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THE LAST OF the 340 Irish troops who have been serving with the 108th UNIFIL Battalion in Lebanon will fly into to Dublin Airport at around 1pm this afternoon.
Their replacements from the 170-strong 42nd Infantry Group have flown out over the last week or so, and are now settling into their new digs at ‘Camp Shamrock’ ahead of a six month tour-of-duty. 171 personnel from the last deployment are due home this afternoon; the rest flew back last week.
The soldiers have taken part in a number of special projects in recent months, including 13 humanitarian projects, programmes to install water pumps and generators, and a ‘community integration’ effort which involves Irish troops teaching English to local schoolchildren.
It’s a joint Irish-Finnish UNIFIL mission: on the next six-month deployment a Finnish commander will be in charge, taking over from Ireland’s Lieutenant Colonel Tony McKenna.
Lieutenant Colonel Ray Yorke, from Edgeworthstown in Longford is the new commander of the Irish troops, who are headquartered around around 7 km from the blue line boundary between Lebanon and Israel, south of the village of At Tiri.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon was established in 1978 following the withdrawal of Israel’s troops, with the aim of restoring peace and security. Its mandate has been renewed every year since.
In excess of 400 Irish troops will be spending Christmas overseas this year, in Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere.
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The only country in Western Europe to make the list, what an achievement. The wisdom of Dublin City Council is largely to blame for this with its archaic planning and height restrictions. If high rise, within reasonable limits, was given the green light years ago we wouldn’t have this problem as well as taking pressure off the housing crisis. The amount of money on transport infrastructure could be brought down significantly as well and make the city centre much more bike friendly. But they’re priorities lie with a White Water Rafting facility on prime land. Absolute wasters.
@Tom Cullen: let’s not the love affair with traffic lights. Lights everywhere forget roundabouts and pedestrian crossings like in europe a nice set of lights is just grand
@Tom Cullen: those other cities have good metro systems so it’s your choice if your want to sit in traffic or just take the metro like lost people do, unlike Dublin.
@Tom Cullen: I couldn’t agree more iv been saying this for years
A lot of the traffic issues in Dublin are caused by out of sequence traffic lights. They are all over the city. Year in, year out the same lights are causing major congestion, Also a lot of pedestrian lights which go green 24/7 even when there’s nobody crossing and filter lights that don’t stay green long enough to let cars through, which causes tailbacks.
The Beckett Bridge is a complete mess, Traffic lights out of sequence, pedestrian lights and bicycle lights that go green separately.
Baggott St and Mespil Rd junction another mess.
There are at least 30 junctions in the city centre alone that need the sequence changed.
@gerard carey: that junction is a joke. Takes ages to turn green n then you gota floor it cos about 5/6 cars gets through and back to wiring for another 4 min. Stupid
KEEGAN, He’s the cause of all the traffic problems in Dublin,purposely reducing road capacity for the past few years,He’s a serial cyclist.
@gerard carey: you think the council doesn’t know this, they do everything they can purposely to hold up traffic from what I can see,
If only there was a method of travelling that didn’t require single occupant cars driving in Dublin? Say a human powered vehicle or a large vehicle transporting many people.
Bring in a congestion charge and the problem is solved as other cities have proved.
@Craic_a_tower: How about no vehicles through the core of the city between 8am-10am and 4pm-6pm. Exceptions being public transport, taxis, commercial vehicles and emergency services. Big upgrade to public transport required but absolutely worth it.
@Tom Cullen: Just put a congestion charge between 730 am and 930 am , like they do on the port tunnel.
@Craic_a_tower: punish the drivers when there’s no transport alternatives? No bus lanes or Luas anywhere near me on the Northside.
@Craic_a_tower: no… Not the answer and DCC would just love that.. We NEED A PROPER PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM. Our trains and busses can’t cope at all and it takes 2 YEARS to get one extra carriage.. No one is planning for the future. Short sighted people…
@Lisa Jones: did you miss the bit about human powered transport? Wonder where you live on the Northside without buses or bus lanes. I live northside and cycle and I know there are bus lanes and cycle lanes along with roads I can cycle on.So yes punish people who drive and don’t have to . Increasing the population density closer to the city and reduce journey times. Encourage the OAPs to down size and use the well serviced areas for workers. There are many options but we know cars are not the answer
Joke of a city. Capital city with no metro. Embarrassing
@Peter: Completely ridiculous – a decade on and still no airport Metro. The Port Tunnel came in under budget. The Metro could have been built by now, and affordably. And drivers are still paying tolls on the motorway in Dublin.
Does anyone seriously think drivers like to sit in traffic endlessly,there is no alternative for-most people,no public transport which gets you where you need to go at the times you need to go and returns you likewise not to mention parking costs . Seriously we need people working from home where possible and also staggered working hours, with school hours amended to facilitate, we just don’t have a public transport system that can cope with the volume of passengers,safety issues aside.
So much for being a western civilisation.
