"Green" policies are destroying this country

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120089291#Comment_120089291

You need to chill out.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120090425#Comment_120090425

When will this investment happen

There's been more invested in rural PT in the last 2 years than many years combined before. You want it done sooner and covering a larger area with greater frequency, demand it from your local TD. There's a shift happening in transport investment with less and less going towards the provision of infrastructure to encourage car use, and more going towards more sustainable modes so there is opportunity to get PT investment in your area. As to how soon that would happen, no clue

Wow this is big. Before a turbine is even made for offshore wind projects, local communities will start seeing the financial benefits to the tune of 2eur per MW

https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/7bae6-coastal-and-marine-communities-hosting-offshore-wind-projects-to-benefit-from-up-to-20-million-per-year/

Coastal and marine communities are in line to benefit significantly from offshore renewable electricity projects. Under a new framework published by the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan, generators of offshore wind will be required to make substantial annual contributions to community benefit funds.

A key feature of the new framework, known as the 'Community Benefit Fund Rulebook for Generators and Fund Administrators', is that generators must start making contributions from the early stages of the offshore wind project, that is, prior to commencing operation. This means that coastal and marine communities could start to benefit from as early as 2025 and could look forward to receiving benefits for up to 25 years in total.

Contributions to these funds will be determined by the amount of energy generated, with €2 required to be paid for every MWh of electricity generated over the lifetime of the support period. Given the anticipated high levels of offshore generation, the amounts involved are expected to be very substantial — approximately €4 million per annum from a typical 500MW offshore wind project, and almost €20 million per annum from all projects expected to deploy via the first auction for offshore wind under the Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (ORESS 1).*

howiya

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120090679#Comment_120090679

Well if you've no clue maybe you can stop suggesting that there are alternatives to the car in rural Ireland.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120090761#Comment_120090761

There are alternatives to the car in rural Ireland though, just no alternatives exist that suit 100% of people but then you could say the same for urban dwellers too

howiya

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120090788#Comment_120090788

I've already demonstrated that in this particular village that I have knowledge of through family connections there are no alternatives to the car for people who work.

There are six bus services a day. Three in each direction. The first to the nearest town at 10:15am.

The next bus from that town back to the village is at 7am tomorrow.

LocalLink is extremely limited and is not a viable alternative to driving a car.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120090864#Comment_120090864

See my previous post for a response

howiya

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120090900#Comment_120090900

The one that said you haven't a clue. Got it

Great numbers coming from wind generation lately

https://twitter.com/IrishEnergyBot/status/1612713530460889090?s=20&t=98YbaWWey-3wV3dQQyIy2A

Danone is the latest firm to find itself in legal trouble over its links to pollution

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/10/activists-sue-french-food-firm-danone-plastics-footprint

Larbre34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120090989#Comment_120090989

Yeah, cos its windy.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120090864#Comment_120090864

i mean public transport and best practices when it comes to planning in rural ireland were ignored for 100 years by ff/fg, so obviously people will need cars for ever more in many parts of the country. the greens are at least trying to do something about it now, it's a total mess though unfortunately, but the new bus services and this hackney idea are at least something and may help some people.

don't worry no one is taking your car whether there are rural transport improvements or not.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120090963#Comment_120090963

How about we keep treating each other like adults and not revert to childish quips, will result in a much more interesting chat.

The response I was referring to was where I stated "There are alternatives to the car in rural Ireland though, just no alternatives exist that suit 100% of people but then you could say the same for urban dwellers too"

It would seem you are looking for there to be alternatives for 100% of potential use cases. Personally I'd love to see that but I am also a realist and do not allow for perfect to be the enemy of good as there are limits to the feasibility of some things.

That being said, if I understand you correctly, what you are looking for would require an alternative to the car that would take any (in your scenario) village occupant to any location within the nation, in time for work and back home again and be available from at least 5am until about midnight to cover the vastly majority of working hours for those in employment, have a regular frequency and not cost too much for the users of the service.

