"Green" policies are destroying this country

It's not just in Ireland, all across the UK streets are being turned over to people and some retail outlets (which were being replaced by online shopping or multinational chain stores anyways)..changed over to food/entertainment/specialist stores.

In Western European cities you'll see what Irish towns and cities will look like in the future...

Limerick city, like Dublin, started life as a convenient sea port, river crossing and gateway to Vikings raiding the hinterland along the Shannon river (pillage & slave trade). Bulk and mass transit such as existed then was economically much cheaper to move by water, cow trails (bóthar) don't make for easy transport. Sites like the Skellig islands and Clonmacnoise are isolated today, at the time they were on the transport arteries of their day.  The Limerick river crossing was a useful chokepoint at the center of hinterland and traders could gather there and more convienietly move product, globalisation has been underway since the end of the ice age C. 13,000 years ago and as far as we can tell the past 8,000 years in Ireland.  

Limerick city built its trade as a river crossing chokepoint at the center of its hinterland. In 2023, that chokepoint has become a bottleneck, the human population has grown and spread out along the main road arteries and places like the Cresent shopping center are easily acessible from the min road arteries.

Being neutral in WWII and at the edge of empire there was no mass bombing or destruction of cities in Ireland like happened on continental Europe, that gave them a chance to start again. Instead we have groups like An Taisce & The Georgian Society that insist that nothing must change, old buildings must be preserved, when they should be bulldozed. In effect the buildings and walls in Limerick were preserved in a perfect state of dis-repair, in the 1980s much of the Limerick city center looked like it had actually been carpet bombed there were so many ruins.  From the 1960s, government policy led to social housing estates like Ballynanty/Moyross, Southill/Roxboro being built, chances are if you heard Limerick city in the news at the time it was due to stabbing incidents in these estates. Limerick industry in the early decades of the state revolved around the imports, processing flour (Ranks), tanning leather and meat processing, that faded away, eventually the focus turned to assembly (Dell, Krups, AST, Wang) i.e. screwdriver operations before they went bust or left for Poland in the 2000s.    These days employment are a mix of light engineering, logistics, software development, hospitality, education, healthcare, retail and the support services that go with these.  

If you go to the larger surrounding towns within a 50 KM radius of Limerick city (Charleville, Newcastle West, Thurles, Ennis), retail has moved to the outskirts off the road arteries with the petrol stations follow the 7-11 retail model from the United States, which tends to be the hub of activity for commuterland in the evenings. The town centers that built up around cattle markets have become dormer towns and traders & banks have been replaced by fast food outlets, convenience stores and maybe some pubs. Most of the country pubs have closed as their owners died with Shane Ross issuing the final coup de grace when he was minister.

If you consider Limericks city centers prime attraction, it is still the fact that it is the centerpoint of the hinterland in the mid-West region and can function as a central meeting place for large events, that really leaves hospitality.  The population lives in commuterland and dormer towns, these are cheaper to build, buy and rent and importantly available, they are low crime and many people have family connections in these areas and are generally involved in their local parish activities such as sport, religion and other organisations. Compare that living in the city center, it's fine if you are a young person out socialising, however, if you want to settle and raise a family is this really the best place and could you afford it?

To shop in the outskirts and leave the city centres for cash4gold shops and bookies

Quite a few of the the planning problems started with An Taisce morphing into a green advocacy group where they were getting members without a pot to piss in to object to planning application in areas the knew nothing about and lived miles and miles from because if they lost the appeal there was no way those wasters could pay. Far as I recall they applied to be joined with the U.K. on one occassion in an appeal to the ECJ, but the U.K. High Court sent them packing.

Much the same is happening now.

