Tuesday, 1 January 2008

Record LUAS passenger figures for 2007

Minister for Transport, Noel Dempsey TD has announced that 2007 was a record year for passenger numbers on the Luas Red and Green lines operated by Veolia and the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA).

In 2007, nearly 29 million passengers used the Luas service. This reflects an increase of nearly 3 million passengers on the 2006 passenger figures and 7 million on the 2005 passenger figures.

In order to facilitate this passenger growth in 2007, the RPA introduced 13 longer trams on both the Red and Green lines - extending them from 30 meters to 40 meters.

All remaining 30 metre trams will be extended to 40 metres in 2008 to allow further passenger growth and to provide greater comfort and accessibility for passengers.

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City manager says 2008 'crucial' for Cork docklands

The next 12 months will prove crucial to the development of the multi-billion regeneration of the Cork docklands and will see the lodging of planning applications by three of the largest developers, Cork city manager, Joe Gavin, has predicted.

According to Mr Gavin, Cork City Council has been in detailed discussions with Howard Holdings and expects the Cork-headquartered company to apply in January for planning for its €1 billion project on a 30-acre site on the old Ford grounds near Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

"We expect to get that application, which will be the biggest we have ever received, in January from Howard Holdings. It will include a 6,000-seat event centre, a 200-bedroom hotel as well as over 200,000sq m of office, retail and residential," said Mr Gavin.

Although the entire 400 acres of docklands is owned by approximately 20 landowners, some six developers own the majority of the landbank, which has assisted in progressing development, and further applications are expected shortly from two more of these, he said.

"IAWS, who have the Odlums building and some 30 surrounding acres, are talking about coming into us in a couple of months time as well with a planning application for the Victoria Road end of the docklands," said Mr Gavin.

"And Gerry Wycherly, who owns substantial property in the former Dunlop plant, also has plans for development, so there's quite active work going on with the bigger developers . . . I think next year will see considerable movement, with buildings in place by 2010." Last September, Howard Holdings managing director, Greg Coughlan, pointed out that development interest and development capital were highly mobile and warned that Cork was in danger of seeing developers moving elsewhere if the docklands project didn't get under way soon.

However, Mr Gavin insisted that the next 12 months would see the start of the transformation of the south docklands and pointed out that much of the effort invested in preparatory work over the past five years by Cork City Council and others would start to bear fruit next year.

He pointed out that the council had been working closely with the OPW on issues of flooding and drainage in the south docklands and a strategy had been devised that would see the raising of land levels by up to three metres to prevent flooding.

"The increase in ground level is necessary to provide a sustainable surface water drainage system and to protect against tidal flooding, and the proposal is based on the Lee catchment study carried out by the OPW," he said.

""We will have to raise road levels along Centre Park Road and parts of Monahan Road . . . the existing ground level in a lot of those areas will become a new basement level," he said.

Mr Gavin welcomed the recent establishment of the Cork Docklands Development Forum under the chairmanship of former UCC president, Prof Gerry Wrixon, and said that while the issue of tax designation for the docklands wasn't crucial, it would help speed up regeneration.

"The city council has made a very strong case for targeted tax breaks for activities in the docklands, like seeking to relocate inappropriate uses down there - the Seveso sites need to be relocated if we are to get the full potential and we're looking for financial support for that.

"We're hoping it will appear in the new Finance Act. There's no guarantee that it will, but we've made a very strong case and I think it stands up to scrutiny, and we will be entering discussions with the relevant department officials over the next two to three weeks."

Mr Gavin rejected any suggestion that failure to get tax breaks for the area in next month's Finance Act would scupper the docklands projects but conceded that it would not make for as full or as speedy a development of the area.

The Irish Times

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State shelves plan to buy historic Galway house linked with Yeats and Betjeman

A State plan to buy an 18th century south Galway house associated with WB Yeats and Sir John Betjeman appears to have been dropped in spite of commitments given by three Government ministers.

The apparent abandonment of the purchase has been criticised by Gordon St George Mark, a US resident and descendant of the St George family who originally owned Tyrone House near Kilcolgan.

The 18th century house overlooking the Clarenbridge oyster beds of south Galway inspired Somerville and Ross's The Big House of Inver and WB Yeats's last play. The St George family mausoleum was immortalised in John Betjeman's poem, Ireland With Emily.

It was designed for Christopher French St George by John Roberts, the 18th-century Co Waterford architect who was also responsible for Mayo's Moore Hall. The house includes a walled garden, outhouses and a tower house, believed to have archaeological significance as it predates the other buildings.

