Category Archives: Restoration and rebuilding

Build Ballylongford

The Irish Examiner reports on the proposed LNG storage terminal here. Richard Tol provides an informed view here. The objectors’ site is here. I note from the Examiner report that they say:

Shannon LNG is hoping to make millions of euro profits every year with state support at the consumers’ expense at time of increasing fuel poverty.

Unfortunately the report did not say why a wish to make profits is to be deprecated or why it is a bad idea to increase fuel supplies and security “at time of increasing fuel poverty” but perhaps the extensive bogs, whose product was exported through Saleen, are still available.

Devolution, Sinn Féin and the Clones canal

Sinn Féin takes more interest in the Ulster Canal than does any other political party. It may not be coincidental that the government seems to be trying to get two local authorities, on both of which Sinn Féin is the largest party, to solve the canal’s funding problem.

The Ulster Canal: the departmental view

I have received from the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht a statement on the funding of the Ulster Canal; I reproduce it here.

This statement seems to me to be more forthright than statements from DAHG’s predecessor department, which is something I welcome, and so I reproduce it without comment. I will, in a few days, offer some thoughts on the canal’s prospects.

Plot 8 has been NAMAed

The development of the Plot 8 site at the Grand Canal Docks, Ringsend, was to be the most valuable of three sites to be sold by Waterways Ireland, with Craggy Island hoping to use the proceeds to fund the Ulster Canal. The DDDA’s interest in Plot 8 has now passed to NAMA.

I provided background information from the Oireachtas Committee of Public Accounts here; the DDDA announcement is here but NAMA, alas, has no information at the moment.

DDDA had withdrawn permission for IWAI Dublin Branch to work on the graving docks at the site.

Progress is progressing on the Ulster Canal (it says here)

The Joint Communiqué from the last Plenary Meeting of the North/South  Ministerial Council meeting (18 November 2011) can now be read or downloaded (PDF) from the NSMC website. It has much to say about the Ulster Canal:

Progress on the Ulster Canal is progressing incrementally with the planning process ongoing.

Er … right. That’s it, then. Progress is progressing, eh? Well, I never.

We’ve now had an Inland Waterways Sectoral Meeting (12 October 2011) and a Plenary Meeting, neither of which has said anything about how (or whether) the canal to Clones is to be funded. Why not? Shouldn’t they show us the money?

 

NI Programme for Government

The Northern Ireland Executive’s Programme for Government (PDF) is available for download here. The accompanying statement to the Northern Ireland Assembly by the First Minister and deputy First Minister (MW Word .docx) is downloadable here and can also be read on the Assembly’s website here.

There is no mention of waterways or canals in either document.

NSMC

The Irish Times says that there is to be a meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council on Friday 18 November 2011, with the A5 road on the agenda. Perhaps there will be some news about how the proposed Clones Canal is to be funded.

The Ulster Canal

A modest proposal here for funding the canal.

Dredging in Limerick

The Limerick Leader has a story here.

Garlic for engineers

Information has arrived from the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. I have accordingly updated my page about the Ulster Canal and the Infrastructure and Capital Investment 2012-16: Medium Term Exchequer Framework.