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Failte Ireland lies to International Media!?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Failte Ireland lies to International Media!?

I love Dublin! I am living here for ages and for more than 11 years I wrote a online publication about cultural events in Dublin, but during that time I also have seen how the official groups responsible for tourism (especially in Dublin!) do less and less and expect more and more money to be dropped by tourists.

New Year’s Eve is not the most exciting day of the year in Dublin and if anyone asked me, I would strongly recommend that potential visitors stay far away between 24 December and 02/03 January. It is just sooo disappointing if you go to a city for these celebrated days and there is NOTHING happening.

In previous years some attempts were made to make Dublin a little more interesting at least over New Year with the New Year’s Festival Dublin. It consisted of some events on New Year’s eve (many years ago we even had fireworks!) and then more events and activities on New Year’s Day. But in 2018 all this changed again and it is the poorest and most disappointing events programme for the New Year’s Festival in at least 5, maybe 10 years!

There are just two light shows at Customs House. They are free, but needed tickets (which are all gone) and then there is a gig (not free!!) in the 3Arena. Apart from that there is not a single official event and NO events on New Year’s Day. Private Fireworks are forbidden in Ireland, nobody pays fro public Fireworks, so New Year’s Eve is a Non-Event!

That’s the facts!! But Failte Ireland is of the opinion that the facts shouldn’t get in the way of their “Fake news” marketing!

900 media representatives from 20 countries were invited to come to Ireland just before New Year’s and Failte Ireland is trying to convince them of something that is clearly untrue.

A RTE News article here says:

“The New Year’s Festival in Dublin is set to showcase tourism in the capital, and encourage more people to visit the capital and Ireland in 2019, according to tourism groups.”

“Liam Campbell from Fáilte Ireland’s International Publicity team said this year’s New Year’s Festival promises to be the most impressive end of year celebration Dublin has ever seen.”

What an amount of codswallop!

Do I think people should come to Dublin? Absolutely YES! It is a great place with lots of free and non free events during the year. This is mostly not thanks to Failte Ireland or Dublin City, but luckily we have lots of great people and businesses in Ireland that do a great job. But PLEASE tell people that they should avoid the Christmas and New Year’s period if they don’t want to be disappointed.

Dublin, Dublin City Council, Events, Media, Odd, Overexaggerations, Tourism, , , ,

Irish Ferries Rosslare Decision – Mock Shock from TDs

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Irish Ferries Rosslare Decision – Mock Shock from TDs

Irish Ferries has announced today that they will probably end the Rosslare to France ferry service because the majority of their customers prefers to get to Dublin directly instead of to Rosslare. Makes a lot of sense to most people! Having a service to a location that is not the favourite location and having to provide infrastructure at that unliked location does not make ANY business sense.

First I thought they are just cancelling the service, but when you read the announcement you find out that instead a Cherbourg to Dublin service will be provided. Not sure if they will still go to Le Havre, though.

So not REALLY a big problem, BUT there is immediate outrage from some of our TDs. Brendan Howlin from Labour finds the decision inexplicable. He either didn’t read the Irish Ferries announcement or doesn’t understand business. OR and that is the actual reason for his “mock” outrage: He is a TD that represents an area close to Rosslare. And yes, he is the TD for Wexford. So he needs to be outraged to have a chance to be elected again.

And the other outraged person? It is Sinn Féin’s Brexit spokesperson David Cullinane and – what a surprise – he is from Waterford. He finds the decision “truly baffling”.

Oddly, both claim that the reason for their shock is the upcoming Brexit! :-O Can anybody explain that? Ferries are still going from France to Ireland, but to Dublin instead of Rosslare. How does Brexit come into that? …unless you are afraid of being accused of “navel gazing” (or being only interested in the topic because it could affect your personally) and therefore invent some “bigger” justification than just defending your own patch.

Brexit, Dublin, Overexaggerations, Traffic, , , ,

Less customers in Grafton Street due to LUAS

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Less customers in Grafton Street due to LUAS

This is interesting! I had never thought of this or considered it, but after reading an article in the Irish Times about footfall in Grafton Street, I can see how it might make sense. Dublintown, the trader organisation for the City Centre, have identified that there was a drop in footfall by approx. 5.2% and they think the LUAS is the reason.

At first I thought: NONSENSE! The reduction in customer numbers if probably a general and global trend away from retail shops and towards online shopping. The prices retail shops charge are often to hideously high in comparison to online retailers that it really is difficult to keep shopping in the bricks & mortar shops.