If we look at the costs involved with such an endeavor, how would you propose it be paid for particularly as this would be needed for every village across the country?

I am interested to see your answer as I don't see how its feasible without something like an 70% tax rate on everything, but maybe you have thought of something that I haven't

JRant

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120089275#Comment_120089275

That's cart before the horse stuff right there. You will not improve climate awareness or environmental improvement while so many people still have very limited or no access to cheap reliable energy. The type that lifts millions upon millions out of poverty.

A country with a stable government and availability of cheap energy is very very unlikely to suffer famine, even in times of drought.

Danno

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120089669#Comment_120089669

Many posters have and continue to maintain that rural communities have no alternative to the private car. In the context of there being an alternative I post info related to increases in the provision of LocalLink, BE, IE services and routes and now this additional service.

You did indeed bring it up, a few weeks back now, and I replied to most of them pointing out how the timetabling of many of the routes are useless to many people who need to be in work on time. You didn't afford a response as usual and then you go on about these routes a few weeks later thinking folk have forgotten. Try harder.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091187#Comment_120091187

By all means feel free to take a stab at replying to this

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091060#Comment_120091060

Pa ElGrande

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091060#Comment_120091060

Stop deflecting. Much of rural Ireland has very limited services within a 10 minute drive, about the only thing defining many local parishes is the Church, GAA and national school. The churches are gradually fading away as the congregation and priests die off (it is further to get to mass). Creameries are long gone. Services such as post offices and Gardai left years ago. There may be some pubs or shops hanging on until the owner dies or retires, many folded due to Shane Ross, unless they are within the cachement area of sub-urban outskirts. Even town residents need a car. Many country town centers have been hollowed out with commercial activity taking place in retail parks or petrol stations on the edge of these towns.

Here is the reality if you plan to live in a rural area.

1. Weekly shopping is done at a supermarket that will be 10 KM to 30 KM away (minimum). Tesco will do delivery, but the run is once per week.
2. Garda cover same distance. Easy target for urban gangs who use the main roads to target rural dwellers.
3. Dental & Doctors surgery nearest town. Doctors don't do callouts, you have to get to the surgery. Call a taxi? really.
4. Electricity out due to storm damage, sometimes you can be unlucky and be out for several weeks depending on how remote you are. Likewise for internet services.
5. Getting to school many areas have bus schemes. Second level school will be in the nearest town minimum 10KM. Otherwise drop off on the way to work and wait to be picked up again an hour or 2 after school finishes. Bus breaks down, you walk home. Getting to the local Disco means persuading Mammy & Daddy to give you a lift to town and pick you up afterwards. Don't forget the trips to matches and other events the kids get involved in.
6. Cycle to the town, you can, it will take 40 minutes to get there at least, good luck traveling on country roads. The countrside has been industrialised, so think large tractors and lorries hauling loads on roads that are just about wide enough to pass. The roads get torn up with frost and rain, those potholes on the side have their own characteristics, you get to know them year after year. Whose idea was it to let briars and nettles grow out into the road especially when the weather is suitable for cycling or walking?

Bottom line: You need a car.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091282#Comment_120091282

Stopping one-off housing outside of villages and towns would revitalise a lot of our towns and villages and address a lot of your points

But then there will be those who say its their god given right to live in the back arse of nowhere while at the same time say its not fair they don't have a bus 24hrs a day right to their front door from their work

🤷‍♂️

Life is about choices

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091060#Comment_120091060

So unlimited number of windmills needs no tax ? Amazing that things that don't really have a solution need to have tax. Where others that have no solution don't I.E windmills. And it would not take hundreds of billion to have door to door service for busses 247. 🤪

Pa ElGrande

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091308#Comment_120091308

Life is about choices

You may want to ponder that. Part of the conflict is the political establishment act to take away choices and force their ideas on people who do not vote for them. If they get their way the Greens will turn rural Ireland into a wildlife theme park interspersed with fields of solar panels and wind turbines.

