Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THE HEAD OF the House of Habsburg and the eldest son of the last emperor of Austria-Hungary has died today at the age of 98.
Otto Von Habsburg, son of Charles I, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, died in his home in Poecking in Germany this morning, according to his spokeswoman Eva Demmerle. He has lived there, in exile, since the 1950s.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso paid tribute to “a great European … who gave an important impetus to the European project throughout his rich life”.
A self-proclaimed politics addict, Habsburg was an advocate of the European Union and campaigned for the removal of the Iron Curtain.
On the day of his abdication in May 1961, he proclaimed himself to be “a loyal citizen of the republic [of Austria]“.
Habsburg handed over control of the family affairs to his son Karl in 2007 but continued to be seen in public. His wife, Regina, died last year.
He will be buried July 16 in the Emperor Tomb in Vienna, below the Austrian capital’s Capuchin Church.
Here we take a deeper look at the Habsburg story and some other fallen dynasties:
-Additional reporting by the AP
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Light Rail to Cork.
I hope that should read Light Rail in Cork.
Extend the Luas to Cork and it would take forever for the journey
@Chris Mansfield: it’s funny wording but I take it that is what’s meant also.
@Chris Mansfield: Maybe it should have read ‘Luas to Limerick’ and ‘DART to Dingle’… Those notions would probably hold as much optimism as the plans set out here.
@Paul Linehan: Looks like they’re taking their ideas from Dustin the Turkeys 96 manifesto…
@Chris Mansfield: a CLUAS, if you will.
So everything in Ireland will be wonderful by 2040 then. Take note that there will be another ‘lost decade’ before any of these wonders shall come to pass. Promises, promises.
@Fake Avast: They promise you more and give you less. Aided and abetted by the remainder of Landlord Banker Caste in Dail Eireann.
Easy to put it all down on paper but as i read it all I can think of is quangos, dodgy contracts, brown envelopes and billions spent on consultancy and legal fees.
Cork had trams until 1929 and it might have light rail in 2040…that’s progress for you I guess.
@Fifty Shades of Sé: This little thing called cars happened in the meantime.
@Tony Dowling: bringing shit roads, petrol and our nations favourite, ‘insurance’…
@Tony Dowling: Cars were invented in 1885, the Cork Tram was built in 1898.
@Fifty Shades of Sé: Everybody didn’t suddenly own a car in 1885. They were quite rare for a while.
Ireland the only western world country where their capital city produces nearly 50% of GDP it’s totally unsustainable most european capital cities produce 10-20% GDP.its time the other cities of Ireland waterford cork Limerick and Galway got a fair share of this.the 4 other cities have been strangled the last number of decades
@dick dastardly: In general, the smaller the country, the higher the proportion of trade and population enjoyed by the largest city. If you look at other developed countries with similar populations – Norway, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Croatia, Lithuania – you’ll see that we aren’t that far out of line with them. We are probably a little more skewed towards Dublin, but you are right that it has been at the expense of the regional cities rather than the country as a whole.
@Chris Mansfield: This is not the thread for reasonable facts and arguments.
Ah that’s grand,people can sit tight for 22 years with promise!
@Mark o regan: and many clowns will buy it. Today we have new born babies been diverted to A&E yet somehow the jokers who made housing/health etc go from bad to worse have all the answers !!!
Remember Leo’s “Not another red cent” promise … !!!
usual politicians vote getting bullish!t next govt will overturn it for their project just like the broadband projects…
@William O’ Connor: cork Limerick road in the 2040 plan.. wtf!!
Some impressive infrastructure targets right there. Even more impressive if they can keep the costs under control.
Ireland certainly needs a plan like this – not enough joined up thinking before and during the Celtic tiger years.
Trips to the moon are promised for 2072
Fairytail stuff as usual ..no mentions for
midlands or north east
@Tony Dunne: Rural development could apply to those areas. The investment in the institutes of technology would affect North east. Only three counties were mentioned, so its not just the midlands or North East that isn’t.
