No matter how many seats we win our lose on Friday, it was worth going into Government for this alone.

Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill, 2009

Published in full today, this Bill will put an end to developer led planning in Ireland. In arriving at this point, we’ve done enormous damage to our cities, towns and countryside, but at least we can stand up and say that the Green Party stopped the rot.

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A reverse vending machine at Sligo IT, one way to solve plastic bottle litter

I’ve been asked this a few times now so here’s my explanation.

Every year, Failte Ireland conducts a visitor satisfaction survey amongst international tourists who visit Ireland. One of the questions they ask is what part of your trip were you least satisfied by. Every year, approx. 20% of respondents say that they were dissatisfied about the amount of litter on our roads and streets.

That means that 1 in every 5 tourists who comes here goes home and tells their friends and neighbours that we have a litter problem.

That accounts for a lot of jobs in our tourism sector.

Secondly, Local Authorities all over the country spend millions of euro every year on street sweeping and litter picking. All of this money comes from either central Government or commercial rates, all of which has to be paid for by taxpayers and local businesses.

At a time when we need to be driving our costs down as much as possible, in order that we can preserve jobs, the cost of cleaning up litter is not one we should be required to deal with.

Litter most definitely costs jobs.

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Beyond where its use is necessary (eg when there are problems with mains supply) I really wish we could get over our love affair with bottled water.

Millions of gallons of this stuff are being driven all over Europe every day, adding to carbon emissions, transport congestion, waste, litter and unnecessary energy consumption. The PET plastic that is used to make the bottles also takes up enormous capacity in our recycling capacity, when it actually finds its way into our recycling system.

This is really bizarre to me. In most cases, the water is these bottles in the same water that comes out of our taps, except that its not as fresh as the water in out taps, because it generally sits in a vat or a bottle for weeks on end before it is consumed.

We really try to avoid using bottled water in our house. We have a UV filter on our well supply and we know our water is safe. We keep a few bottles of tap water in the fridge at all times and take these with us when we go out somewhere.

Obviously, not everyone is this lucky, but a lot of us are, and cutting down on our use of bottled water is an excellent way to contribute to a more sustainable future.

Click here for an interesting article on the subject.

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Where's the builder?

Cllr. Gerry Reynolds (FG) seems to be getting himself in an awful twist about planning law.

In a statement issued to the papers a number of weeks back, Cllr. Reynolds claimed that Local Authorities are prevented by law from taking action on unfinished housing estates for 12 years after the developer has been granted planning permission.

I pointed out in a subsequent statement that this was nonsense. Section 34 of the Planning and Development Act, 2000 allows a Local Authority to require that an estate is finished with a certain time frame, provided that this time frame is at least 2 years from when works are commenced.

If this time frames elapses and the estate is not finished, the Local Authority can issue warning and enforcement notices to the developer, and ultimately use any security lodged by the developer to ensure the estate is finished.

Cllr. Reynolds then issued another statement saying that while this was factually correct, it did not make a difference, as this only related to ‘withering permissions and social and affordable housing’.

This is more nonsense.

A ‘ withering permission’ is a permission that is granted under a planning act that is still valid despite the planning act having been repealed to make way for a new act. Specific measures are normally included in new planning acts to deal with such permission, in order to prevent developers rushing through development before new regulations come into force. This was a particular issue in relation to Social and Affordable Housing, in that the rules on Social and Affordable Housing were significantly changed between the Planning and Development Act, 2000 and the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act, 2002.

What any of this has to do with unfinished housing estates, Cllr. Reynolds will have to explain.

Maybe he’ll provide an update on his website soon.

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A Nedap E-Voting Machine, of which we have many...

Back in 2004, I organised a public meeting in Carrick on Shannon to try and highlight the folly of the State investing in the unsafe and unnecessary technology of Electronic Voting.

The meeting wasn’t very well attended, which didn’t surprise me, given that the subject wasn’t particularly topical at the time and that the expenditure of public money doesn’t attract as much media attention as it does today.

At that time, the Minister for the Environment, Martin Cullen, hadn’t signed the contract with the Dutch company, Nedap, to buy the machines. A number of weeks later, an Oireachtas Committee recommended that the contract not be signed, but Minister Cullen went ahead anyway, on the advice of his Department officials, and signed the contract with Nedap for €53m.

Subsequent to this, pressure from public groups like Irish Citizens for Trustworthy E-Voting, the Government eventually established a Commission to investigate any issues that existed in relation to the system. This system found that the machines were not safe to use, and the rest is history.

Last week, Green Party Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, finally put an end to this fiasco, and announced that the machines would not be used in Irish elections and will be scrapped in the near future. This has been consistent with the Green Party’s views on Electronic Voting both in Opposition and in Government.

This episode should serve as a reminder of the folly of using technology for technology’s sake, particularly when it comes to taxpayers money. It also raises serious questions about the credibility of Martin Cullen and several public servants in the Department of the Environment, who ignored overwhelming advice from people who were far more qualified than they were to be making decisions of this nature.

€53m, and more for storage, is a high price to pay for what basically amounts to stupidity.

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During the recent Green Party Convention in Wexford, I took a walk around the town and came across this:

Wexford Borough Council has instated a policy of temporary pedestrianisation in the centre of the town during weekday business hours.

I’ve always been a proponent of pedestrian areas in the centre of larger towns, although I do think it has to be sensitively managed, particularly in relation to the livelihood of the traders it may affect.

However, given the current problems we have in the centre of Carrick on Shannon in relation to shoppers frequenting the retail parks on the edge of the town, should we start considering a bit of lateral thinking?

Bridge Street and Main Street in Carrick quite often look like car parks more than bustling town streets, and I have no doubt that this atmosphere influences shoppers in their choice of destination.

I think the time has come to look at a Pedestrianisation trial, from the corner at Paddys Pub to the Clock. Its a small enough area and no more than 20 parking spaces would be lost, many of which are already used by traders themselves anyway.

On the Saturday I was in Wexford Town, there was a real buzz about the place, and it was great being able to walk down the street without the din and congestion of constant traffic.

Surely, Carrick should at least consider pedestrianisation as an option?

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