Get yourself recognised as some climate change or environmental grouping, with no evidence of who supports you or how many, and you can appeal any decision all the way through the courts and no worries if you win or lose, the state covers the fees. It`s bully-boy tactics where they know when pushing their agenda on planning, local communities will not be indemnified by the state to do as they do and run to the courts. They are even now running to the courts as nimby`s objecting to applications that they have no problem smugly smiling and telling others on similar "It`s for the good of the planet, so just suck it up there Paddy"

You could put on 20 extra shifts at ABP and it`s not going to stop that, and if I was ABP I wouldn`t be killin myself with applications when I know if I miss a dot on an i or a cross on a t a few wide boys will be off to the courts post haste. We do need to sort out planning, but when you see the disgraceful carry-on from Ryan attempting to put the fix in to the Shannon LNG proposal when it last came up in front of ABP, it needs to be sorted without greens anywhare near it dictating their agenda.

It’s a century since the English left the South and we’re still blaming them for cutting down our trees! Time to grow up and take some responsibility. We don’t seem to love this island very much despite loud protests to the contrary. BTW Ireland isn’t as green as it used to be, especially in one of these hot, dry summers we are having more of.

You’re talking about this week in Donegal. I prefer to talk about global climate. We just had the hottest day on Earth since records began. Followed by an even hotter day. The trends are undeniable and deeply alarming.

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Yes but records only began being kept in the last 200 or so years. It has been hotter previously and will be hotter again.

There has also been more CO2 in the atmosphere previously too, but do you know what wasn't around previously? People. 8 billion and counting. What number is sustainable? No talk of culling that particular herd? If the greens really cared, they'd be the first to volunteer!

When did the records begin?

When was the hottest day? and what day was the even hotter day?

How was the hottest day actually measured?

You have access to data since you know the hottest day and the even hotter day, what was the coldest day?

What is the coldest temperature ever measured on earth and date it was recorded?

I don't see anyone running for the hills or behaviour that would indicate alarm, who exactly finds the trends deeply alarming?

What is the ideal global temperature?

Most alarmists will claim the temperature records go back to the late 19th century, they will point the the central England temperature dataset as being the oldest. Most of those weather recordings come from parts of the Anglo empire (Britain, USA, Australia), once you go outside that there are no records, even to this day there are very few temperature sensors outside the industrial areas of the world. Meteorology only really got going with the the development of the aeroplane, particularly WW I, that's were terminology like "cold fronts" comes from. More widespread temperature measurements become available post world war II with the construction of airports, satellite measurements are only 33 years old.

The temperatures are then fed into datasets where they are extrapolated and homogenised and random high temperature measurements known as anomalies are recorded where an algorithm plots curves. It's why when you go looking at actual temperature recordings in your area you won't be able to create the hockeystick shown in those graphs. The temperature datasets are not static either, the past records are constantly being revised. Even in Ireland, some people are trying to find ways to scrub the Kilkenny castle 1887 temperature record from the data. It does not suit the narrative.

You did not contradict any of the points made in that article.

Even if you don't have your own motor vehicle, sounds very discriminatory...

You're missing the point completely. Limerick city centre used to have pretty much everything. Top notch shopping mixed with a healthy social scene. All of which was, until recently, readily available to citizens of the city and to those who liked to travel there from Clare, Tipperary etc in their cars. Excessive focus on scant public transport and cycle lanes which are barely ever used has resulted in the city centre losing valuable custom. Its now a haven for anti social behaviour, drug dealing in public and crappy shops which no one really wants to see in their town. You bring up the US...... That's gas. Give me Boston over any of our cities any day of the week. The greens in this country are completely removed from what the public need and want. Their agenda is at the expense of hard working people and businesses. And a lot of their garbage, such as the cycle lanes I've mentioned above, are a waste of our money.

No, I think you're still missing the point.. what's happening to Limerick city centre as you described isn't the fault of the cycle-lanes..

Boston being one of the oldest cities in the U.S and unlike places like Detroit (which gave up it's city centre to the car) has a decent public transit system and an expanding cycle lane network.. .one which we need in Irish cities..

https://mass.streetsblog.org/2022/09/06/mayor-wu-plans-announcement-on-bostons-bike-network