I have a couple of short messages for the charming so-called Drogs fans. 1./ I don’t give a shit one way or another about Drogheda United, I don’t like football. Not everyone does. All I did was point out a few truths about the stadium location. 2./ To those who say it is not a shopping centre, then what part of “10 no. retail warehouse units, with a total floor area of 16285m2 a height of c14.10m (AGL); a single storey motor service station compromising 4 no sets of fuel pumps, a canopy with an area of c344m2 and a height of c6m (AGL), an ancillary retail unit with a floor area of c214m2 and a height of c4.5m (AGL), a 47.5m2 floor area.” do you not understand in the planning application? Since when did a stadium need a petrol station? 3./ To those who say... Similar posts

The people at Julianstown.Com have presented very strong evidence that the traffic in the village is not caused by people avoiding the toll but is in fact due to the massive commuting population in the area. See our analysis of the population projections for the... Similar posts

Meath County Council is spending more than €10M to upgrade the Duleek to Julianstown road. At the same time the village of Julianstown has to suffer under traffic volumes 6 times in excess of the capacity. A bypass of Julianstown is worth in the region of €20M to the East Meath economy but the council refuses to prioritise a solution and at the same times squanders millions on a road that is rarely used. Incompetent and wasteful behaviour from the public servants mandated to provide our infrastructure.... Similar posts

I heard this morning, that cars were breaking the lights while children were crossing the road on the way to school, even with the attendance of the lolly pop man. My own experience this morning was that I was pulling out to make a right turn and pulled half way across the road hoping someone would slow down to leave a gap to let me out. To no avail. I literally had to drive out in front of another car and let’s say the driver was not best pleased (silver Suzuki driving bottle blonde bitch you know who you are). You see drivers are so focussed on getting through they don’t make the eye contact with the pedestrians, they don’t look at the environment, heads down speeding through. Not very safe. There’s only one solution. But the incompetent Meath County Council are... Similar posts

Meath County Council, progressive council that they are are busily installing a network of cycle lanes in East Meath. The latest addition is in Julianstown. Have a look as you speed over the bridge on the Old Mill side and you might spot a narrow red strip. The cycle lane, all 50m of it is daft. It doesn’t go anywhere and is totally unsafe. Well done Meath County Council for wasting more of our money on ridiculous projects.... Similar posts

As part of Damien Blakes efforts to highlight the problem of road deaths I created this post back in October. The event that prompted this was the deaths of five young men in Monaghan in a head on collision.There were other posts from many other bloggers under the technorati tag of roadsafetyblog .At the time my own particular take on the situation was on the relative disparity in coverage given to the crash when it happens compared to that given to the inquest or the uncovering of the causes which tends to happen much later. Others commented on other aspects of this crash or road safety more generally. One in particular Sarah Carey received quite strong condemnation for having the insensitivity to voice an opinion about the circumstances when the cause of the crash had still to be... Similar posts

RTE reported on the news last night that there are now 2.3 million cars in Ireland. You know that means that every day 1% of the nation’s cars passes through Julianstown. That is through a village with only .01% of the nation’s population. See http://www.julianstown.com/  ... Similar posts

Well the smoke has cleared after the County Development Plan was reviewed by the full Council. The good news is that the first steps have been taken to bypass Julianstown. For those of you who don’t know read the report on http://www.julianstown.com/ . 22,000 cars a day (almost 8 million per year) pass through this tiny village. Julianstown residents’ association campaigned to have a bypass included as an objective and worked with local councillors on their lobbying campaign. Representatives from the associaiton met with Meath County Council top brass, personally contacted every Meath Councillor and publicised their story in local press (here and here). The resident’s also published their own Cost Benefit Analysis showing that a bypass would be worth €10s of Million... Similar posts

Enfield. Bypass. Ring Road. No Toll. Still full of trucks. But they can be banned, oh yes they can. Read It... Similar posts

The folks over in Julianstown have just compiled a detailed study into the traffic in Julianstown. Everyone in East Meath knows that the traffic in Julianstown is apalling, but the County Council denies this, still maintaining that the M1 has effectively bypassed the village. With all the development in the area, unless action is taken Julianstown will become the M50 disaster of East Meath Read the report... Similar posts

This article is worth repeating in full. Think about East Meath; Population target: 25,000+ Number of New Roads: 0 Is this a Problem? Meath County Council: No Rest of World: Yes The other day, I visited a highly profitable multinational company in the west of Ireland. The complex was high-spec, the workers well-paid and well-educated. Despite (or maybe because of) being in a non-unionised plant, workers’ terms and conditions were far better than most heavily unionised workplaces.The place was spotless and, as the largest employer in the town for over 20 years, the firm seemed less like a footloose corporate opportunist and more like a fully-fledged member of the community.The overwhelming sense was that this was a well-run place, staffed by Irish managers and workers, profitable and... Similar posts

