The Printer

James Brown

blanch152 wrote: »

I have posted many an opinion. The fact that you are incapable of responding In substance to my opinions is not my problem

No you haven't. You refuse to answer a straight question, (on numerous threads and topics). Easier being a hurler on the ditch waiting on others to put themselves out there and try knock it.

The costing done above is exclusive of VAT. So 1.3 million for the equipment and renovations. Actually, I’m unsure if the renovations figure is exclusive. We also didn’t add in storage costs/training/ink or paper.

James Brown

This printer business is a good insight into the workings of the state.
I know at one point they were having those wooden chairs they use at meetings handmade to order for thousands a pop. You can't get a wooden chair anywhere I believe...

The printer was put in an industrial estate for the price of 2 grand a month. Don't tell me that's not some lads pulling a nice earner, (e-voting storage all over again). They should look into that.
Also the printer was paid for in 2018 but isn't expected to be up and running until next year.
"Clerk of the Dáil Peter Finnegan showed that the cost of the printer, including VAT, was €1.369m."
This Finnegan lad says he looked into it and the printer is needed and there's no issues so nothing to see here. We should investigate Finnegan too.

We don't need, (but will likely get) a costly investigation. Find out who ordered it and why. See if they've a connection to the supplier. See if they got a mystery deposit in their bank. Sack or demote the f***wit who gave the go ahead. Simples.

Fr_Dougal

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

What's much more likely to have happened is some variation on the following:

an expression of interest to procure a new printer was submitted to the European Journal - known in the business as the OJEC. Here's the OJEC - https://www.ojec.com/. You can see all the tenders being submitted by public sector organisations across Europe.

an RFQ was issued based upon expressions of interest.

A tender was issued based upon requirements for a commercial/industrial grade printer. Here's the thing - someone might have forgotten to put in a requirement that it needed to be able to fit in through a door, or fit in a space of a specific size.

Tender gets awarded after months of tortuous back and forth, legal oversight, procurement rules etc. The vendor has built in the cost of dealing with the public service into the price.

Printer gets delivered and doesn't fit.

This has nothing to do with the government. This is a civil service issue. It's amazing how utterly ignorant so many 'all day merchants' are about the separation between the Government, Civil Service, and the Law.

A more likely scenario is that the office had an existing relationship with the supplier.
Supplier is asked to help write the tender.
Supplier specs the machine to cut out the competition and make sure that they’re the only one who can supply.
Supplier wins tender.
Hilarity ensues.

James Brown

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

A more likely scenario is that the office had an existing relationship with the supplier.
Supplier is asked to help write the tender.
Supplier specs the machine to cut out the competition and make sure that they’re the only one who can supply.
Supplier wins tender.
Hilarity ensues.

With La's generally, (I know in Wexford you only get permission to erect a fence if you use a certain company to do it) the offer/contract is advertised. All replies are logged and vetted by a board. The one everyone deems the best gets it.
It seems on this and much larger projects, (water metering, broadband, NCH etc.) the government/state have more of a nod and a wink approach.

whisky_galore

Eric Cartman wrote: »

Have you seen the average age of people in the dail, enda kenny still uses a nokia 6310i as a phone , youre 15-20 years away from them reading anything on screen en masse

To be fair we wouldn't have this problem if the printer was the same vintage as the phone and still doing the job it was intended to do. I don't know why they want a monster of a thing that would print a regional newspaper.

Ash.J.Williams

Matt Barrett wrote: »

This printer business is a good insight into the workings of the state.
I know at one point they were having those wooden chairs they use at meetings handmade to order for thousands a pop. You can't get a wooden chair anywhere I believe...

The printer was put in an industrial estate for the price of 2 grand a month. Don't tell me that's not some lads pulling a nice earner, (e-voting storage all over again). They should look into that.
Also the printer was paid for in 2018 but isn't expected to be up and running until next year.
"Clerk of the Dáil Peter Finnegan showed that the cost of the printer, including VAT, was €1.369m."
This Finnegan lad says he looked into it and the printer is needed and there's no issues so nothing to see here. We should investigate Finnegan too.

We don't need, (but will likely get) a costly investigation. Find out who ordered it and why. See if they've a connection to the supplier. See if they got a mystery deposit in their bank. Sack or demote the f***wit who gave the go ahead. Simples.

so it's 1.3m for a 2 year old printer ....ouch

James Brown

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

so it's 1.3m for a 2 year old printer ....ouch

That nobody knew how big it was or knows how to use

zeebre12

€236,000 on structural works? You could build a new house for that. I suppose those who done the structural works could pick any figure out of the sky. Crazy. Was Dermot Bannon involved by any chance?

bmc58

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

Seriously? What reasons did they give for not using it?

They have to be taught how to use it.Paper must be loaded using a bloody forklift.

zeebre12

I must say it's actually a great little country.

Idbatterim

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

A more likely scenario is that the office had an existing relationship with the supplier.
Supplier is asked to help write the tender.
Supplier specs the machine to cut out the competition and make sure that they’re the only one who can supply.
Supplier wins tender.
Hilarity ensues.

supplier knows it wont fit, but also has a builder buddy who can help :rolleyes:

Idbatterim

zeebre12 wrote: »

€236,000 on structural works? You could build a new house for that. I suppose those who done the structural works could pick any figure out of the sky. Crazy. Was Dermot Bannon involved by any chance?

they probably installed a large glass wall, so that the printer had a nice view! The room would also have had to be painted all in white :rolleyes:

sure there was always going to be unforeseen problems and a budget over run :rolleyes:

zeebre12

This has to be the tip of the iceberg. Think of all the things we didn't find out about. I'd say the amount of overspend on things and money wasted is shocking. Shur what's s few hundred thousand here and there. They think nothing of it.