@Dónal MacAonghusa: So silly
Most people are paid from work start to work finish, and not including commuting time. Put a value on your time. Say, a low figure of €15 per hour. At 213 hours, this equates to €3,195 worth of YOUR time. Insert whatever other value you want and multiply it by 213. And remember, you can always make more money. You cannot make more time. For businesses, this also equates to lost productivity as workers are far more tired. Joined-up thinking is required by the authorities to reduce this burden on both commuters and businesses.
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: that’s a great way at looking at it
I’m guessing Galway wasn’t looked at?
213 hours? And the Dubs think we’re worse off living in the sticks!!
@Deaglán MacThóirdealbaigh: you are.
@Paul Furey: Point in case. Enjoy looking at your dashboard.
Half of our GDP comes from dublin.thats totally unsustainable.most capital cities in Europe have 15/20% GDP.its time our other four cities in Ireland got its fair share.they need to move away from Dublin port and leave rosslare Waterford and cork as major ports in Ireland
@nicknack: our GDP doesn’t mean anything. The government doesn’t even use it for planning. We have to use a modified GNI.
There is no question that we need to develop services and encourage industry to move to some of the other urban areas in the country. The housing crisis is also a capacity issue in Dublin. Even with that we still go ahead and build a children’s hospital slap bang in the city centre. Advanced planning has never been our forte.
@Feardorcha Ó Maolomhnaigh: we are serious under occupancy in Dublin. large areas are filled with retired people. My mother’s road, 10 houses used to have 48 people living there now 14 do. Admittedly the 48 includes children but lot of individual people live in 3-5 bedrooms houses in huge areas in Dublin.
Right up there with all the modern European cities…I think not!
The congestion is organized congestion. It is organized in such a way as to drive car traffic off the roads. Consider for example the recent changes on the quays and you can see how it works. Dublin needs a proper public transport system which is based underground. Every other city in Europe has one so let’s get planning.
Bumper to Bumper? Wait a minute where’s me jumper? Oh no!
@gary mullen: You should see my dog. Livid!
Lets throw a €2bn children’s hospital into the mix while we’re at it.
Worst city in EU
ask your local election candidates what are they going to do, to encourage people to use public transport and people to cycle?
Bus Connects which really is a way of allowing more cars on the road will just make matters worse. Radical thinking required. Inner city apartment blocks, congestion charge and more public transport. Think the horse has bolted though.
Its interesting looking at that survey by Tom Tom. The seem to take Dublin city as going from Kilmacanogue in the south, to Balbriggan in the north, to Celbridge in the west. That would be a pretty loose interpretation of what defines Dublin.
@Feardorcha Ó Maolomhnaigh: That’s where everyone I know has to commute from. I only know two people who cycle to Dublin. Better public transport is needed.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: It would be a long cycle from Celbridge, Balbriggan or Kilmacanogue to the City centre.
Every City ahead of Dublin in that European list has an underground
@Derek Goulding: If only. Imagine being able to get on a fast train without standing in the rain first. Maybe we need a contest – the first Irish city to build one gets all the new jobs?
London twice the population of Ireland . Dublin makes the list. OK the narrow streets and old infrastructure doesn’t help. Limit traffic into the city.
Worst city in EU
@Declan Joseph Deasy: I haven’t been to all of them.. But il take Dublin any day instead of, London, Paris, Rome. I could go on. We are still a great city..
There should be incentives to creat jobs outside of Dublin. So many commuters traveling into the city and greater Dublin area, for jobs that could be outside Dublin.
Worst city in EU
@Declan Joseph Deasy: I haven’t been to all of them.. But il take Dublin any day instead of, London, Paris, Rome. I could go on. We are still a great city..
Surprised at Limerick being second most congested. I was in Limerick for a bank holiday weekend and didn’t think it was congested, traffic was moving around steadily. Granted, I live in Dublin.
Novosibirsk is not in Europe.
@Earth Traveller: You’d be a long time waiting for a coach to Siberia all right.
Underground subway
Do we have a Transport Authority
Stories and statistics like this will be more regular until Government gets serious about decentralisation. A capital city with a population of nearly 2m in a country of under 5m is obscene and unmanageable. Health, housing, transport all suffers.
A time traveller from the future here. We found an amazing solution to Dublin’s congestion problem; remote working and working from home. Unfortunately this came about because of a pandemic starting from Wuhan, China and was not contained by the CCP. But after 18 months we have finally vaccinated our population and things are looking well. Our roads are clear, rural Ireland’s economy is doing better as people work from there now, and Dublin could potentially fall in rents as we don’t need to work from there anymore and decentralization is a good thing for the country. They keep talking about returning to offices and bringing this sort of traffic back to Dublin but most are happy working from home so we will see if they are dumb enough to think its a good idea to return to the status quo of this article.
Also if you can, tell Simon Harris that restricting flights coming in from Italy and China should be his top priority, you will thank me in a few months. And stock up on toilet paper, sanitizer and face masks. They will be worth getting too if he doesn’t.
Limerick is nowhere near as congested as Galway
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