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Bad news for us – TD Kevin Moran will remain in his job

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Bad news for us – TD Kevin Moran will remain in his job

Kevin Moran is an Irish politician and TD from Longford-Westmeath. He usually and oddly is referred to as “Kevin “Boxer” Moran” and it seems that the “Boxer” nickname – which he personally seems to love – is based on a story from when he was 8 years of age and punched another child on the football field. twitter.com/SineadHus/status/703728764564467712 It is quite odd that a grown up would use a nickname he got as a child (even worse that it is about punching another child) and with his website constantly referring to him as “Boxer”, you definitely get the impression that this guy is – let’s say “different”! From his website: “Boxer lives in Cornamagh, Athlone, is married to…… Boxer has been a keen angler all his life…” Boxer this and Boxer that! kevinboxermoran.com/about-kevin/

But back to his role in society! He is a politician and once was a Fianna Fail member until 2011, when he left the party NOT in a disagreement over some relevant party principle, but because he was unhappy that his party didn’t want to chose him as a candidate. IN 2016 he got elected to the Dail as an independent candidate and when Fine Gael needed to strike a deal with the Independent Alliance to get into government, Sean Canney and Kevin Moran were offered a shared role as the junior minister for the Office of Public Works (OPW).

As you would expect it from responsible politicians working in the interest of the Irish public, the two decided to toss a coin to decide who will take on the role first. :-O

Sean Canney won and took over the first term (he really lost, as you will see in the next sentence). One year later, in May 2017 then Kevin Moran took over the role and this week it has been confirmed that unfortunately he will remain as junior minister for the OPW as long as the Fine Gael government is in place and will not swap the role again with Sean Canney.

You might wonder why that affects us. So let me tell you what the OPW does. The Office of Public Works is responsible for all properties in state ownership. This includes all buildings that are owned or rented by the state, for example for offices for departments or semi-state agencies and it also includes historical and cultural sites like Newgrange, Dublin Castle, Kilmainham Gaol, Phoenix Park, all National Museums, Farmleigh House etc

We have a great situation in Ireland with free admission to the National Museums and the National Gallery, but other historic buildings usually charge admission charges. There is nothing wrong with that, after all the maintenance of these buildings and staff costs etc are very expensive and money either needs to come from the visitors OR from tax payers.

But in 2011 a great idea was implemented that brought the historic sites so much closer to the population in Ireland and not just visitors: While Brian Hayes was Junior Minister for the OPW and Clare McGrath was Chairman of the OPW the “First Free Wednesday” scheme was introduced. www.rte.ie/news/2011/0706/303306-heritage/ Every first Wednesday of the month all OPW properties were free to visit for everyone and it was a HUGE success. People in Dublin visited Kilmainham Gaol or Dublin Castle or the Casino in Marino often for the first time and there was a great buzz every first Wednesday.

But as soon as Sean Canney became Junior Minister and Maurice Buckley became OPW chairman in 2016 things changed. First Kilmainham Gaol was removed from the First Wednesday scheme, then Dublin Castle and recently Newgrange also is not free anymore on that one day every month.

But this April things even went one step further. For as long as I can remember, the guided tours in Farmleigh House were free, but in April when Farmleigh House re-opened after a long winter closure suddenly and completely quietly an admission charge was introduced for the guided tours there. The tour is just about 45 minutes long but the charge is bigger than you might expect: EUR 8 is the price of this tour that last year was completely free.

There is no doubt that “free programmes” cost money and in the end we all pay for it, but the justification for offering it for free (at least one day per month) is to bring the local touristic sites attractive and appealing to non-tourists in Dublin. We travel around the world and wherever we go we go to museums and visit monuments, but back on our home patch we seem to think that museums and historic buildings are only for visitors. The free programmes can – as we have seen from 2011 until 2015 – change that around and it is a big mistake to cancel this programme.

I can’t say for certain if the Junior Minister is the person responsible for cancelling the free programmes or if it is the OPW Chairman, but ultimately the responsibility lies with the Junior Minister and Kevin Moran (or Sean Canney) certainly hasn’t impressed with ANY great initiatives. So it is bad news that he will stay in the job for another while!

 

Dublin, Politics, Tourism, , , , , ,

Project Arts Centre: Get two cans of paint and achieve a BIG impact!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Project Arts Centre: Get two cans of paint and achieve a BIG impact!

Some people are skilled in using minimalist means to get max. effect and the Project Arts Centre is definitely good at that!

They tried it in 2016 and were very successful with it and they just copied the same recipe again and seemingly will get a similar maximised effect. Others would have to pay THOUSANDS for it, the Project Arts Centre just had to pay for two cans of paint.

So what is this clever recipe? Here it goes: Get a recognised artist, give him a can of white paint and a can of red paint and get him to paint a controversial message on the wall of your building. The artist can get help to speed up the process by the way. And don’t worry about the fact that not tooo many people will actually see the painted on message. Just make sure that the “authorities” will find out about it. (In 2016 it was Dublin City who had a problem with the missing planning permission for the “advertisement message”, this time it is the Charities’ Regulator.)

Hope and pray that the authorities have a big problem with that controversial message on the wall and tell you off and DEMAND that it will be removed. Now you get the press involved and tell them about it. Because it is a “sensational” thing that you are told off, they will hopefully write about it. And bingo! You didn’t have to hang a single poster of pay for expensive ad space online or on lamp posts and you reach more people than anyone else.

