For years, in the minds of most people in the west of Ireland, there has always been a strong suspicion that the national transport policy was mostly concerned with getting in, out and around Dublin. While the capital will get not one, but two metropolitan rail systems in the next few years, there is only grass growing on the links on the western seaboard. There is a campaign for the re-opening of the Western Corridor, which would link Limerick to Galway and on to Sligo, to which the Minister for Traffic Jams, Seamus Brennan, has made encouraging noises. If only he would write an encouraging cheque.
To get to Galway from Limerick today requires changing trains either in Portarlington or Kildare, towns that are not within an ass's roar of the west coast, and are better known as part of the Dublin commuter belt. In fact, this journey could take anything up to 6 hours during the week. By car, the journey of 65 miles takes an hour and a half (according to AA Roadwatch. True, there is a motorway under construction between Limerick and Galway - it's been under construction for years (it's nearly reached Ennis at present). To put it in perspective, the Roman Emperor Hadrian built his famous wall in Scotland in 6 years and it was ten miles longer. Mind you, he probably didn't have to worry about Compulsory Purchase Orders.
Similarly, a trip between Galway and Westport can take up to four hours during the week, simply because the train must first head east to Athlone - to be honest, the view of the Shannon doesn't really compensate for the time taken to travel a journey of 50 miles (if one took a direct route). Mind you, even the links that do exist are hardly used to their fullest potential. If ever anyone wants to lay seige to Galway, they only have to occupy about 5 roundabouts - all traffic passes through them. Very very slowly. If you want to take the train ? Too bad if you live west of Galway. There's no line anymore. East of Galway, if you live in Athenry, the first train into Galway only takes 20 minutes to get to Eyre Square. Too bad it leaves Athenry at 10 in the morning. North of Galway, you probably could take the train from Tuam, though you'd have a choice of sitting on mail sacks or a pile of coal (it's only a freight line).
Plans to improve the commuting time for Galway don't inspire much confidence either - proposals to designate the margins of the roads into Galway as bus lanes during the morning and evening commute have come to nought, as has the plan to paint a bus lane in the middle of the road. This suggests a confidence in the skill of Irish drivers that I haven't seen before.
The buzzword of this government is PPP - public-private partnerships. This is a scheme where the state take all the risk, unforeseen expenses, and wildly underestimates the potential for revenue, while a private company gets to implement the surest bits of the scheme and make a fortune. PPPs have replaced the EU as a potential for revenue, and the government intends to fund the future road-building programme this way, meaning that future drivers can look forward to stopping every twenty miles or so to pay a toll. An example of a proposed rail PPP (between Ennis and Limerick) is here - it's cheery optimism is to be commended.
There is one cause for optimism. The decentralisation plan announced a couple of weeks ago will mean that ministers will find themselves scattered around the country. Since they need to travel to Dublin every week (to claim expenses, collect rent on their second homes and occasionally legislate), what's the betting that the transport network will be upgraded. Either that, or there's going to be a lot of helicopter pads built in the next year or so.
Anti-war activists protest outside the GArda station in Galway city, Chrsitmas Eve, 2003.
The Examiner reported yesterday that Irish armament exports this year amounted to two billion euro. Not bad for a neutral country.This was the year of the war in Iraq, and the issue divided the country. Most of the focus was on Shannon airport, which was used by the US to ship troops to the Gulf in advance of the invasion.Anti-war protestors felt that this was a violation of Irish neutrality. The government sat on the fence for dear life (an uncomfortable experience at the best of times), and the Opposition weren't much better, trying to goad the government into expressing an opinion one way or the other without expressing one themselves. So we had the bizarre spectacle of Bertie Aherne claiming vindication (and some relief) when Ireland was excluded from the list of countries that would be allowed to bid for reconstruction contracts, since it proved that Ireland was anti-war. Equally bizarre was Sinn Fein's participation in the anti-war protests - presumably the prospect of indiscriminately bombing civilians is only bad when the victims are not British, or Protestant. In the end, most of the Gardaí in the west ended up guarding Shannon airport, when they could have been more profitably deployed in Limerick or elsewhere.On the plus side, the Gardaí did get to try out a new baton on the protestors (45% more effective on peaceniks!!).