The house was abandoned in 1905 and torched by the IRA during the War of Independence in 1920. An elderly and bed-bound caretaker was reputed to be inside at the time, but the IRA carried his bed, bedding and furniture downstairs, put him in one of the out-offices and then set the place alight.

The building, which is privately owned, has been the subject of continuous looting in recent years.

Corner stones, original fireplaces, window frames, balustrades and other valuable architectural features have been removed - some of which were recovered during an investigation several years ago by gardaí.

Galway County Council says it had attempted to purchase the building from its current owner on behalf of the national monuments section of the Department of the Environment.

Support for State purchase was first expressed by former arts minister Michael D Higgins, but an ownership issue delayed acquisition by the Commissioners of Public Works.

The case was taken up by his successor in arts and culture, Síle de Valera, who referred it in turn to former environment minister Martin Cullen.

In March, 2004, Mr Cullen informed Ms de Valera that his department was unable to agree terms with the private owner, and it had agreed with Galway County Council that compulsory purchase powers under the Planning and Development Act 2000 would be applied.

Mr Gordon St George Mark says he understands that the Government has no longer allocated any funds for the purchase of Tyrone House.

"If the owner is also unable to repair or maintain the building, the State should take responsibility," Mr St George Mark told The Irish Times.

Galway County Council was unavailable for comment.

The Irish Times

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Anti-pylons group plans to step up campaign

The anti-pylons protest at Bective Abbey, Co Meath, yesterday, organised by the North-East Pylon Pressure Group.

Campaigners opposed to a new power line corridor through the northeast have vowed to step up their opposition in the New Year.

Over 2,000 supporters of the North-East Pylon Pressure Group staged a protest at Bective Abbey in Co Meath yesterday by forming a circle around a giant sign calling for "No Pylons Here".

The group is opposed to EirGrid's plans to erect 400 kV electricity cables on pylons across counties Meath and Cavan, and says the lines should be put underground. They claim high-voltage power lines are injurious to health, sully the environment and devalue property prices.

EirGrid says the €100 million project, and another proposed line between Cavan and Tyrone which forms the new North-South interconnector, poses no health risk and is essential to secure future supplies of electricity to the region.

Colin Andrew, secretary of the protest group, told The Irish Times that, internationally, most new interconnectors were now being run underground and the technology used by EirGrid was "redundant and dangerous".

Mr Andrew said "many" studies showed an increased risk of miscarriage, adult leukaemia, depression and suicide from overhead power lines, even at a distance of 300m; EirGrid plans to run the Meath line as close as 50m from dwellings. He also claims underground lines are only marginally more expensive to install than overhead lines.

However, a spokesman for EirGrid said "nowhere in the world is it standard to put lines underground". Of 100,000km of power lines in Europe, less than 1 per cent was underground.

"Overhead is the international standard as it has been found to be the only way to deliver reliable, secure and economical electricity."

EirGrid says the main problem with underground lines is the difficulty in locating faults when they occur.

The company says it is satisfied "from the totality of studies" and the view of international agencies that the "balance of evidence" is that the extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields caused by power lines do not have any adverse effect on health.

It cites a study published by the World Health Organisation this year which concluded there were no substantive health issues with this kind of radiation "at levels generally encountered by members of the public".

Landowners affected by the project will be compensated for wayleave access and disturbance but no compensation will be paid for loss of property values, according to the EirGrid spokesman. "There are already 6,000km of such power lines in the country, and there is no evidence of any effect on house prices."

However, Mr Andrews predicted the 45,000 householders in the area would see the cumulative value of their properties drop by €3 billion if the project went ahead.

Some public consultation meetings about the project were cancelled, in part because of the large numbers expected to attend. EirGrid said this was a matter for the hotels in which the meetings were supposed to take place.

The company is expected to announce shortly its preferred option from the three currently under examination, and will then seek planning permission from Bord Pleanála under the fast-track scheme provided by the Critical Infrastructure Act.

The Irish Times

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Road deaths down 9% to 336 this year

Road safety campaigners are taking some satisfaction in a significant drop in road death numbers during 2007. Up until yesterday evening, 336 people had been killed on the roads this year, a drop of almost 9 per cent on 2006.

The Road Safety Authority (RSA) says the reduction is a result of measures put in place in the last two years and greater compliance. Its chief executive Noel Brett say the figures show the effectiveness of the first full year of random breathtesting which was introduced in July 2006, stricter drink-driving penalties, greater enforcement by the Garda Traffic Corps and the rolling out of 31 new penalty point offences.