@Tony Dunne: Our country doesn’t really have a north-east. The midlands are sparsely populated so any investment there would be far less useful than in the cities.
@Tony Dunne: “there were fears the north-west was becoming the forgotten corner of the country but now Sligo and Letterkenny are become regional centres’
@Tony Dunne: In typical fashion the Midlands and northeast ignore the north-west.
The population of this country has been stuck on 3 to 4 million for centuries and now we are going to get another million in no time, more than likely thanks to Frau Merkel and Izlam or both.
Vote for me under my plan everyone in Ireland will have their own airport a private hospital each National news will be in any given language you fancy and in preparation of sharia sport and art will be banned and drinking will be punished by beheading not to mention a complete ban on the arts. We will all have rich parents to give us a mortgage so no more banks ripping us off.
@Tony Dunne: Except the part about putting billions into towns with populations under 10000 (rural development ) and the towns over 10000 (urban development ). Surely you you must have some places that fall into those categories in the Midlands? Admittedly you didn’t get promised any new motorways but you already have three of those.
I’m sure leo is getting lots of pats on the back over this by the fgers. But the fact that the only way you can get from sligo to cork without a car is on a bus journey that you might just be able to do in a day without going through dublin. Broadband is seriously the key to giving people the ability to work remotely and reduce travelling.
To be honest most of it looks pie in the sky and most of it won’t be built but hey leo gets a day out in sligo hope he took the train
And the trolley crisis ???? growing population
More of the same old national development plans just tarted up and called something else. Just get on with it and actually do something
Nice vote catching exercise for the government. Utopia. Bring on 2040, cant wait.
@Brendan Mason: will you be around to see it. Maybe emigrated
And everyone in the country gets a mansion & a rolls Royce. Roll on 2040
@matthew o reilly: I’ve already bought my fur coat, and a crown.
@matthew o reilly: -What kind of mansion?
@Gavin Conran: one made out of chocolate
“While the full scope of what Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and his officials have titled Project Ireland 2040 will be revealed at 2pm, we know that there are plans to:” (see above article).
Translation….’wink wink nod nod….lads, we gotta get ready for the next general election! Votes votes votes is the mantra. Leo…stick to the script.”
The key word here is “plans”, and we all know the old saying about the ‘best laid plans’.
The only ‘plan’ that FG have on their agenda is building monuments to their own vanity…which has not up to this point, and does not, bode well for Ireland.
But it is nice to dream about this mythical land they are trying to sell us.
@Patty Cullinane: In a nutshell….
When pigs fly.
@Patty Cullinane: The gall of them to think they will be in power for the next 22 years. Plus where are they getting 116 billion all of a sudden when they dont have enough for our public services now.
@Derek Poutch: yep…FG seems to think they have it all wrapped up. Makes you wonder why???
@Derek Poutch: the money is coming from the same place it usually comes from…the bond holders. And when the shit hits the fan again…guess who will be paying the bond holders? The same people who paid them the last time….us. Because sure, why…should they assume any risk?
@Patty Cullinane: The really bad news is our national debt by 2040 will be 316,000,000,000. I am now off to the credit union to open an account for my future grandchildren.
@Derek Poutch: magic money
Cork Area Rapid Transport. CART … Just saying :)
@Maurice Frazer: will it GO though.
@Denis Crowley:
Wheel size needs careful configuration in any light rail solution for our second city due to the intermittent flooding there during rainy season. Cart size should do it!
meanwhile they cant afford a full time cat lab at waterford regional hospital …
A Project 2018 would be more impressive. Why not solve today’s problems before we start looking at 20 odd years down the road.
Micheal Jacksons 50 concerts in the London Arena has more chance of going ahead now….This is the work of some genius in fine gael to keep the country off its back about all the pressing problems. ..A general election has to happen sooner rather than later.
Maybe I missed it but I didn’t see anything about a mission to mars in these plans? Presumably it’s in there somewhere?