Limerick, you're a lady goes the song. Albeit a lady that's been around the block a few times. Limerick has long tried to live down it's sobriquet of Stab City. This year, a series of murders and attacks in the city was seen as yet more proof that the country was going to hell in a handbasket. It was also suggested that the proliferation of weapons had come from the IRA. As if. It's nearly 20 years since I first went to Limerick as a student, and the same small number of families were waging war on each other then as now, with almost medieval savagery. The difference is that nowadays, they are better armed. And where are the guns coming from ? For the most part, the same place as criminals everywhere else are getting their guns. Since the end of the Balkan wars of the Nineties, Europe is awash with guns. Many countries have been afflicted with criminal gangs from the former Yugoslavia - Ireland has not yet got that problem, but we do have have many of their guns. As for the rise in crime in general, it's not hard to fathom. The country has been rolling in money for a decade, and with it comes the usual vices. Drugs dealers make far more money selling cocaine and ecstacy to the new middle classes than selling heroin to the poor, and while there may be those that see lapdancing clubs and brothels as a sign that our cities have become more cosmopolitan, it's also a great way for criminals to make and launder money (it's not a bad way to exploit women from Eastern Europe and Asia either).
Garda statistics released today show a rise in serious crime. There was a murder a week this year, and a sizeable chunk of them were gang-related (in contrast, this year had the lowest number of killings since the Troubles began in Northern Ireland). The media outcry has been great - Eoghan Harris, writing in the Sunday Independent, called for a 'knee-jerk' reaction and denounced the 'law-library liberals' mentality of the legal profession that, in his opinion, prevented the Gardai from having the powers necessary to combat these criminal gangs. The Opposition parties in the Dail called for more Gardaí to be hired.
If only it was that simple. A kneejerk reaction may be 'healthy' but it is also an involuntary reaction, made without thinking. A raft of legislation was passed in the wake of the Veronica Guerin murder, most of which were hardly effective even in the investigation of that murder. What is without doubt is that more Gardai would probably have a beneficial effect. The problem for the Government is that, even when times were good and funding was available, it seemed impossible to persuade enough suitable applicants to join the force. Now, there is no money to hire extra police even if the applicants were available. So the only hope is to redeploy existing Garda numbers more effectively. Michael McDowell got off to a bad start, when he raised the issue of removing Garda protection from former Taoisigh (which would have yielded a grand total of ten Gardaí) - it would have been less controversial to redeploy the Garda band (nobody complained when they spent a weekend playing at the Rose of Tralee festival). Maybe the solution is closer than we think. Take a look in any local paper in the West, such as Galway Advertiser, Clare Champion, Western People, etc. There is always a long list of cases from the District Court, and almost all of them are Drunk and Disorderly cases. There is a constant procession of people getting drunk and either getting into fights or just injuring themselves. In all cases, Gardaí spend an inordinate amount of their time processing these 'criminals'. And it's not like the sentences handed out will make any difference. I've never read of a judge banning someone from drinking or from pubs for any length of time, or imposing a curfew on anyone.Worst still, there are almost no mandatory treatment programmes to which a judge could order someone. Imagine if the Gardai had a month where they spent no time dealing with drink-related crime. And imagine how better we would all be for it.
It's been a tough year for the people of north Mayo and east Galway. Both areas suffered a landslide, and as of now, no official explanation has been offered for either event. Last month, the people of Pollatomish heard that Mayo County Council would erect steel barriers along the hillside (much like the avalanche barriers near skiing resorts). The people of Derrybrien are still waiting. Officially, no connection has been made between the construction of a huge windfarm above the village and the landslide - but it must be one hell of a coincidence that the bog slipped at the same time as the blasting of a large quarrey to produce building material.
There will be plenty of other building going on in Mayo. Shell will reapply for permission to build their onshore pumping station in Bellnaboy - the first application was refused due to the danger of a peat landslide - who'd have thought, eh? In Bellnacorrick, a huge windfarm will begin construction in the new year. In response to local pressure, the number of turbines will be reduced from 210 to 180, so that no house will be nearer than 1000 metres from a turbine. Let's hope they don't use too much dynamite building it. The ESB did their bit for renewable energy by suspending the connection to the National Grid of any more windfarms. Their excuse was that wind energy is not stable or continuous. Funny how this isn't a problem in Germany or Denmark where a much larger percentage of the overall power output is supplied by wind. The ESB will have some real competition soon. Aughinish Alumina in Limerick was given permission on Christmas Eve to build their own gas-powered generators. Aughinish is one of the biggest users of electricity in the country (to power the electric furnaces used to smelt the aluminium) and will sell any excess power back to the ESB. I know of one local company that found it cheaper to buy their own diesel generator and make their own electricity than buy it from the ESB, which would indicate some scope for improvement.
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