But then I thought about how I would use the LUAS (if I could from where I live). If you come from the southern part of Dublin on the Green LUAS line and you work on the North side of the Liffey, then before the Cross City Luas was there, you would have left the LUAS at St. Stephen’s Green and then you would have had to walk from St. Stephen’s Green through Grafton Street to cross the Liffey to get to the Northside. Now, since the Cross City Luas is there, you change Luas trains at St. Stephen’s Green and then go across to the Northside in Luas, without ever putting a foot into Grafton Street.

Not much that can be done about it, but interesting how this new LUAS connection hurts businesses directly but very unintentionally. :-O

Dublin, Traffic, , , ,

Something seriously wrong here! EU Leaders Salaries

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Something seriously wrong here! EU Leaders Salaries

During the week I found a list of EU Salaries that was posted on Facebook and if you look through that list you realise that something is SERIOUSLY wrong in Ireland!

Formatting of tables with lots of numbers doesn’t work so well here, but I hope you will see the blatant discrepancy between the salaries and the size of the countries. And I don’t care who is the head of our little country (or its government) and also is it irrelevant that some salary cuts have already been “endured” by the Taoiseach.

EU Leaders’ Gross Salary per year:

+ Slovakia —— Population: 5.4 mio ——–Leader’s salary: EUR 45.127
+ Portugal——-Population: 10.46 mio ——Leader’s salary: EUR 68,670
+ Hungary——-Population: 10 mio ———Leader’s salary: EUR 72,000
+ Spain———-Population: 46.77 mio——Leader’s salary: EUR 78,000
+ Greece———Population: 11.03 mio——Leader’s salary: EUR 85,479
+ Lithuania——Population: 10.46mio——-Leader’s salary: EUR 90,361
+ Italy———–Population: 58.83 mio——-Leader’s salary: EUR 115,000

+ IRELAND——Population: 4.7 mio———-Leader’s salary: EUR 185,000

Is that mad or what? The Taoiseach earns more than the leader of the government in Italy or Spain or all these other countries?

Note; I didn’t check all these numbers in detail and instead took it from a post that is signed with “unitedpeople.ie”. United People seems to be a new party in Ireland. I don’t know much about this party and in no way support or endorse it. A brief “Fact check” on a Wikipedia Page here did indicate that the numbers in general seem to be at least in the right region.

Irish, Odd, Politics, Taoiseach,

Total ban of “single-use” bags? Don’t overdo it!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Total ban of “single-use” bags? Don’t overdo it!

We (hopefully) all know about the environmental problems plastic causes. We see regularly pictures and read reports about animals that were interfered with by getting caught in or swallowing items made of plastic. The plan is to forbid forks and knives, straws and plates and cups made of plastic and while there is a lot of sense in some of this, there is the possibility to go overboard a bit in an over-exaggerated “we have to do something” drive.

Ireland was one of the earlier countries to charge for the use of plastic bags and in the meantime MANY countries caught up or even did better by forbidding certain type of plastic bags. But at a visit in Germany a few months ago, I came across a situation that showed me that we really can overdo it!

I was in a middle sized town and had a look at some shops without any clear intent to buy something. C&A, a big clothes shop, was also there and I went inside to have a look. They are known for good quality for low prices. Not as low as Penney’s, but still very competitive. And while having a look around, I found a T-Shirt that I really liked and one or two other items that looked great and were at the right price.

So I went to the till and pushed the clothes across the counter to pay. The employee behind the counter scanned the labels of the three items and pushed them back to me. :-O I looked at her in a quizzical way and she said “Oh, do you need a bag?” I said “Do you have a paper bag?” Her reply: “No, we don’t do paper bags, but you can buy a plastic bag.” :-O :-O

I had no interest in using a plastic bag, but I also didn’t want to walk out of the shop with three pieces of clothing clenched under my arm just because I hadn’t pre-planned the purchase and therefore didn’t bring my own bag!!

Is it too much to ask to get at least the flimsiest of paper bags to put your purchases in if you go clothes shopping? C&A also sells suits and evening dresses. Would you not think that it is in the interest of the shop to provide customers with basic means to bring their garments home unblemished?

I am all in favour of protecting the environment, but that experience did annoy me quite a bit. I could have bought a plastic bag, but I decided not to (for environmental reasons), so I DID walk out of the shop with three items of clothing clenched under my arm. :-O

Elsewhere, Environment, , , ,
 
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