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@missarchi wrote:

The report has much going for it but I was let down by this item

“cultural heritage” and “high quality interchange”

If one looks at the number of areas that were to be Dublin’s cultural quarter with great fanfare reams of consulatants reports etc I guess at

1992 Temple Bar
1998 Smithfield
2002 IFSC
2004 Hueston
2007 Grand Canal Square

What makes you think the state would purchase some of the most valuable real estate in Europe to deliver what they have failed to deliver constantly in the past in areas where planning conditions could be used to deliver it at a much reduced price.

@marmajam wrote:

what is really laughable are the schoolboy howler maths you invariably cough up.
you have a perverse mission to prove MN is wrong but you consistently garble the basic facts of the project. further you have a sort of theoretical dream concept of the reality of Dublin transport which makes it plain that your grasp is hopelessly vague..
Your idea that Airport DMUs could fit into the Northern Line with the DART would be laughable if it was not so ridiculous. .

As Shakespere said there are daggers in men’s smiles, you wouldn’t last 5 minutes in civilised company.

@marmajam wrote:

you continually spout banking technical data while getting the obvious wrong.
The fact that you use this guff, when it might as well be Chinese to most people is the sad ‘blinding with science’ tactic of someone who is bluffing.

Ireland loses its triple ‘A’ rating
Monday, 30 March 2009 19:49
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has today lowered its long-term sovereign credit rating on Ireland to ‘AA+’ from ‘AAA.’ It added that the country’s rating outlook is negative.

A lower credit rating usually makes borrowing more expensive.

S&P said the downgrade reflects its view that the deterioration of the country’s public finances will likely require a number of years of sustained effort to repair, on a scale greater than factored into the Government’s current plans.

It added that it expects the Irish economy will materially underperform the euro zone economy as a whole over the next five years.

S&P also said that the ratings on Ireland could be lowered again if the public finances weaken substantially further than what it currently assumes.

‘The outlook could be revised to stable if the government embraces a fiscal strategy that contains the rise in the public debt burden in line with Ireland’s modest economic growth prospects,’ it added.

Credit rating agencies rate the ability of companies and countries to meet their financial obligations and their reports are watched by those who lend money in capital markets.

I wish I could live in your fantasy World but unfortunately people like S & P have just cost the taxpayer a lot of money and reduced the capacity to borrow dramatically.

@marmajam wrote:

Firstly, the capital cost of MN is being tendered for less than 3 billion. So, what’s the tripe about borrowing 5 billion?

Colm McCarthy An Snip Nua – in yesterdays Sindo estimated €5bn but warned of further cost over-runs

@marmajam wrote:

You previously stated that the 25 year payments would only be a subvention and the debt would still be owed.
Wrong. After 25 yrs, the debt is cleared.

Make up your mind you either pay interest and capital during the period at a rate of 8% i.e. the absolute minimum the market would extend finance for such a project in a good market long since gone. The cost of which would be €468.39m p.a. or let it balloon into a debt pile compounded beyond belief as interest generates interest.

Which is it or do you have a mystery philanthropist in the wings?

S & P’s key phrase was ‘the downgrade reflects its view that the deterioration of the country’s public finances will likely require a number of years of sustained effort to repair, on a scale greater than factored into the Government’s current plans.’

I strongly hope that the policy makers in Ireland have a better grasp of reality than they had in the 1980’s, with people like marmajam I understand why there was mass emmigration in the 1980’s, no-one could listen to such tripe even a Bus Eireann to Leeds would be preferable.

@ihateawake wrote:

Is ealaín é sin :rolleyes: Chomh maith le sin, Is méad do na boscaí bruscar timpeall an cathair le brúscar scríofa air. Is rud éigin beag é, ach cuireann sé isteach orm 😛

Ba chóir do bain usáid as an teanga, muna bhfuil, ba mhaith leat teacht liom agus é a scriobh i ngach stáisiún? 😀 Beidh sé sceimhlitheoireacht tírghrách.

When is the last time an NTMA bond auction sold at 89.50?

