Sue

I have indeed. Fair enough, a “drinking den” is a slightly provocative statement but a “cultural quarter” it ain’t. Other than the Irish Film Centre, there is no cultural institution of any note or value.

It all goes back to Charles Haughey’s decision to stop Dublin Bus from building an underground terminus at Temple Bar with a tunnel under the Liffey to another terminus near Capel Street. This would have gotten ALL the buses off the streets, and turned Parnell Square, Fleet St, College Green etc. back into thoroughfares. Instead they are bus car parks, with all that entails in terms of pollution – both noise and air.

Meanwhile bus passengers have to wait on the streets in all weathers, instead of being able to go to an indoor terminus, buy a newspaper, sit down, actually know when the next bus is coming, and generally be civilised.

But no, Haughey wanted a left bank, arty farty quartier and made CIE sell back all the house bank it had accumulated with a view to building a terminus. So we got a giant drinking den instead with not a bus in sight. Well done CJ, you corrupt little crook. RIP 😡

Read page one of this web page and then read this. Sue, for one, will be watching the outcome of this case with interest:

In the Courts
Engineering firm seeks €6.4m for bridge work.
226 words
16 October 2007
Irish Times
8
English
(c) 2007, The Irish Times.

A €6.4 million dispute between an engineering company and Dublin City Council over work on the James Joyce Bridge in Dublin has come before the Commercial Court.

Carillion Irishenco is claiming €6.4 million for additional costs which it claims to have incurred in steelwork fabrication carried out on the bridge near Blackhall Place.

The claim was rejected by the council and went to arbitration. The arbitrator decided on July 31st, 2007, that Carillion was not entitled to extra costs.

The James Joyce Bridge was designed by Santiago Calatrava Valls. Engineering firm Roughan O’Donovan was appointed consulting engineers, and Carillion Irishenco in March 2001 entered into a contract with the council to construct the bridge, the court was told in documents presented yesterday to Mr Justice Peter Kelly.

Carillion subcontracted the steelwork fabrication and erection to Harland and Wolff Heavy Industries Ltd. Carillion claims that, during the network fabrication work, Harland and Wolff experienced “significant difficulties” in effecting welds to a cruciform joint and refused to proceed until it received an instruction from the engineer amending the design.
An alternative design was agreed, and instructions were issued by the engineer for Carillion Irishenco to proceed. Carillion’s claim is for the “significant additional costs” incurred in connection with the extra steel fabrication work.

So which is it?

Sue, maybe your Berties daughter in disguise

or

promoter of the automobile over culture, history,

Am I Bertie’s daughter or a spokesman for the AA? You eco-warriors should co-ordinate your insults a little more thoughtfully.

While you’re working that one out, here’s some light reading. Further proof that the archeological site, on whose behalf you demand that tens of millions be spent in order to find a new M3 route, is about as important as Sue’s back garden.

Ar aghaidh leis an obair!

Forensic M3 dig unearths Iron Age secrets.
Elaine Keogh
380 words
25 August 2007

(c) 2007, The Irish Times.

The National Roads Authority has revealed how it is excavating the controversial new national monument at Lismullen on the route of the €850 million M3 motorway.

Senior archaeologist with the National Roads Authority (NRA), Mary Deevy, admitted that so little evidence remains that “forensic archaeology” will be used to try and reveal exactly what it was used for.

The monument consists of two circular enclosures made of arcs of stake-holes and what appears to be an east-facing entrance; the diameter of the outer enclosure is 80 metres, the inner 16 metres.

Radio carbon dating has dated sample material to the middle Iron Age or around 400 BC.

The site occupies what will be part of the northbound lane of the motorway but it is currently home to four teams of archaeologists and their supervisors and a team of archivists.

The monument is being preserved by record, as directed by the Government and yesterday Ms Deevy, who gave a guided tour of the excavations to a small group of reporters, said “we don’t downplay archaeology as we find it so exciting.”

It appears the site was used for one phase of activity but whether this took place over a day, a year or decades is unclear and what that activity was also remains a mystery.

The archaeologists are taking regular samples of the soil for geo-chemical analysis.

“At this stage we don’t know what it is going to tell us. We are really throwing all the scientific analysis at it because there is so little archaeology here. On a site like this you are essentially down to forensic archaeology.

