Letter to Kieran O'Donnell TD regarding a Shannon-Limerick Rail Link

Dear Mr O'Donnell,

I was glad to hear of the question you put to Minister Dempsey about the prospect of a rail link between Shannon Airport and Limerick city. I read about it in both The Irish Times and the Limerick Post.

The Irish Times report said the following:

"The feasibility study by MVA Consultants has put a cost of €700 million on constructing the rail link. However, this has been disputed by the locally-based Shannon Rail Partnership which claims that the rail link will cost €240 million."

In your follow-up questions on the matter, would it be possible for you to get MVA to explain why the discrepancy between the two estimates?

My second point is with regard to what Mr Jim Gallivan, Business development manager with Iarnród Éireann, said: "Milan has three airports and no rail link with a population of eight to 10 million and the greater Limerick-Shannon area has a population of 150,000 and the current population densities do not justify the project at the moment.

"The figures don't stack up and maybe in 15 to 20 years' time, the population density might be there," he added.

I would like to alert Mr Gallivan to the existence of the Malpensa Express, which I used this summer.

Unfortunately I only used the train on the return leg of my journey my way back out to the airport - when I went into the city on arrival I took the bus, which took about 2 and half hours due to a traffic accident and terminally clogged dual carriageway, compared with the 35 or so minutes the train took.

That said, I don't think there is any point in comparing the needs of the Limerick-Shannon area with those of a metropolis like Milan. In any event, the Italian Institute of Statistics put the population of the Milan metropolitan area at 7.4 million, which is a bit less than the 8 to 10 figure given by Mr Gallivan. Anyway, just because Milan didn't invest in proper rail links to its airports does not mean that Limerick should copy its mistakes. There are plenty of examples around Europe of towns and cities of similar size to either Limerick or its catchment area which manage to install rail links between the airport and city, a quick glance at the Ryanair website and other websites of other airlines brings up the following:

• Friedrichshafen, Germany. Population: 58,068
  
• Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK. Population: 259,536
• Blackpool, UK. Population: 142,700
• Trondheim, Norway. Population: 161,730
• Pisa, Italy. Population: 90,482
• Douglas, Isle of Man, UK. Population: 26,218
• Southampton, UK. Population: 228,600

What all these cities have in common, apart from similarly sized populations to the Limerick-Shannon area (in the case of Southampton and Newcastle-upon-Tyne it is not inconceivable that the population of the Midwest would reach that figure within the next 15 years) but also the fact that they all boast airport-city centre rail links.

Mr Gallivan even admitted that in 10 to 15 years time the population of the region might be large enough to warrant a rail link.

I believe a line must be reserved for a future rail link to prevent houses being built there in the future, and to avoid the development of this rail link becoming as wasteful as other Fianna Fáil infrastructure projects.

With regard to the Shannon-Limerick rail link, has the idea of developers contributing towards the capital cost of the project being looked into, like what happened with the Sandyford Luas line?

Please continue your hard work campaigning on this issue, as it is an important one in terms of the sustainable development of the region.

Best regards,

James Gaffney,
Limerick.

Photo: kikiprinci

O’Carroll-Kelly creator has UL audience in hysterics

Limerick Independent

The audience was left in hysterics last Wednesday evening when Paul Howard, author of the infamous Ross O’Carroll Kelly series of books and columns, rolled into town to read extracts from his latest bestselling novel, ‘This Champagne Mojito is the Last Thing I Own’.

The UL Jean Monnet Lecture Theatre’s austere surroundings were transformed by colourful promotional posters stating, ‘The Ego Has Landed,’ and, ‘This poster is basically, like, morkeshing my new column, roysh’. And the writer’s ‘lecture’ generated more laughter than would be heard in that venue in a week of college classes.

For the uninitiated, the character of Ross is a satirical depiction of a wealthy, self-obsessed, South Dublin-dwelling rugby player. The stories, written in diary form, mock the “materialistic nonsense” that people in Ross’s social circles place so much importance on. He described one of the main events that influenced the creation of the series ten years ago. In a previous incarnation, Howard had worked as a freelance sports journalist. He went to cover a Leinster schools rugby match, and witnessed a father giving out to his son for not playing that well that day. The son’s response was to tell his dad to shut up and open his wallet. It was witnessing this scene, of children treating their parents like walking ATM machines, said Howard, that prompted him to parody the lifestyles of Ireland’s affluent classes.

