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4th September 2012 • Volume 19, Issue 26 • Leader House, North Street, Swords, Co. Dublin. • Tel: 8•400•200 • info@northcountyleader.ie
Lessons For Council From Beach Fiasco The recent sewage release in Balbriggan, that has caused the closure of the beach there, has posed a number of questions for the local authority to answer. They blamed a combination of equipment failure and heavy rain. For more than 24 hours, the Isaacs Bower pumping station was pumping raw sewage into the sea at Balbriggan. It was only when a canoeist raised the alarm that the local authority became aware of the problem. However, business leaders in the town are very concerned about the affects on tourism in the local area. General manager of the Bracken Court Hotel, Rory Keogh told the County Leader that the hotel received no notification of events from the Council. “The first I heard about it was from a local news agency and then the RTÉ website. We will be posing the question to the Council about why it took 26 hours for it to be noticed. This will have a massive affect on our business, as we rely on visitors from Northern Ireland. Our main selling point is our proximity to a safe beach, where children can play. We are disappointed, as one of the leading tourist businesses in the town, that we have not been informed about how long the beach will be closed. We need to be able to advise our customers of the current and future situations,” he said. President of Balbriggan Chamber of Commerce, Kevin Tolan told the County Leader, “This was an accident ready to happen. With the population increase in the town in recent times, the infrastructure was way behind the population growth. We can only hope that it will now put pressure on the County Council to complete the proposed new pumping station to be located near the church. Tolan was disappointed that the Council did not
- Correction In our front page article on “County Councillors Ready For The Off” in our last edition, we incorrectly stated said that Councillor Anne Devitt had been expelled from the Fine Gael Party. She, of course resigned from the party. We wish to apologise for this error and regret any offence to Cllr Devitt or the Fine Gael Party.
Cllr. Anne Devitt
By Patrick Finnegan apologise to the people of Balbriggan. “When the levels of water came up, and there was 10 times the amount of ecoli in the sea water compared to neighbouring Skerries, the local authority announced that they had made the correct decision in closing the beach and used political spin to give themselves a pat on the back for making the right decision, instead of offering the people of Balbriggan a fulsome apology.” “I will ask the Council to call a meeting to discuss when the new station will be started and what changes will be enacted to prevent this happening again. With a population of 22,000, this plant should have had a generator, which would have kept it operational in the event of a power failure. They need to review their systems to prevent a reoccurrence,” he said. The County Council’s decision to close the beach for health and safety reasons and their decision to communicate with the public via their website, means that only those members of the public with access to computers or iPhones, who would be of the mindset to check the council’s website on a daily basis, would have been aware of the problem. The other form of communication used, namely by twitter is equally discriminating and is only seen by a minority of people. Many residents regard the Council’s website as difficult to navigate. It appears that the council waited until they were contacted by news agencies before they became proactive. Up to that, the public had to go to the council to find out what was happening. The County Leader enquired from the local authority about how they went about getting the message about this most serious situation across. A spokesperson said that “the council’s website and twitter was the preferred means of communication, along with posting notices at the beach.” Balbriggan residents that the County Leader has contacted maintain that this very selective and limited form of communicating is half hearted and not a genuine effort to alert the public. They say it was negligent and unacceptable. The spokesperson continued, “The primary place to post the problem is at the site itself.” Residents, however went on to say that the notice on the beach could not have been said to be oversized and presumes that everyone entering the beach area sees the notice. Also there are so many
Pictured at the launch of Fingal Enterprise Week 2012 at Roganstown Golf and Country Club on Friday last, are County Mayor, Cian O'Callaghan, Oisin Geoghegan CEO Fingal County Enterprise Board, Paddy Lonergan, Manager Bank of Ireland Swords and Joe Harford, Chairman Fingal County Enterprise Board. See story on page 9
entrances to the beach that it would be impossible to cover all areas. Many children would be allowed to visit the beach area by their parents, if they were unaware of the problem, and children simply ignore warning signs. When the recent major problem arose in Cork, where beaches had to be closed in the interest of public safety, Cork County Council took no chances and wasted no time in immediately informing the national media, including TV and local newspapers. In their efforts to safeguard the health of locals, they used the media with
the maximum impact to communicate their message. They may well have used twitter and the website, but not exclusively. The local community understood the problem instantly and there was no guessing involved. Everything was out in the open. Happily the local authority have confirmed that water quality at Balbriggan beach has returned to within European Bathing Water Quality Limits and a visual inspection of the beach on Friday 31st August, the beach has now reopened to bathers.
Daly Tells Us Why She Left EXCLUSI
Former local Socialist Part TD, existing, established political Clare Daly has defended her parties.” reason for resigning from the She continued: “That alternative party and has refuted the reasons is all the more necessary now, given by them for her decision. with the appalling sell out of the In an exclusive interview with the Labour Party in government. County Leader, Daly said that the Unfortunately the potential of the party’s claim that her political ULA has not been fully realised connection to Independent and it is now time that the Wexford TD, Mick Wallace has component organisations prioridamaged her reputation was tised the building of the ULA. I nonsense. The party claimed that, chose to resign to devote myself “In our view, the fundato building a broad mental reason for alternative to repreClare’s resignation is sent ordinary that she now places people.” more value on her politThe Socialist Party ical connection with maintain that “Daly Mick Wallace than on offered political the political positions support to Mick and work of the Wallace, despite the Socialist Party.” opposition of the Daly countered by Socialist Party to her stating, “It’s insulting to acting in this way. think that someone with Clare Daly TD She publicly my record would decide vouched for Mick my political future because of an Wallace and his fitness for office, individual is both insulting and intervened on his behalf and derogatory. I chose to leave the consciously and consistently sat Socialist Party because the last beside him in the Dáil which general election was a unique amounted to public political opportunity for the development endorsement,” they claim. of a real alternative to the This statement aroused great
VE
anger in Daly, who told us, “I’ve been perfectly clear all along that Mick Wallace’s company should not have underpaid VAT returns and this money is now in the process of being paid back. None of the political parties called on him to resign, and therefore, neither did I. It’s a complete red herring about my seating arrangements in the Dail ; it’s infantile, as I’ve always sat there,” she said. When asked if this latest controversy would affect her chances of being re-elected to the Dail, she was very definite. “I stand on my record as a political campaigner for over 25 years and was elected on this basis. I’ve been very active in local issues like pyrite and other injustices in the constituency, including household charges and water taxes. I’m the same person I was last Friday and I will continue in the same way as before and the electorate of Dublin Fingal will judge me on my record, Already I’ve received lots of messages of support from across the constituency,” she concluded.