“We are not finding materials you can hold in your hand, we are essentially looking for trace elements that can be analysed under a microscope chemically. Hopefully we will get results,” she said.

Asked whether the radio carbon dating had tied the site into nearby Tara, Ms Deevy said: “There are so many individual sites on Tara that no matter what period this site was we would find some correlation. Before we had the date we had said it had similarities to a phase of Rath of the synods and that still holds to some extent.”

I await the war this will cause on this forum –

But why would there be a war, Chris? :rolleyes: The democrats on this forum will undoubtedly now accept that a proper and legal decision has been taken on the M3, after due consideration by the impartial instruments and institutions of the state. Due process has been followed to the letter. The minister for the environment naturally accepts the logical and considered outcome.

As they say in Letterfrack – Ar aghaidh leis an obair!! 🙂

I say keep Salafia where he is: he does the Tara case more harm than good, fair play to him

Now listen up kids: here’s the most important article on Tara written this week:

State expert plays down impact of M3 on the Hill of Tara
21 July 2007
Irish Independent
(c) 2007 Independent Newspapers Ireland Ltd

A SENIOR state archaeologist last night said fears about the impact of the controversial M3 motorway on the Hill of Tara had been misplaced.

The National Roads Authority’s (NRA’s) Mary Deevy said she believed the proposed road would not impact on the Tara landscape in Co Meath.

She also said the road was further from the ancient site than the existing carriageway. Ms Deevy was speaking as she gave journalists a guided tour of the archaeological excavations at the newly discovered national monument at Lismullen, near the Tara monument, which she agreed should be preserved by record.

This comes as environmentalists plan to take to the streets of Dublin tomorrow for a ‘Love Tara’ march, before presenting the Government with a petition demanding the road be re-routed.

“I think Tara is a very special place, but I think some people have overestimated the impact (of the motorway),” Ms Deevy said.

“There is no way to change their minds until the project is finished and they can see for themselves.”

Ms Deevy reiterated the State’s position that the motorway would not impact on the Tara monument and would be further from the ancient site than the existing road.

She added some fears about the future development of the Tara area were legitimate, but said a landscape conservation scheme was being considered by Meath County Council which had been included in the current county development plan.

Sorry PVC, forgot what a busy and well remunerated young man you are. Time is money, what? 🙂

You could always reply to my searing critiques of your flawed arguments outside office hours yourself….

the unique archaeological landscape of Tara

Nonsense. Newgrange is unique. Tara has, so far, produced two minor monuments

thousands and thousands of years of civilization, spoken for by a small warehouse! To destroy any of it is demented.

Read that slowly again “to destroy ANY of it is demented”. This man wants us all to live in a museum, and wear white gloves all day….

Sue

Get your nose back in the pig trough

Your logic is so persuasive, Walker. I’ve competely changed my mind about the M3….

Fair play to John Gormley… he’s playing a blinder so far, completing ignoring the ranting, raving, hyping, lying, exaggerating and obfuscating of Tarawatch and Salafia. Their claim last weekend to have found “another” national monument on the M3 has been exposed for the charlatanism it is.

Bad news for you anti-M3 people….. the minister for the environment, the GREEN minister for the environment, might just let it stand!! :p

Shadow, 3 is an excellent idea – well worth investigating. Any idea how much it would add to the cost? (Mind you, we’re good for the extra cash. Worth paying whatever it is to keep the likes of Salafia delaying this project forever and to give the good burghers of Meath the same sort of motorway access to das kapital that everyone else is enjoying)

Vincent Salafia is “taking legal advice”. What a joke. Is he implying that if his lawyers were to advise him NOT to take legal action that he’d comply?

No, this man of straw will be back in the Four Court quicker than you can say “on a no foal no fee basis”. Even though the courts have now ruled against him, by my rough estimate, three times. Who’s propping up this man of straw? Why don’t Salafia’s financial backers sue themselves? It’s about time the judiciary stood up to this nonsense, which has blighted almost every major infrastructural project in this country over the last decade.

Roche’s decision, taken on the advice of the National Museum, was spot on. And the Greens can stamp their feet all they like – had they made the M3 a make or break issue in the formation of government talks, Roche couldn’t have done what he did.

So long Dick. You have done the state some service. 😀