Tag Archives: Ireland

Northern subsidy?

Posted on Tuesday 24 January 2012 | 3 comments

The Waterways Ireland Corporate Plan 2011–2013 [PDF] tells us how the body is funded:

Waterways Ireland receives grants from money voted by the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Houses of the Oireachtas. At present 15% of recurrent or maintenance funding is provided by the Assembly in Northern Ireland and 85% by the Irish Government reflecting the current distribution of the navigable waterways, while capital development works carried out by Waterways Ireland are funded separately by the jurisdiction where the works are carried out.

This is not new information; I quote it here only for convenience (but note how “the Houses of the Oireachtas” becomes “the Irish Government”).

Now look at these figures from Annex C of the Corporate Plan. They show, for 2011, the proposed budget for current expenditure on each waterway. I have rearranged them in descending order of amount:

  • Grand Canal €4,559,160
  • Shannon Navigation €4,240,398
  • Royal Canal €2,713,052
  • Barrow Navigation €1,296,538
  • Shannon–Erne Waterway €1,269,450
  • Erne System €380,239
  • Lower Bann €375,270.

It would be interesting to compare the value for money offered by each waterway. However, it would be necessary to allow for the non-navigational responsibilities WI has for each waterway: for example, it has to look after a lot more bridges on the Grand Canal than it does on the Erne. I do not have enough information to make valid comparisons.

My immediate interest is in the figures for the Erne and the Lower Bann. Granted, the burdens on WI are in some respects lower than for other waterways. But the two northern waterways are getting a total of €755,509 spent on them out of a waterways total of €14,834,107, which is about 5%. Yet the NI Assembly is paying 15% of WI’s current expenditure.

Perhaps I’m missing something. I would welcome enlightenment.

 

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Ireland, Irish waterways general, Operations, People, Politics, waterways, Waterways management

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Waterways Ireland salary reductions

Posted on Tuesday 24 January 2012 | 2 comments

Annex E of the Waterways Ireland Corporate Plan 2011–2013 [PDF] ssets out the Efficiency Savings Delivery Plan:

This Delivery Plan describes the measures Waterways Ireland will implement to achieve its target savings for 2011–2013.

Efficiency Programme

The Body will realise total efficiencies of £5,229,000/€6,377,000 from 2011-2013 as shown in the Total Efficiency Table below. […]

One problem for WI is that it expects to have to increase its pension costs by €1,175,000 over the three years, which means that WI actually has to save about €7.5 million over three years. It is showing a “Reduction in Capital Spend” of €3,102,ooo over the three years, plus reductions in Admin of €1,637,000 and in Resource of €2,813,000.

Here is how WI intends to achieve the Admin savings (€1,637,000 over three years):

Increase control in administration including negotiation of reductions in rates for Back Office Managed Services, new mobile phone contract and overtime control.

And the Resource savings (€2,813,000 over three years):

Controls over maintenance costs including lockkeepers agreement, salary reductions in Ireland and overtime control.

That looks as if most of the Resource savings are going to come from the wages bill; that in turn suggests that other costs have already been cut. The Resource reductions are allocated to waterways. In descending order of size the total figures for the three-year period are:

  • Grand Canal €910,000
  • Shannon Navigation €662,000
  • Royal Canal €503,000
  • Barrow Navigation €387,000
  • Shannon–Erne Waterway €232,000
  • Erne System €70,000
  • Lower Bann €69,000

 

 

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Irish waterways general, Operations, People, Politics, Shannon, Uncategorized, waterways, Waterways management

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A slight delay

Posted on Tuesday 24 January 2012 | 1 comment

Keeping up with Waterways Ireland’s corporate publications is a bit of a chore: there doesn’t seem to be any system allowing interested citizens to sign up for alerts, so you have to troll on over to the relevant web page and check for new stuff (I’ll see whether Page2RSS works).

Anyway, I don’t know when the WI Corporate Plan 2011–2013 [PDF] was uploaded, so it may be that everybody has already read it, although it wasn’t approved until October 2011:

This Corporate Plan 2011 – 2013 was approved by the North/South Ministerial Council on 12th October 2011 subject to budgetary considerations by the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Houses of the Oireachtas.

Naturally, I had a look for mentions of the Ulster Canal. It’s still there in Business Objective 2, which includes this:

Progress restoration of the Ulster canal from Upper Lough Erne to Clones.

But what isn’t there is any money (other than small change). Annex B shows these amounts of expenditure:

  • 2011: €390,000
  • 2012: €140,000
  • 2013: €390,000

With an expected total cost of €45,000,000, it seems that there won’t be much progress in the next few years.

Thank goodness.

 

 

 

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish waterways general, Operations, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways management

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Prothero on the Armagh Blackwater and the Ulster Canal

Posted on Tuesday 24 January 2012 | Leave a comment

Another extract from F E Prothero and W A Clark eds A New Oarsman’s Guide to the Rivers and Canals of Great Britain and Ireland: Cruising Club Manual, George Philip & Son, London 1896. The lack of detail suggests to me that Prothero did not travel this route himself.