Danno

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091308#Comment_120091308

The one-off houses are there. Stopping more of them - I'd welcome alot of that but the reality is:

No affordable sites in towns or villages or on the edges of same.

Any lands that come up are snapped up by bank-rolled developers paying over the odds for such lands who then pack them out with as many yellow-pack houses as they can legally fit to extract as much profit as possible.

The government love the above point as they cream it in on taxes.

Nobody is suggesting rolling bus services from bohreen to bohreen serving every one-off house in the countryside.

Why aren't the greens suggesting:

• Proper bus services connecting villages and small towns to bigger centres where there is employment.
• Proper timetables laid on following consultation with people living in the catchment area and employers.
• Free park-and-ride for people in the countryside to only use the car for the last mile of their commute from a local village or small town.

No, the greens are no better than FF who flung money at the HSE like confetti in the years gone by in the hope that the issues would go away. The greens are flinging money at vanity buses and cycle lanes along with wind turbines without any real benefit to the citizen whom the greens love taxing to the hilt via carbon charges.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091553#Comment_120091553

Why aren't the greens suggesting:

They're not suggesting, they're doing. All of your points are happening but we're starting from zero due to decades of prioritising the car as the only option. I'll speak to the ones I'm aware only

• Proper bus services connecting villages and small towns to bigger centres where there is employment.
  • This is what local link is doing. Its early days and massive scope for improvement in coverage, routes and frequency is there
  • Its also being done with rail and other BE services
  • Plus the recently announced subsidised hackney service
• Proper timetables laid on following consultation with people living in the catchment area and employers.
  • no argument. A timetable that suits nobody is not a viable option for anyone (see some of IE's timetabling)
• Free park-and-ride for people in the countryside to only use the car for the last mile of their commute from a local village or small town.
  • Interesting, I have never seen that proposed before and honestly not something I'd thought of, though there is the option to park at the likes of bus & train stations so I don't see why something couldn't be extended to more localised locations
  • There are P&R's planned for the major cities to allow for those who must drive, to be able to avail of PT/AT options closer to the city. I think this makes sense initially, but you idea is intriguing

Thankfully the ratio of spend has shifted and will shift further but it will take years. Unfortunate I know but everything has to start from somewhere

Danno

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091690#Comment_120091690

They're not suggesting, they're doing.

They're not doing much worthwhile. The vast majority of what they've done is a waste.

All of your points are happening but we're starting from zero due to decades of prioritising the car as the only option. I'll speak to the ones I'm aware only

Proper bus services connecting villages and small towns to bigger centres where there is employment.This is what local link is doing. Its early days and massive scope for improvement in coverage, routes and frequency is there

• Local link is hopeless in the vast majority of places owing to hopeless timetabling.

Its also being done with rail and other BE services

• Example please - rail timetable and bus eireann and local link timetables don't integrate. My brother recently wanted to return to Dublin of a Sunday night. Train timetabled to leave at 7.28pm. Bus stops outside the train station at 7.33pm. Lunatic stuff - but the idiots overseeing this are paid handsomely no doubt.

Plus the recently announced subsidised hackney service

• Not worth a curse to the vast majority of people. Might be handy for the few old bachelors getting home from the pub, that's about it.

Proper timetables laid on following consultation with people living in the catchment area and employers.no argument. A timetable that suits nobody is not a viable option for anyone (see some of IE's timetabling)

• Generally when anyone in the private sector is putting on a product or service, there is a good bit of market research done. But typical of any "big-government" they have no issue in flittering away other peoples money with no value for money analysis done.

Free park-and-ride for people in the countryside to only use the car for the last mile of their commute from a local village or small town.Interesting, I have never seen that proposed before and honestly not something I'd thought of, though there is the option to park at the likes of bus & train stations so I don't see why something couldn't be extended to more localised locations

• Centres of villages and small towns are often choked with cars all day long parked up as they carpool/vanpool to Dublin. This is an acute problem in alot of Leinster as many tradesmen/builders etc... travel to Dublin.