Smacks of the 86 Inteligence unit report

Spire of Dublin / Ian Ritchie Architects

The Lewis Glucksman Gallery / O’Donnell Twomey Architects

Crawford Gallery Extension / Erick van Egeraat

@missarchi wrote:

the old super pole

I don’t think that a couple of lamp posts errected by the local council will mitigate the destruction of the only decent City Centre public recreation space the city has

@original post by Peter F wrote:

No amount of money will return the green to what we have now – a perfectly maturing & indeed a perfect city park, its integrity will be destoryed. It has survived intact for near on 130 years & yet in 2008 this generation sees fit to thoroughly vandalise it.

It seems the final decision lies with John Gormley as this level of vandalism will require an amendment to the 1877 St. Stephen’s Green Act.

John Gormley, you cannot let this happen

Nor starving the rest of Dublin’s transport budget to give Boomie Bertie his Drumcoundra monument.

DjangoD

Thanks for your sentiments I suspect that Marmajam has had their prozac removed in the health cuts implemented due to the recession; hence the lack of argument and reliance on rude, crude personal attacks.

@Fergal wrote:

If anyone is interested in why Metro North is being built, rather than a DART extension, or light rail line, they should read this report, which sets out the reasoning behind it in detail. Transport21 is in Dublin was entirely cherry picked from the plan set out here.

Also interesting is their definitions of DART, Luas, and Metro.

DART: Electrified Heavy Rail
Luas: On street light rail
Metro: Segregated light rail

http://www.dto.ie/platform1.pdf

I agree with your analysis of the split and the approach of the DTO generally on this as being entirely correct in 1999 when the document scoping commenced.

There are however two key flaws in relying on this document.

Firstly at least half the document is concerned with demand side calculations which made a number of assumptions that were valid then but invalid now. The numbers underpinning the document were based on economic growth rates, employment growth and positive demographic shifts the like of which will never be seen again in the city and wider region.

The result of those growth rates both economic and employment was that the boom got boomier before the economy fell off a cliff, employment growth reversed and a new fiscal picture culminating in the April 7 mini – budget sets a revised set of expectations. I am clear that Ireland will recover within 2-3 years but that it will be on a more normal growth path in terms of employment, GDP, population etc – no more arrogant ministerial grand standing on delivering motorways to Waterford, heavy rail to Charlestown or Metro to Drumcoundra.

Secondly you failed to mention that the DTO strategy involved 3 lines firstly Cherrywood, secondly Tallaght and thirdly the Airport. The first and third would be a single line which would dramatically increase convenience and the second would feed large number of passengers and even may have had direct routing options with the airport nullifying the requirement for the disasterous Metro West.

To take an integrated well thought out plan and butcher 2 of the 3 lines required to give the system critical mass does not provide for valid comparison. To then devise a new Metro West that deprived the central part of the system critical mass but served a network of suburban shopping centres en route to the airport makes you wonder did they simply want to brainwash people with the concept ‘Airport Good, City Centre Bad’

To still peddle this airport centric solution in the absence of the critical mass required to make the DTO plan viable which would be to the detriment of the wider public transport network in the current fiscal climate illustrates just how self serving and unobjective the RPA are.

Metro North just like the ridiculous Metro West need to be canned; do we have ridership figures for the City west extension?

At this stage it is very unlikely that both metro north & the interconnector will proceed – my concern is and always has been, that we will get the former at the expense of the latter.

There is widespread disagreement about the merits or otherwise of metro north whereas most can agree that the logic behind the interconnector & reconfiguration of the dart network is blindingly obvious. It has been the missing link for decades & will still be after we’re finished fumbling around with metro north only to decide that we just can’t justify further investment in the rail network. So if its an either or, and realistically it is, build the interconnector.

@marmajam wrote:

t h e r e w i l l b e n o IMF in O i r l a n d.

be better off shticking to the GAA and mangling the disciplinary appeals process. simpler to understand ha ha.

Noel O’Gara at least had a sense of humour; you do not, nor any valid points.

Missarchi you really have outdone yourself quoting Tom Parlon; lets think back over TP’s career. IFA Chief Incitement Officer for the regular farmers mobs who released flocks of sheep into the Dept of Agriculture. The 32 story residential tower in Kilmainham which the market rejected in his stint as a member of the PDs that party born in the 1980’s out of the sheer frustration that Haughey was promising to buy the electorate in the 1986/7 period before Ray McSharry sorted Haughey’s plans into something credible. With this perfect background in controlling his members, designing viable development schemes and joining a party of fiscal recitude what does Tom Parlon suggest?