Del.Monte

The whole thing is another farce and I can't be bothered reading back over the thread but I wonder has anybody asked the following:


1) What has happened to the 'old' printing press (2007) which I'm sure many a commercial printer would be interested in purchasing?


2) What about a breakdown of what is actually being printed in the Dail and is most of it nonsense such as christmas cards, calendars etc.?


3) What sort of message does this wasteful printing send out to the public who are being constantly urged to reduce, reuse and recycle?


4) Will anybody get fired over this? Just kidding.

nkl12xtw5goz70

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

They shouldn’t be given everyone reams of paper to read in this day and age.

A few copies to be kept for prosperity, yeah. But read everything else digitally.

Agreed completely. Heading into the 2020s, we should be issuing documents electronically as PDFs. All TDs have Oireachtas email addresses and presumably computers, laptops, tablets, etc., so there was arguably no need for this printer, let alone the €1.8 million fiasco it has turned into.

Allinall

Del.Monte wrote: »

The whole thing is another farce and I can't be bothered reading back over the thread but I wonder has anybody asked the following:


1) What has happened to the 'old' printing press (2007) which I'm sure many a commercial printer would be interested in purchasing?


2) What about a breakdown of what is actually being printed in the Dail and is most of it nonsense such as christmas cards, calendars etc.?


3) What sort of message does this wasteful printing send out to the public who are being constantly urged to reduce, reuse and recycle?


4) Will anybody get fired over this? Just kidding.

No idea on 2, 3, or 4,
But according to the journalist who broke the story, they got a 40k “trade-in” on the old printer.

Del.Monte

Allinall wrote: »

No idea on 2, 3, or 4,
But according to the journalist who broke the story, they got a 40k “trade-in” on the old printer.

Sounds like somebody got a bargain.

SEPT 23 1989

Why is yer man saying the staff are waiting to be trained on the new machine?

Part of the purchase price is a days training on even the cheapest printer and that happens the day the engineers have it set up on the floor

For that money I would expect a weeks training not that you would need it having experience working older machines

Allinall

Del.Monte wrote: »

Sounds like somebody got a bargain.

Not sure about that.

A 12 year old printer will not be compatible with most software now.

I’d say it went straight to the great print room in the sky.

mountain

Training on a press like that would be about 5-6 days.

Old press more than likely exported to India, or African country.

glenfieldman

Eric Cartman wrote: »

Have you seen the average age of people in the dail, enda kenny still uses a nokia 6310i as a phone , youre 15-20 years away from them reading anything on screen en masse

Enda is never in the Dail

Quantum Erasure

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Part of the purchase price is a days training on even the cheapest printer and that happens the day the engineers have it set up on the floor

yeah but, who delivered it to the warehouse/ storage location, and who installed it in situ, are not necessarily the same people.
it'll take another week long junket, at least, to sort this out...

('It's not a HR, issue, it's a training issue' yeah right...)

Allinall wrote: »

A 12 year old printer will not be compatible with most software now.

the software should have a backwards-compatible option, at least.
I mean I'm sure theres commercial printers 15 or 20 years old still in use today

WIne Gums

I wonder if the €1.6m includes the fork-lift truck to load the paper into the machine ?

emaherx

Allinall wrote: »

Not sure about that.

A 12 year old printer will not be compatible with most software now.

I’d say it went straight to the great print room in the sky.

Industrial printers use standard printing protocols that have changed little in the past 20 years. They also remain in support for decades.

I maintain a number of industrial printers one of which was built in the 90's and has a print count of over 600,000,000 pages.

Depending on the usage the 12 year old printer could be still quite fresh or hammered to death age has little to do with these machines but mileage has.

Quantum Erasure

I'd love to see the actual set up of the room for this, with access for forklifts and all.

I wonder was there not a more suitable place, or more accessible at least, with no need for renovations to install it in.

maybe it needed to be in that specific building, because that's where the people with the expertise to manage it were located....

emaherx

Quantum Erasure wrote: »

I'd love to see the actual set up of the room for this, with access for forklifts and all.

I wonder was there not a more suitable place, or more accessible at least, with no need for renovations to install it in.

maybe it needed to be in that specific building, because that's where the people with the expertise to manage it were located....

Can't understand why the supplier was not tasked with a site survey and how they were paid in full before installation.


They claimed new forklift was needed to load it but I'm sure they meant electric pallet truck.

marvin80

zeebre12 wrote: »

This has to be the tip of the iceberg. Think of all the things we didn't find out about. I'd say the amount of overspend on things and money wasted is shocking. Shur what's s few hundred thousand here and there. They think nothing of it.

We've heard about this because it's such a large amount.

I'm sure there's colossal amount of money wasted throughout the public service that we'll never hear about. And why wouldn't they when there's zero accountability!

whisky_galore

mountain wrote: »

Training on a press like that would be about 5-6 days.

Old press more than likely exported to India, or African country.

From one banana republic to an other.

is_that_so

zeebre12 wrote: »

This has to be the tip of the iceberg. Think of all the things we didn't find out about. I'd say the amount of overspend on things and money wasted is shocking. Shur what's s few hundred thousand here and there. They think nothing of it.

We've heard about this because of the dog's dinner they made at all stages of the process. Even with alleged public waste there is a trail you can follow to see who signed off on it. Doubt if any of them would get this elephant approved!