There are P&R's planned for the major cities to allow for those who must drive, to be able to avail of PT/AT options closer to the city. I think this makes sense initially, but you idea is intriguing

• There needs to be more and it needs to be free, otherwise people will just drive on. The greens need to drop their recently announced plans to drastically increase parking charges.

Thankfully the ratio of spend has shifted and will shift further but it will take years. Unfortunate I know but everything has to start from somewhere

as I said earlier - yea are throwing good money at it and solving very little. For a crowd that likes to think yea "have it all figured out" yea are hopeless.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091803#Comment_120091803

They're not doing much worthwhile. The vast majority of what they've done is a waste.

We can agree to disagree

Example please - rail timetable and bus eireann and local link timetables don't integrate. My brother recently wanted to return to Dublin of a Sunday night. Train timetabled to leave at 7.28pm. Bus stops outside the train station at 7.33pm. Lunatic stuff - but the idiots overseeing this are paid handsomely no doubt.

Sure

https://www.irishtimes.com/transport/2022/09/19/irish-rail-proposes-extra-commuter-and-intercity-services/

This stuff also requires more buses & trains

https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/b0ca8-minister-ryan-announces-major-expansion-of-irish-rail-fleet/

Centres of villages and small towns are often choked with cars all day long parked up as they carpool/vanpool to Dublin. This is an acute problem in alot of Leinster as many tradesmen/builders etc... travel to Dublin.

Definite demand there so

There needs to be more and it needs to be free, otherwise people will just drive on.

I don't know that it needs to be free, but it needs to be a viable, attractive option i.e. more attractive than the alternative which might be parking in the city which would be made less attractive by increasing the price of parking in the city

The greens need to drop their recently announced plans to drastically increase parking charges.

Unlikely to happen and this forms the basis of all the 5 cities transport strategies to 2040, regardless of the green party this is happening and was always going to happen. See the LSMATS, WMATS, CMATS, GTS etc. In particulaar pay attention to the versions that were in effect prior to the GP even being in govt which all had the requirement to reduce parking and increase the cost of what remains as a disincentive to driving into the city

as I said earlier - yea are throwing good money at it and solving very little. For a crowd that likes to think yea "have it all figured out" yea are hopeless.

who is "yea"?

Do you think I am in some way connected to the GP, because I'm not. As stated here many times, I haven't even voted for them

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091910#Comment_120091910

😂😂 that last paragraph! 😂😂

Kincora2017

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091803#Comment_120091803

I really don’t understand this. Isn’t the fact that they’re doing something better than every other crowd who are doing nothing to help the situation and have overseen the slow death of our rural towns and villages?

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120089350#Comment_120089350

Off you go

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091062#Comment_120091062

The cheapest form of electricity generation is Solar. These developing countries would be much better off skipping fossil fuels entirely

Danno

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091953#Comment_120091953

They're not doing anything better - the greens think they are serving rural Ireland by putting on ghost busses with ridiculous timetables is some great thing, it's not. Thats before I delve into the pleathera of other anti-rural standings they have.

As mentioned above about bus and rail timetable's integrating, @[Deleted User] links to an Irish Times article thats full of even more waffle. This is the level of thinking and planning these guys come up with.

One peach of an example from the Irish Times Article:

07.00 Waterford to Heuston will additionally serve Kilkenny at 07.28; train is advanced to 06.50 from Waterford, but no change to arrival time in Heuston at 09.00 as a result

Anyone along the M9 corridor who wants to be in Dublin (at their desk/premises of work) for 9am is screwed. They're better off staying in their car.

This is what happens when you've people who have lived off the public purse all their lives climbing the ladder to make decisions. They never had to turn a few quid in their lives and know nothing of how supply and demand works.

They'll put on that 650am train from Waterford regardless and it will never dawn on them why few people use it for commuting.

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091950#Comment_120091950

Just having every green press release on speed dial 🤑