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A TRUCK RUN organised by one of the first responders to the Creeslough tragedy is taking place today in Co Donegal to raise money for the victim’s families.
Ten people were killed following an explosion in the Co Donegal village on the afternoon of Friday, 7 October.
Today’s truck run has been organised by Colin Kilpatrick, who was one of the first people on the scene the day of the explosion.
Speaking after the explosion, he told PA: “I was making delivery at the creamery when the explosion happened and I fell over but I presumed the lorry or the trailer had a problem, that there was a blow-out in the tyre.
“I got out of the lorry and saw the shop and then I knew what happened.
“We took lorries up and worked right through until everyone was out. Everyone was taking turns to get stuff moved out of the way.”
Speaking to The Journal, Dean McLaughlin, who has helped to organise today’s truck run, said that today’s event was Kilpatrick’s idea and that Kilpatrick “felt that he wanted to give even more back to the community”.
The truck run will leave from Bernard Long & Sons Transport yard in Ballybofey and travel to Creeslough, via Letterkenny.
They will then travel to the Silver Tassie Hotel via Milford for an auction to raise funds for the victims of the Creeslough tragedy.
Kilpatrick and McLaughlin are both employees of Bernard Long & Sons Transport and McLaughlin said that the event couldn’t have been organised without the help of their employer.
While in Creeslough, Kilpatrick will lay a wreath for the victims of the explosion.
McLaughlin told The Journal that the response has been overwhelming and that their “phones have been hopping all week”.
He’s anticipating up to 300 lorries and thanked the lorry community for coming on board, as well as individuals and businesses from right across the country who have donated towards the auction.
Meanwhile, gardaí have advised motorists to expect delays along the route and have asked motorists to leave extra time for any journeys.
Gardaí will be on hand at all of the locations along the route to assist with traffic management and will also provide an escort for the trucks.
A garda spokesperson added that they will do their best to ensure that disruption to other traffic is kept to a minimum but have asked for motorists to plan ahead if they plan on travelling this route.
Meanwhile, a documentary will air on TG4 this Wednesday at 9.30pm about the response to the Creeslough explosion.
Colin Kilpatrick will be featured on the opening episode of the new current affairs series entitled Iniúchadh TG4.
Digger driver Henry Gallagher will also be featured on the programme.
Gallagher remained in the cab of his excavator for twenty-four hours removing rubble from the collapsed building until the last body of ten victims was recovered.
“You just see a river of high vis vests and I know that among that, there are families waiting on news,” Gallagher told TG4.
“The only way that they are going to get the news of a loved one being taken out, is for me to get in.”
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They should be made build their own power plants contributing to the grid.
Not taking away.
@Notty Tee: That is what’s needed, a guarantee that new data centres are self-sufficient, and can contribute to the grid when needed. We could even use their vast battery backups for national energy storage, which is important as renewables (wind, solar) are intermittent. They should be paying back more than just taxes.
Also, while new planning permission requirements for data centres requires the owner to commit to generating, or storing, the same amount of power as the data centre uses, these changes does mean they generate their own electricity all the time, it’s only back up power. So if a power station goes down, or there’s a lack of power due to a lack of wind, or a cable snaps in the Irish Sea, and we lack power, we won’t have to switch off sections of the grid (rolling black-outs) to keep data centres on. So there’s at least that.
@Notty Tee: you’re using a data centre right now looking at this!
@David Jordan: why dont we close all the data centres and bring the country back to the 1950s
@Peter Byrne: well that’s just wrong. Maybe learn how these things work.
Disgusting. For those saying we need data centres to keep up with technological advances – these data centres are housing data from across the world. Helping other countries advance technology while having us pay extra for electricity to accommodate them. We’re a joke.
@James Groden: far left nonsense opposing progress as per usual. You and the far right are two sides of the same coin
@James Groden: we don’t pay for their electricity…
@Eoghan O Sullivan: No you don’t, but you massively subsidise it. They have a good reason for not showing us the rates big business pays.
People forget very easily. What about the scandal in 2023, which showed how consumers were paying more to help businesses for the previous 10 years.
What is the actual financial benefit to Ireland from accommodating data centers?
@P0h2YVAL: they pay for their electricity. Many jobs in construction, and some thereafter.
@Eoghan O Sullivan: this is untrue. They do not pay their fair share, and sometimes not at all. There are construction jobs for mostly non-nationals and a handful of ex-pats. It’s the new colonisation. As evidence has shown data centres have NOTHING to do with employment in tech companies themselves. This is an untruth from FFG.
@P0h2YVAL: it’s a negative. We are failing in the scam that is the climate bill due to data centres and will have to pay billions for housing data for everyone else.
Also, I’d imagine a massive target on our backs easily destroyed in war situations.
@Luas Vuitton – Penneys Drag Queen:
Why dont we just close all the data centres so , do away with all those on line nonsense , do away with smart phones, and bring the country back to the 1950s. Most of the data centres capacity is used in Ireland for you silly fotos , all the email and Irish web sites and loads more information which needs storage space
@Eoghan O Sullivan: data centres employ far fewer employees than other tech industries and there’s a dearth of construction workers in the country so the effects on employment is minimal
@Peter Byrne: you need to cop on and grow up.