Some readers observed that his latest offering is a somewhat darker, comparing its mood with the last in the Harry Potter series. Howard admitted this, noting that in some ways the ups and downs of Ross’ life could be seen as mirroring the path of the Irish economy. However, in an ‘interview’ Ross gave on his website, all comparisons with the bespectacled wizard end there: “I’m five books in and I’ve scored more birds than Enrique Iglesias and his old man put together. And they call Harry Potter a wizard?”

Human Rights and Criminal Justice Conference

Irish Human Rights Commission and Law Society of Ireland

5th Annual Conference

Human Rights and Criminal Justice

13 October 2007

The Criminal Justice Act 2007 came under heavy criticism from numerous parties yesterday at the Fifth Annual Conference of the Irish Human Rights Commission and the Law Society of Ireland. At the conference, entitled Human Rights and Criminal Justice, the Act was criticised for both the manner in which it was passed by the Oireachtas and in terms of the provisions that it contained.

James MacGuill, Senior Vice President of the Law Society, described the Act as a, ‘draconian and obscene element of legislation’, and vowed that his organisation would continue to highlight attacks on civil liberties posed by the Act.

While the delegates acknowledged that violent, gangland drug-related crime is a serious cause for concern in this country, they argued for a calm, focussed approach in countering the crime problem, rather than, ‘soundbite solutions’, in the words of Dr Maurice Manning, President of the Human Rights Commission.

Dr Manning criticised the manner in which the Criminal Justice Bill of this year was made an act. He stated that in this case the Oireachtas was dominated by the executive branch. There was inadequate use of the Committees System – a system, he said, that is in place to prevent legislation from being rushed through without due consideration to all its implications. He bemoaned the, ‘arrogance of ministers’, in rushing through this piece of legislation, regretting that they did not exercise fully their right and duty of parliamentary scrutiny.

In a further denouncement of the way in which the 2007 Act became incorporated into Irish law, Michael O’Higgins SC, Chairman of the Irish Criminal Bar Association, contrasted the parliamentary process it went through with the considerably more rigorous debate that surrounded the enactment of the Criminal Justice Act 1984. He observed that the 1984 Act was debated by the Oireachtas for 18 months, including 13 days in which it was examined at the Committee Stage. In stark contrast, in O’Higgins’ opinion, the 2007 Bill was passed without any effective debate. He accused the Opposition of wasting the opportunity they had, at the Report Stage, of debating the Bill section by section, by instead deciding to engage in, ‘electoral muscle-flexing’, by proposing additional sections to it.

The process came in for further criticism from him because in his opinion, there was no meaningful debate on the infringement posed by the Act to the right to silence.

According to O’Higgins, the Act was passed in such a hasty manner for a number of reasons, notably a lack of public engagement with government. In his view, the electorate voted for the current government for the same reasons shareholders elect a CEO – government today is more about economic management than it was in the 1980s. He described this paradigm shift in Irish society when he said that the Oireachtas of 1984 governed over people, while that of 2007 governs a nation of individuals.

He acknowledged that there has been an increase in violent crime since the 1980s, saying that as, ‘property prices have soared, the price of life has plummeted.’ He concluded that as long as the diminution of rights is seen by society as only the diminution of certain people in society’s rights – those of suspected criminals – we as a whole will be poorer.

James MacGuill in turn credited the media for calling for a delay in the enactment of the Bill. However, he was scathing with his words for the then Tánaiste, Michael McDowell, saying that one, ‘can’t blame the media for the madness of the Tánaiste’, in relation to the Act.

The conference heard from Des Hogan, Acting Chief Executive of the Irish Human Rights Commission about certain aspects of criminal justice policy and their effect on human rights. He called for caution when deciding to change the criminal law, reflecting that:

‘On the one hand the desire to change the law to meet perceived new threats of crime and on the other, the imperative of approaching any law reform proposals carefully when long-established rights are at issue.’