The proposal was not yet fully refined, but they had engaged with private pension funds and the scheme would likely see a 6-7 per cent guaranteed return on investment. The guarantee would be underwritten by the private sector and would be “off balance sheet” for the Government, and so would not add to the country’s debt

The proposal is not yet developed because investment funds that have some funds left after the rush to the exits can buy investments yielding 8.5% plus; an example might be a 100,000 sq foot Tesco supermarket with 18 years left and no breaks with rent reviews every 5 years yielding 8.5%.

Who is going to take the development risk on this for 6-7% when estimates for Londons Cross rail which is 6-7 miles underground are coming back at £15bn sterling. It simply doesn’t stack up as a private sector investment.

Tom’s real piece de resistance yesterday however was on RTE; I think the CIF really need to look at Tom’s continued role if they are to recover any shard of credibility.

The supplementary Budget to be introduced by the Government has the potential to make things worse rather than better, according to the Construction Industry Federation.

CIF Director General Tom Parlon said the focus appeared to be on taxes and cuts and, in his view, this was ‘entirely the wrong thing to do’. http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0309/construction.html

John Drennan’s piece quite chillingly spells out the road ahead; I wish it were different but looking at PMIs on both manufacturing and services in the early 30s now is not the time for white elephant projects.

Cowen must come clean on the ‘ground zero’ of economic collapse
Sunday March 08 2009

Ireland first heard about the concept of “ground zero” after the planes crashed into New York’s Twin Towers on 9/11. In the chaos that followed, we learned that ground zero was the furnace of the battle.

It is that final equivocal point before the skies clear, the shootings die down and we learn the identity of the winners and losers of the war.

After last week, amid all the smoke and chaos of the Irish economic collapse — quite aside from the fact that, rather like Britain under Labour in the Seventies, Ireland under Cowen is not working — one other thing was clear: it is well gone past the time that the Government came clean and told us what precisely the ground zero of the Irish economic collapse will be.

The people already suspect that the truth of the matter is that Ireland has no money.

It would (just about) be excessive to say we are bankrupt, but Ireland Inc is — as of now — technically insolvent to the point where only our membership of Europe is sparing us from a fate similar to that of Iceland.

If, however, the Irish people are ever going to face the consequences of this in practice rather than in theory, it is now time to make it official.

In other words, the Government must tell us when we are going to reach “ground zero”, and what it will mean, even if we will not reach that point for some time yet.

The Government also needs to tell us what we are going to have to do to ensure that reaching ground zero will not bankrupt the nation, because it is now abundantly clear that our economy needs extensive surgery.

A nation which is poised to borrow €25bn to keep the show on the road, and secure revenue of little more than €30bn, is probably less than six months away from default.

If that occurs, the only thing that will save us is the sight of Angela Merkel landing with a large bag of German taxpayers’ money. While some feral Dail conspiracy theorists believe that Fianna Fail’s (FF) secret plan is to go bankrupt and let the Germans take the rap for the consequences, we suspect that not even Brian Cowen wants to be remembered as the Redmondite who turned Ireland into a Home Rule-style colony of Germany.
If this is to be avoided, the Exchequer is faced with stark choices.

So far Cowen has tried to fool himself, and us, by claiming that a war on PR consultancies would balance the nation’s books. That option is no longer viable.

So also is the aspiration that €4.5bn might do the job, because if the Department of Finance believed in February that we faced a €4.5bn shortfall, the real figure is more likely to be €6bn.

That, of course, fails to take into account the reality that we have to sort out the rest of the €20bn deficit, but options such as carbon taxes, domestic rates, third-level fees, the ending of mortgage interest relief, rental relief, tax credits and water charges can be put off until our next scheduled budget in December.

For now though, the Cabinet needs to gulp hard and admit to itself and us that the economic “ground zero” we face means all the gains of the past 12 years are now the fiscal equivalent of an auction of repossessed cars.

Ireland is going to have to return to a lower tax rate of 25 per cent and a top rate of 44 per cent. It is a measure of the fiscal mess we are in that merely restoring the status quo of 1997 represents a huge gamble, because the €400bn of private debt means many ordinary citizens simply do not have the liquidity to pay these taxes.
This is only the start of it, however, for our current weakened state means that even this revolution in taxation will raise a maximum of €2bn.