@Peter Byrne: Why don’t we all go back to living on potatoes and buttermilk you big child.
@P0h2YVAL: zero
The Irish love to burden themselves for foreigners. Data centres should be no different
Add an automated A.I./robot system to the centers, and there will be close to no employment offered by data centers. Give it a decade.
No wonder our electric is the highest in Europe with competition like that. But we’re told it’s Putins war that is pushing up the price. Arseholes
@Ethan Gannon: Have you got special privileges slipping arsehole in there?
@Pat Barry: apparently not. You were able to use the term yourself.
I suppose this will lead to massive fines under the climate agreements?
@A D: yes yes
If they’re saying a third then it will be more. They love to slow boil us with info
@Gavin Smartr: I was thinking the same thing about Paschal’s 50,000 – 80,000 estimate of unemployed possibly to come.
I hate way they make things and then blame us for it. Data centres are hugely damaging for our health and the environment.
@Be Lucky: post Offices always have Doro phones in stock.
@Be Lucky:
Also the health of the children who assembled your mobile phone in China
Is there a case to be made that as electricity is a product in demand, like that of houses, that demand could make the product more expensive?
@Keth 417: not just a case to be made, it’s just an eternal truth, demand will always make any product more expensive. There are only three exceptions to this: goods of conspicuous consumption, inferior goods, and giffen goods.
@George Bowling: Well said.
I’m starting online petition to curb data centres. Please sign it and share it as much as you can.
I’ll be holding a zoom call to kick off the campaign and organise on WhatsApp after that.
Donations via Revolut please.
who do we blame now that eamon ryan is gone? i thought the era of too many data centres, asylum seekers and carbon taxes would be over with no greens in gov?
Because we were an agricultural exporter we had too many cows. Now we are an IT country and they are still unhappy. What next ????
This is what generates thousands of well paid jobs in Ireland, if you watch TV, netflix, use the internet, have a phone, have an online account of any type, then you are using data centres, they are essential to the live as we know it, the only way to demand for these data centres to go some place else is if you live in the woods, use no internet whatsoever and don;t use any type of fuel to heat your house, just hunt roadkill animals, have your own greenhouse and cover yourself warm during winter. Otherwise, you have no idea of what you’re talking about, these data centres will be used one way or another.
This is the fun bit as to why Ireland is a big player in the data centre and IT business
Ireland’s climate is not too hot nor too cold, servers generate heat, in warmer places, it will require massive air conditioning and in places like Norway, massive heating as the servers do not generate enough heat to keep at a regulated temperature in cold weather. Moving servers somewhere else will use more planet resources.
Ireland’s location between the USA and India. A human must always be supervised, and work needs to be active 24/7
In a nutshell, Ireland may not have oil, natural resources, but it has the perfect location for It services. Businesses don’t come here for the craic, they come because it’s cheaper to operate and, for once, it’s better for the environment. We just need to generate more green energy, more wind turbines, more solar panels, stop with the NIMBYSM and get it done
@J Ven: untrue.
@J Ven: True.
@Luas Vuitton – Penneys Drag Queen: Tell me with facts, hard proof, what is untrue? Your feelings don’t make it untrue, please show your facts
@Tasty k: no data centres, no smart phones, go back to the woods
@J Ven: the average data centre employs 30 staff -
a very small number in return for their drain on resources
@J Ven: you’ve made broad sweeping claims with zero evidence yet are demanding proof from others? What a hypocrite
@J Ven: You forgot to mention hospitals who use their own data centres on site plus an external one for mirrored backup.
Data centres are here to stay, and people need to accept them. The alternative is going back to paper records, which are a nightmare in themselves.
If only there was a way for people to calculate the power required and plan in advance for our power requirements. Seemingly impossible in Ireland though and much better to blame the data centre for using the power they said they were going to use.
Surely it’s part of the planning process to see if we have the capacity to accommodate them and if not then deny the permission to build or plan for expanding our power production.
If they were made to add renewable power grids to support their usage and also donate forestry or purchase carbon capturing in addition as then we would avoid all this. Ireland is geographically safer than most countries when it comes to climate events for the future that is why the data centers are being built here.
That’s a lot of porn
This scaremongering has been going on for the past 25 years!
Cows, Tourists, Data – everything is bad for the environment is seems. We are all doomed
In fairness, some people spend a third of their time on their phone…..and then go back to the computer screen in work….which is also using data centers….. He says….typing in the journal…. Via a data centre
For a fraction of the cost compared to the great unwashed
Ban all social media…simples!
Making customers poorer and poorer! We Can’t carry the burden of these Companies any longer…Enough IS Enough! Price Caps Now please!!!
@ louis vitton
I work on one of these construction sites. I’d say it’s made up of 75% Irish lads. Without the non Irish workers, the country would grind to a halt.
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