"I'm unhappy that 336 families are without somebody, but I'm pleased we have managed to get a reduction in the last two years and we are sustaining that reduction. The reason for the drop is not just enforcement, but driver behaviour. We have seen huge changes in terms of compliance. The biggest risk now is complacency."

It is now likely that the final figure will be one of the lowest since records began in 1961, and the lowest in absolute terms, given the number of vehicles on the road and the population.

It could even be lower than the 335 figure recorded in 2003 which saw a dramatic fall in road deaths following the introduction of penalty points. Some of the fatalities this year are likely to be recorded as something other than road deaths, including the two eastern European men who drove off a pier in Co Galway earlier this month.

Mr Brett said the RSA is determined to reach the new road safety strategy target of reducing road deaths to around 250 by 2012. He also said that 10,000 learner drivers are being tested weekly at present, and the Government is on course to fulfil its March target of testing all of the the 122,600 drivers who were on the waiting list when the controversial announcement was made in October that second provisional drivers would no longer be able to drive on their own.

The Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey is likely to come under pressure to resign if the backlog of the 120,000 second provisional licence holders waiting to sit their tests in the immediate aftermath of that announcement is not cleared by June 30th.

AA public affairs manager Conor Faughnan said he is optimistic, given the changes planned for next year, that road deaths will drop below 300 for the first time in 2008.

"This year will go down as a very good one relative to the historic number of deaths on Irish roads and relative to our European peers," he said.

"There is reasons to be optimistic about 2008. We are going to see a continuing strengthening of the traffic corps, important reforms in driver training and the possibility of lower drink-driving limits."

Meanwhile, a 40-year-old man died after being struck by a van on Saturday evening.

The man was walking along Blackwood Lane, Portmarnock, north Dublin at 7.15pm when the incident happened.

He was treated by paramedics at the scene and rushed to Beaumont Hospital where he later died. The driver of the van was not injured.

The Irish Times

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Dublin Bus plans for 420,000 new customers

Dublin Bus is expecting 420,000 more passenger journeys next year following the introduction of new quality bus corridors last month.

Dublin Bus estimates that it carried an additional 5,000 passenger journeys a week on quality bus corridors (QBCs) introduced last year, and that figure is expected to rise to around 8,000 extra journeys a week in 2008 - an increase overall of 6.5 per cent in passenger numbers.

Dublin Bus has benefited from significant new priority lanes, especially along the quays, Pearse Street and the South Clondalkin Road.

Research carried out by Dublin Bus has revealed that since the introduction of a QBC from Adamstown to the International Financial Services Centre, 31 per cent of users, who have a car, chose to take that bus route instead.

A total of 43 per cent of commuters on the 145 route between Bray and the city centre could have used a car for the same journey.

Dublin Bus has just unveiled 50 new replacement buses which will have a carrying capacity 25 per cent bigger than at present.

It is part of the company's fleet replacement programme under the terms of Transport 21.

They will be introduced on the Blanchardstown QBC and will increase its capacity by 21 per cent.

The triaxle buses were first introduced on Dublin Bus in 2005 and reduce CO2 emissions by 10 per cent on previous models.

There will also be significant decreases in hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides. The buses will also be more wheelchair and pushchair friendly.

Dublin Bus spokeswoman Clíodhna Ní Fhátharta said: "It shows that a relatively modest investment in bus priority and fleet investment can result in generating additional customers, thus leading to less car traffic and congestion.

"This is particularly important in the context of improving traffic congestion and reducing environmental emissions."

The Irish Times

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Tara site named in top 10 archaeological discoveries

Campaigners for the preservation of the Tara-Skryne Valley were celebrating yesterday when the Lismullen national monument was named as one of the 10 most important archaeological discoveries of 2007.

The 2,000-year-old henge, discovered in March, has been a major obstacle in the completion of the M3 motorway around the area of the Hill of Tara.

'Archaeology Magazine', the Archaeological Institute of America's highly regarded publication, listed the find.

The Tara-Skryne Valley was also listed in the top 100 most endangered sites by the World Monuments Fund.

Members of Tarawatch say this announcement caps off "what has been a very successful year for the Tara campaign".

Vernon Mount, the 18th-century villa in Cork, also made the top 100 most endangered sites list. The World Monument Fund again puts down planning issues as the main problem in this site, claiming a stalemate between owners and the Cork County Development Plan is causing deterioration.

The owners, a motocross club, say the lands around the house need to be rezoned to fund the work needed to renovate it.

Colin Bartley
Irish Independent

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