Dear Mister Curran, When you say the words "Boy Racers an image comes to mind (Sports Racers is an different image). Cars are customised to within an inch of their showroom model. Engines are loud despite their actual size. Music is loud and thumping with a baseball capped head nodding to the beat. And racers must race! There is just one problem with this image. It's usually two separate groups. Actually, the music overlaps the two images but... Imagine that you earn very little (it's not that hard to do). Imagine having an obsession which does not involve a bottle of butterscotch flavoured body rub and a person appearing in Heat magazine but in cars. All you money is pumped in to making your little 1000cc car look and sound like the sports car of your dreams (polished in butterscotch... Similar posts

Damien's discovered that a past post of his on Thinkhouse PR has disappeared from a google search despite being in the top three previously. Odd indeed and delighted to see the tags from all the corresponding posts has dominated the cloud tag on Irishblogs.It reminded that that when I moved to Blogger Beta I trackedbacked (well I think I did, I'm still grappling with that one) to a post on Blogger's Buzz about problems I had with it. The next day I got loads of visits from people passing by from the Blogger Beta post. When I checked back a couple of days later it was gone. I presumed at the time that they only allowed so many trackbacks to be shown at any time, maybe I was wrong!Another important link is to Cllr Seamus Ryan's blog with his online petition for Breastcheck to be extended to... Similar posts

I HAVE not been at all comfortable with some of the views expressed by other bloggers where they have condemned dead drivers for speeding and all sorts. I can more than understand their anger, of course I can, but I cannot help thinking about the people, their families, who have been left behind. I imagine they have more than enough on their plates without condemnation from people who do not know them.I know no one has condemned the family but if they came across any of the comments try telling them that. Besides until there is an inquest it is not fair to presume we know how the accidents happened. Meanwhile the carnage on our roads continues; watching the news last night it is clear that the demographic of those who die on our roads are young males.Reaching those drivers is proving... Similar posts

Road safety campaigns are all well and good, but I believe we need more information on crashes that have already happened to help us prevent more tragediesIt is nice to see an elected representative consulting the blogosphere for suggestions and I applaud Cllr Damien Blake for his efforts with his RoadSafetyBlog. This is something I have commented about quite a bit on my various sites, but I have no problem outlining my suggestions yet again.Though the obvious answer would be more stringent enforcement of the existing laws, I wonder are we examining the correct statistics regarding the dangerous driving that is happening on our roads.I believe a register should be established, and each time an incident happens, be it someone caught driving dangerously, or an actual fatal crash caused by... Similar posts

You know what I'm fucking sick of? Newspapers, TV and radio going on and on and on about road safety and the carnage on our roads. Every fucking expert has an opinion.- restrict the speed of cars- make young drivers do extra lessons- more penalty points- zero tolerance to drink drivingYeah, yeah, yawn fucking yawn. The sooner we just accept the fact that travelling on roads is inherently dangerous and that there are always going to be accidents the better.Yes, people could drive better but everyone knows that. People know smoking can kill you but they still do it. They know murder is wrong but they still do it. They know buying Phil Collins' music means it encourages him to make more but they still do it.Trying to make the roads safe is like trying to make the rain dry. Impossible. Just... Similar posts

While I'm very sorry for the families of the young lads in Monaghan who died at the weekend it's becoming clear that the whole road safety issue is being sensationalised by the media, used as an political hammer by the opposition and topped off with understandable, but useless, emotion from the families of people involved.When you read the newspapers calling for 'draconian measures' to cut down on the number of the deaths on the road you know we've lost sight of the crux of the problem.The problem is that people are stupid, impatient and stupid. Did I mention they were stupid?How many times have you been overtaken by some guy going way over the speed limit who weaves in and out of traffic and then you come to the next set of traffic lights and there he is right beside you? What did his... Similar posts

I wish I had been able to make time to put up a post about road safety &c. as suggested recently by Damien Mulley, following Damien Blake's initiative. That week was a very busy spell for us here though, and I came in to work unusually early one or two mornings in the fortnight after the opening of the new N8. Anyway, I got a speeding ticket in the post yesterday and of course I'm ashamed and fed up about it, though I can't dispute the accusation. The 50 kph limits (slowing traffic from 80kph) approaching the Corrin roundabouts just outside Fermoy begin a good quarter of a mile back on straight road, and end about a mile further on. You can drive up to the Jack Lynch tunnel roundabout at 100.I did the Hibernian Ignition course and thought it was very good, and partly in consequence... Similar posts