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THE MAN WHO chaired the original Croke Park Agreement (and its sequel, which was eventually renamed the ‘Haddington Road’ deal) will soon be back at work in Dublin 3.
Labour Relations Commission chief Kieran Mulvey is to chair talks between residents, GAA bosses and promoters with the aim of solving the dispute over the number of concerts being held at the stadium.
Eight massive gigs are planned at the venue this summer — Garth Brooks will play an unprecedented five dates as he stages a ‘comeback special’, while boy-band One Direction will appear on three nights.
Local residents have said the volume of events represents a “serious and unacceptable threat”.
Asked about the GAA’s decision to seek the services of the LRC’s top negotiator, residents’ spokesman Patrick Gates said he was concerned it may be “some sort of cosmetic PR exercise”.
“There’s a lack of trust with the GAA,” Gates told Newstalk Breakfast. “They come up with new initiatives every time there’s a crisis.”
“They do it as a PR exercise to get them over the latest crisis, but then they don’t live up to what was agreed.”
He listed the issues of concern to residents as: “Public order, traffic congestion, litter and waste, broken bottles, drunkenness, aggressive behaviour, people urinating in the streets and in gardens — the list goes on.”
Gates called on the GAA to honour past agreements, “show some respect and have some empathy”.
A number of meetings attended by residents, Croke Park management, promoters ‘Aiken’ and local politicians were held last month.
According to councillor Nial Ring, Stadium Director Peter McKenna said at one of the meetings that it was was ‘okay’ for organisers to ignore a deal signed by GAA in 2009 agreeing to stage only three concerts per year as “time moves on”.
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I made this point the other day when we were talking about Irish Rail, how much longer are we going to have to subsidise these costly and inefficient state transport providers?
Has anyone travelled by Bus Eireann on a lengthy journey recently?
Its absolute torture.
I don’t use BE any more, 3 hours to Wexford town from Dublin is an absolute joke! Expensive, dirty, slow and the rudest drivers iv ever had the ‘pleasure’ of encountering!
Martian you should travel with Wexford bus company , free wifi on all their 4 star air-conditioned buses, and polite drivers bar 1 dude
I do now Peter. Cheaper and gets me there faster!
Time to deregulate and privatise transport.
Add health care and education to that list and we can form a coalition
You want to privatise the provision of education? Seriously?
Well yeah or decentralise it heavily letting parents and teachers desire the curriculum and exams.. No taxes on any incomes, simply a consumption tax
Peter, we’re majorly off topic but there are some massive flaws in your idea, IMO
For a start the whole of society is the ultimate consumer of education and also you need an over all consistency in levels and content to make allow employers to judge between the outputs.
If the journal want to bring up the topic of general privatisation re Merkel’s “suggestions” we could probably discuss further.
Well I’m a libertarian at heart, and yeah I’d like that !
Agreed, but those from ballygobackwards will certainly find themselves without public transport. Thats the difference between public owned and private, needs of people vs profit margins. I don’t think we can justify owning and running loss making transport companies, when the country is going down the pan.
Well school transport alone is subsidized for 180 million a year and no austerity imposed on bus eireann at all and they a upping prices as well as cutting routes and prices…..law onto themselves.
Change regulation for bigger advertising
As far as I can see the busman gets €500-600 a week. Most of the company losses are on the advertising side of the business. There should be more live timetable terminals to increase consumer satisfaction. Maybe introduce advertising under the live times!
have your say