With regard to the expansion of police detention powers that the 2007 Act allows, he commented that:

‘No empirical evidence supports the contention that prolonged detention benefits investigation or increases the possibility of a successful conviction, and indeed no one has yet been detained for the full 168-hour period under the 1996 Act.’

While concluding that there is an increasing perception that decreasing the rights of the suspect by definition increases the safety and protects the interests of victims and wider society, he warned against balancing and rebalancing human rights principles depending on short-term political motivations.

This view was shared by other speakers at the conference, including Sir Geoffrey Bindman, Chairman of the British Institute of Human Rights, who spoke of the need to counter the myth that human rights are a way of helping guilty parties escape justice or of enabling wrongdoers to delay and add to the cost of the legal process.

Senator Ivana Bacik, who chaired the opening session, spoke of the need to review and challenge the idea that there can be a trade-off between civil liberties and civil security.

Past conferences have dealt with issues such as Human Rights in Committed Relationships, Migrant Workers and Human Rights Law, and Achieving Rights Based Child Law. However, in the words of Dr Manning, yesterday’s theme of Human Rights and Criminal Justice, was more controversial and certainly most timely in the light of the current problems, on the one hand of increased violent criminality, and on the other of criminal justice legislation being rushed through the Dáil.

Photos from Hjem and Simon McGarr

Thousands of second-level students flock to careers event at Limerick Racecourse

Limerick Independent

At least 4,000 secondary school students attended a careers fair held at Limerick Racecourse yesterday. The event was organised by the local branch of the Irish Guidance Councillors, and is now in its fifth year running. There were information stalls from over 50 institutions, who informed students about potential educational and employment opportunities available for when they leave school.

Mary Kearney, chairperson of the organising committee, told this reporter that the popularity of this event has been increasing with each year. The event attracts students from all over the Mid-West region. Outlining one advantage of this careers fair, Ms Kearney noted that in the past, local school-leavers would have to travel to Dublin to attend the careers exhibition at the RDS, as there was no similar event in this part of the country.

She spoke of the merits of the Greenmount venue. She was very praiseworthy of the staff and management of Limerick Racecourse, while also noting that from a teacher’s perspective the day is more manageable because rather than managing a group of students for a four-hour each leg return journey to Dublin they can be in and out of the Patrickswell venue within an hour and a half. She also said that there is less potential for discipline problems at her group’s venue, because the Careers Exhibition is the only thing happening on the day at the racecourse, there is much less chance of students becoming distracted or wandering off – their focus remains on career options.

Among the third-level institutions represented at the fair, UL, UCC and LIT seemed to be the popular choices among students. The guards, army and teacher training courses offered at Mary Immaculate College also proved to be popular draws. Institutions offering Post Leaving Certificate courses were kept busy with inquiries, with many students seeking to go onto further education using this route. Three talks were also given throughout the day by UCAS, the body responsible for handling applications to full-time degree programmes in Britain. These were attended in great numbers.

The organisers noted that as has been the case each year they have run the exhibition, popularity of the courses on offer varied according to gender, with nursing and language courses tending to be more popular with girls while boys tended to gravitate in greater numbers towards more technical programmes. One possible reason given for this trend by Ms Kearney is the fact that often girls’ schools simply do not offer technical subjects to Leaving Cert students so they would not be exposed to the skills needed to go onto further study in that area.

Regarding the issue of gender imbalances in certain employment sectors, Lieutenant Nessa Maloney of the Irish Naval Service, a male-dominated institution which only began offering cadetships to women in 1994, said that her organisation actively seek female recruits by attending girls’ schools to give demonstrations about working in the naval service. Anne-Marie Hannon, of the admissions division of Mary Immaculate College, which offers a number of primary teacher training courses, noted that although primary school teaching is one area where females vastly outnumber males, her institution does not specifically target male students when promoting their B.Ed course in the same way the navy does to females. However, they may do so in the future.

Photo: Kman999