mr. Donnely did not assume any increase in funding for services. As we now see is required.
Might I ask why you are not as thoroughly verifying others statements on here?
anyway i’ll agree it’s not the most convincing paper. here is one from the US EPA instead. Again, waste to energy plants produce less emissions than diesel cars.
@Tim Pot: Donnellly’s figures were based on the fact that if every household in the country paid Irish Water it would barely cover the cost. At the time it was looking for around 260euro per year for the average household for starters. But hey lets face it we all know what happens with new charges (bin charge) in this country it skyrockets out of control and before long the cost will be 1000 to 2500euro per year and rising.
The only good thing about Irish Water is that it awakened people to the gross incompetence of politicians, cronyism, back hand deals and so on.
Make no mistake about it this will still be very much an issue when the next election comes around.
@Tim Pot: yours was the first, you stated it as fact when the author said it wasn’t. If others had put forward a link stating it was a fact and the first line in the link said it was a widely held belief I’d have done the same.
Truth is I didn’t click on the others because everyone can find a link supporting their agenda or personal beliefs and it just didn’t interest me all that much. Saying that the epa allow fracking to take place in America without a huge amount of grief so I wouldn’t take their word for gospel either.
@Tim Pot:
1)If all households had paid IW charges,it would have just covered IW billing cost,& related costs.
2)How will billing for excessive water use be practical financially re cost involved when Ireland uses less water than many other European countries as was highlighted to Expert Commission on Water & Committee on Future Funding of Water?
3)There are just 600 water meters re water users in Scotland out of 2.4m households as they use district metering instead as they told Committee on Future Funding of Water so there are significant savings there as there isn’t the initial costs of instillation, maintenance and replacement costs.
Also water is paid for through the Council tax banding structure so affordability is an important factor for Scottish Water.Ireland formally paid for water services through motor tax revenue put directly into Local Government Fund into which the Exchequer put some funding into LGF also.So there was no costs involved re billing expenditure &related costs.
At end of 2017 there were 4300 staff re water services in Ireland:3,500 Local Authority staff +800 IW staff.IW said there would be a reduced workforce of 3,300 in a single utility which means loss of 1000 staff re water services ,a significant loss of experienced staff!
What worries me is that (correct me if I’m wrong here) two out of three spills were only reported because a private citizen spotted it with a drone, meanwhile IW are telling us all is well. I wonder was the brown river running the days when the drone enthusiasts were at home.
@talkingsense: I can smell it in Clontarf, Rathmines, Monkstown, and all over the inner city, well the inner city could be the bags of rubbish strewn all over the place. Not sure.
They can’t even get their euphemisms right. A “plume” is a feather or something resembling a feather, such as a helmet ornament or a “plume of smoke”. It goes upwards, not outwards. In this case, the correct euphemism would be a “brown fan”.
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