If we are to become fiscally solvent, the cherished child benefit of the ladies who lunch will have to be taxed.

That and the abolition of the early childhood supplement will bring in another €800m and see FF go down as the party who finally taxed children’s shoes.

In the light of our latest figures, Cowen’s proud status as the boss of “the highest capital programme” in Europe is as dead as the FF election manifesto.

So far approximately €6bn of the €8bn we propose to spend this year has been allocated. The rest is dead meat — and, yes, that includes vanity projects like Metro North and the Western rail corridor.

The Government is going to have to take €1.5bn out of the social welfare and the public sector pay €20bn spending pots.

At least the public sector has given the Government its chance, for we cannot think of any better example of the truth of the old saying about how those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad, than the decision of the Irish Association of Higher Civil Servants to support a one-day strike in defence of the pay and conditions of the fine mandarins who turned this country into Albania.

The only appropriate response to this threat is a decision by the Government to rescind every pay increase sanctioned by the flawed benchmarking system.

It would of course be excessive to reverse the 20 of them in one go, but a Bertie-style “a lot done, more to do” cut in public sector pay of five per cent for all salaries above the €60,000 mark would represent a good start.

That would raise €500m immediately, but if we are to remain solvent the Government will have to follow the fine precedent set by Ernest Blythe and raise €1bn by cutting social welfare rates by five per cent .

Sadly, the Taoiseach’s tasks do not end there. If we were still living in the soap opera era of Bertie, all eyes would be focused on the leadership implications of Brian Lenihan’s decision to singe his leader’s beard with his admission last week that we need a national government in all but name. This means poor Cowen will now have to suffer the cruellest cut of all.

Saying sorry, particularly for aristocrats, may be the hardest thing, but if the Taoiseach “gets real” and apologises for the sins of the past and extends his drowning hand to the Opposition, he would at least be on the high moral ground.

Everyone in the country except FF, Labour and Fine Gael (FG) realises that we need a new politics of mature generosity. Of course, the Opposition is understandably worried about the consequences of its own ambitions of saving Private Cowen.

In fact, FG and Labour need not worry, for no matter what happens the public will use the first chance they get to run the current lot out of power for a generation.

Their main concern should be the consequences Gilmore and Kenny will have to deal with should their political selfishness create a situation where, if they finally get into office, there will be no country left for them to run.

With 30% of dublin architects and surveyors on the dole or McDonalds (sorry – anyway their fit outs are getting better) what needs to happen is that credit flows in the system again; the perception of the banks is linked to the perception of the government. What McSharry & Co did with the support of Dukes in 1987/88 created a boom that lasted from 1988 – 2007 minus 1991-93; building uncosted vanity projects to stimulate demand giving the central euroean governments the excuse they have been waiting a decade for to kill the corporate tax advantage would be quite Parlonesque.

@marmajam wrote:

the first 5 years will be paid at approx 250m a year.
you are quite confused.

PPP returns are based on a return on total capital employed. The project price according to you is €2.5bn therefore an annual return of €200m p.a. would be the very minimum that any of the 3 possible players involved would have considered back in the good old days when a system called credit existed.

Have you a shortlist of the PPP players who would actually do it on your terms

Mickey Mouse?
Donald Duck?
Roger Rabbitt?

Of the economic opinion pieces in todays sindo the metro was listed in every economic analysis as the first project to go.

@marmajam wrote:

more faffing and waffling.

calculations undone by schoolboy howler of 4.5 billion gaffe.
the 4.5 is the total cost over 25 yrs. the capital cost approx 2.5 billion.

have a lie down in a dark room, suggest

Oh our jam jar does numbers!

€200m per year for 25 years with no capital repaid for a system that delivers merely three stations that stack up in a mature transit market. What would the operational losses be on top?

€200m per year in isolation exceeds the entire subvention to the entire CIE group which serves the entire state and provides services to NI any beyond.

A single years subvention to these three viable stations would link the Airport to the City Centre

3 years subvention would extend Light Rail to the Airport; this would be akin to taking 22 years and all capital off a 25 year interest only mortgage.