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Posted in Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, People, Restoration and rebuilding, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways management

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River Suir showcase seminar

Posted on Tuesday 24 January 2012 | 2 comments
Information from South Tipperary County Council

River Suir Showcase Seminar

Tuesday 31st January, Carrig Hotel, Carrick-on-Suir. Time: 3-7pm

Do you have an interest in or love for the River Suir? If so, you are invited to come along to this first River Suir Showcase seminar in Carrick-on-Suir. As well as short talks on a range of river-related topics, there will be specialists from the various bodies that have responsibility for different aspects of the river on hand to answer any queries. Topics include inland waterways, boating on the Suir, fisheries, water quality, water safety, wildlife, the river navigation, invasive species, community and voluntary activities, and heritage survey projects on the Suir and the Nore.

Everyone is welcome to attend the entire seminar or to drop in for a short time. So come along and meet other river people and find out what activities are going on along the river.

This event is a follow up to requests from local people during the Suir River Cafe during Clonmel Junction Festival and community workshops in Ardfinnan, Cahir, Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir over the summer undertaken as part of the Waterways Forward project.

It is an opportunity to share river information or just to hear about all the projects that are underway.

To book a free place: please contact: Margo Hayes, Tel: 051 642109 or margo.hayes@southtippcoco.ie

For further details on River Suir projects see [the website]: http://www.southtippheritage.ie/riversuir or contact Labhaoise McKenna, Heritage Officer, South Tipperary County Council heritage@southtippcoco.ie

 

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Natural heritage, Operations, People, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Scenery, Suir, The fishing trade, waterways

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Prothero on the Erne

Posted on Sunday 22 January 2012 | 2 comments

The Erne in the 1890s, from the Cruising Club Manual.

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Posted in Built heritage, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Natural heritage, Operations, People, Scenery, Sources, Tourism, Ulster Canal, Water sports activities, waterways

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Lough Derg from The Lookout

Posted on Sunday 22 January 2012 | Leave a comment

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Posted in Extant waterways, Ireland, Irish waterways general, Natural heritage, Scenery, Shannon, waterways

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“Oi! Noah? …

Posted on Sunday 22 January 2012 | Leave a comment

… I thought I told you to make it of gopher wood?”

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Posted in Ashore, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Non-waterway, Shannon, Water sports activities

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Canal parties

Posted on Friday 20 January 2012 | 3 comments

I wondered recently whether the proposed canal to Clones was really a Sinn Féin canal. And I have also wondered whether the proposed restoration of the Lagan Navigation was a Unionist riposte, to be undertaken without the involvement of cross-border implementation bodies. With Michael McGimpsey having supported it, I thought of it as an Ulster Unionist project: although there seems to have been some DUP interest in at least some aspects, I’d have thought the Upper Bann was more DUP territory, with at least part of the Lower Bann staunchly supporting Ulster Scots heritage.

Now (h/t Industrial Heritage Ireland) comes news that the SDLP has got itself a canal: it wants the Newry Canal to be handed over to Waterways Ireland by the four local authorities that currently own it. This would extend the influence of the cross-border body into another area of Northern Ireland and bring it even into Portadown.

The Newry and Portadown Branch of the IWAI wants the thing restored and no doubt the local authorities (who have maintained it as a popular walking and cycling route) would be glad to get it off their budgets. Waterways Ireland, alas, remains deaf to my blandishments and is determined to have the Ulster Canal made navigable instead of setting up a walking and cycling route, and no doubt it would welcome having the good folk of Newry and Portadown lobby for it to get United Kingdom taxpayers’ money (if there ever  is any to spare) to restore the Newry Canal.

But the major question that nobody has answered is this: what is the Alliance Party doing? What canal does it want restored?

 

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Operations, People, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Ulster Canal, Waterways management

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What’s in a name?

Posted on Friday 20 January 2012 | 1 comment

I don’t know how the poor benighted foreigners cope with the organisation of Irish government departments. In fact, I don’t even know how poor benighted Irish folk cope with it.

Let us assume that you want to find out stuff about Irish policy on ships. Fortunately, you find www.gov.ie, and select Government departments. And there, on the very first line, is what you want: the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. So you troll on over there, and if you’re very lucky you’ll select Fisheries, because if you do that you may realise that the only marine thing in the Dept of Ag is fish. And only sea fish: freshwater fish are the responsibility of a body called Inland Fisheries Ireland (surely that habit of calling things “such-and-such ireland” should have died off by now), which reports to the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.

So where are the ships? They’re in the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, under Maritime. And some day they’ll reorganise their section of the website so that things can be found easily. But inland waterways come under the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Ireland, Operations, People, Politics, waterways

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