When you are told off, don’t fight it, but declare immediately that you will be happy to remove the international respected artists’ piece of art work. Then turn the removal of the message into an event by giving a date and time when you will remove it and with a bit of luck you might get the press to queue up to get a cool picture of the destroying of public art and if that goes into the newspapers and TV news, you get a second BIG exposure.

And if EVER again there is another message you feel passionate about, just rinse and repeat! The recipe works as long as there are authorities that complain. And in case there is no complaining authorities anymore. don’t worry, the message just stays where it is and that way still has some effect.

Sooo smart! :-) The controversial message was “Repeal the 8th!” and the Charities’ Regulator says it breaks the rule that forbids charities to engage in political activities. The artist is Maser and the removal will happen on Monday morning at 11:00.

 

Dublin, Media, Politics, , , , ,

Topaz filling stations undergoing an odd re-branding

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Topaz filling stations undergoing an odd re-branding

All 420 Topaz filling stations in Ireland will be re-branded to “Circle K” at a cost of a mad EUR 20mio. There is absolutely no need to move away from the well established “Topaz” brand in Ireland and in my opinion the new “Circle K” brand looks much cheaper than the Topaz brand, which makes the move even more odd.

Here is a picture of a Topaz station and here is one of a Circle K filling station in the USA.

But a LOT has happened with Topaz recently. Topaz was owned by Denis O’Brien and in 2015 he sold it to the Canadian company Couche-Tard, which has something like 6500 filling stations in North America and 1500 other stores and also is operating convenience stores and/or filling stations in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Indonesia and Mexico.

The global Circle K stores and filling stations is the reason why it was decided to bring the Irish brand in line with the global branding. But remember that Topaz only recently re-branded all Esso filling stations to Topaz and now another rebrand is happening. 20mio to make your brand look cheaper than before. Mad! You might also remember that Topaz was some while back Statoil and Shell, so a lot of rebrands and changes. :-O

Dublin, , , , ,

Dublin Airport and Aer Lingus are having a laugh!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Dublin Airport and Aer Lingus are having a laugh!

Last Friday I flew to Germany with Aer Lingus. It was an early start with a departure time of 07:00, so most people are not too keen to go for a healthy walk or jog at around 06:00 when you are on your way to the boarding gate. But Aer Lingus is considering our health and must have assumed that I was indulging the night before, because they were determined to get me to walk the calories off.

You check in Terminal 2 and you already know that for a tiny island, the airport in Dublin forces you to walk mad distances, but when you find out that your plane is not at Terminal 2 at all, but instead is parked at the Terminal that Aer Lingus is allegedly NOT using anymore, i.e. Terminal 1, then you feel that someone is having a laugh.

So you check in at Terminal 2 and then walk alllllll the way to Terminal 1 to board your flight. :-O

If that is not odd then wait for the return flight story:

On Tuesday we flew back to Dublin and arrived around 22:00. Usually you can leave the plane through the front and back door, but we were told that we will only be able to leave through the front door and that a bus will bring us to the terminal. But when we got out, there was no bus. Instead we were directed to a (new) walk way that brought us to a building that I had never seen before. I thought this is an extension of Terminal 2, but not so fast! We entered the building through the door on the right and were told to queue at the door OUT of the building in the left. :-O What for? To wait for the bus!

So you walk from the plane to this isolated new building, enter the building just to queue again to get out. Then you take the bus and it brings you to Terminal 2 where you have another loooooong walk to passport control and exit.

Are Dublin Airport and Aer Lingus that incompetent? Have they ever seen any other airports where buses bring passengers to the terminals? The bus normally waits next to the plane and then brings you to the airport. Why do we have to walk to a terminal to enter a bus that will bring us to a terminal. The new isolated building is called “South Gates” as I found out later. It was opened in December 2017 after being built for EUR22 mio (!?) and is only used by Aer Lingus for flights to Britain and Europe. Connection to and from the terminal is only via bus.

Can anyone tell me why Terminal 2 was built? Are any flights departing from and arriving at Terminal 2? Or do we have a situation where Terminal 1 and (mostly empty) Terminal 2 are already not big enough anymore? If that is the case then the future is not looking good.

Dublin, Tourism, , ,

Cyclists seeing red & Cyclists vs motorists

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Cyclists seeing red & Cyclists vs motorists

The newspaper journalists LOVE to stir sh*t and create confrontation! It sells the paper and that’s what their job depends on, so we fully understand that. ;-) However if you brought the wrong two sides up against each other you could get squashed in the middle, so you have to pick wisely! A good target to pick are cyclists and motorists. There is a natural dislike for each other it seems and also you steer far away from any racial or gender issues and accusations of discrimination.

Last week the Irish Times reported that “More fines issued to cyclists but not to drivers parking in cycle lanes”. I get the link BUT this is just sh*t stirring! The journalist didn’t write about “More fines issued to speeding motorists than to drunk motorists” or something like that.

Cars in cycling lanes is against the law (during the hours a cycling lane is active or if there is a full white line) and there is no justification for parking there. And in the same way, crossing a red traffic light is against the law and there is no justification for doing it, but comparing the number of tickets is nonsensical.

It is interesting though that there were 571 (!) fines given to cyclists who crossed red lights in the Dublin region. Considering that you can hardly ever be at a red light as a pedestrian or in a car WITHOUT seeing a cyclists crossing a red light, this is just a tiny tip of a HUGE iceberg and but it did already amount to a sizeable number of 571.

It is a totally stupid and very dangerous thing to do at best of time! So I hope that the Gardai will continue stopping cars and bikes who cross red lights!

Dublin, Traffic, , , ,
 
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