@Keith Costigan: There’s a scouting party being formed. Their mission will be to visit Mars and bring back some sample Mars bars as well as a few boxes of Snickers and Twix.
@Paraic McDonagh: won’t get em tru customs sugar tax lol.
It’s all nonsense
This country is too centralized in that every major institution of power is based in one overdeveloped city
Until that power is dispersed we are wasting our time with these spatial plans
@John Smith: decentralization worked so well last time
€116b over 22 years and we’re supposed to be impressed?
Think that’s the same report from 1990. Same old codswollop.
Why don’t they promise a state-of-the-art rail system serving every individual home in the country? I mean, this 2040 plan is complete fairytale nonsense that will never come to pass so they might as well make it the best fairytale nonsense they can think of.
Ireland, where our politicians can’t even be bothered spewing imaginative lies! Come on FF/FG, let’s put some work into those fantasies, eh!
@John Smith: Carlsberg could do it for them. Make it the best little country in the world… .probably.
No evidence of future planning. By 2040, AI will have likely supplanted many workers from their jobs. The economy will thus be driven by innovation and technology creation. Countries whose people don’t have the skills – both technical and creative – to succeed in that type of economy will fall behind. We’re woefully unprepared for this. Shouldn’t we be planning for this by teaching computer science, coding and technology classes from primary school on up. The Gov seems content on continuing with an antiquated education 19th century education system. We need to start planning for this now.
The ECB will do well. They have us down for a 220 billion overdraft already.
A population growth of a million, either there’s going to be a massive baby boom or we are taking a million immigrants,
@Joe Ryan: Brexit
@Joe Ryan: guess which
Easy to be cynical, but I think we’ve seen enough of these grandiose development plans from our politicians over the years to know this will end up the same … a fraction if any of these things actually coming to pass … Don’t hold yer breath …
Seems like an excellent plan, looking forward to watching Ireland progress.
@Pat Bateman: the ‘plan’ will be shredded by FF when they take their turn. They’ll go back to good old fashioned Strokes. Nothing a FFer likes more than a well planned and executed Stroke.
@Pat Bateman: seriously? Watching Ireland progress?…a wonderful thought, but hard to believe when we are still watching our road repairs come in the form of some council worker who could give a shite about what he is doing, filling potholes with shovels of crappy asphalt and then trying to hit it flat with the fact of said shovel. I have even witnessed them jumping on the asphalt to flatten it down….usually doing so with the pot hole filed with rain water.
This is not an uncommon occurrence. This is the way it is done…ALL OF THE TIME. It is so common, I would go so far as to say it is in the Local Council road repair handbook.
Christ…Rural Island is still going to have to wait another 5 yrs for broadband.
@Patty Cullinane: auto correct at it again…should read…
“back of said shovel”
@Patty Cullinane: you would think they would have whacker plate in the van at coastguard what I use when repairing my drive
And no sign of an underground for Dublin, because the population won’t grow and surpass two million people in the next decade, or something.
@Andrew Eager: This plan seems to be actively trying to butcher Dublin to appease rural interests, sadly.
Cork had incredible rail infrastructure 100 years ago.
What did the brits ever do for cork eh?
@Gavin Tobin: They burned it down twice.
From my reading of this in question how a politician who might not be place in six months can in reality plan for the next 22 years….is our taoiseach already in danger of a napolean complex…..
This incompetent shower can’t even plan for tomorrow but every time their shambolic performance and very poor delivery is questioned from now on, their answer will be it’s in the 2040 plan.
Ding dong it’s election time! 2040 – far away so they don’t have to do anything but still look like they’re busy planning something. Then when it eventually doesn’t happen, whoever is in power in 2040 will just blame those in power now.
The creators of Father Ted present new feature-length Irish comedy, The Plan 2040… “What we are doing today hasn’t been done before. We are putting a plan in law that will be the basis for all future plans.”…
We’ll be ready for 2005 just in time for 2040.
We keep on doing things the same way and then we expect different results! STOP voting FG and FF and let’s see what happens It really cannot get any worse
Remember back in the day, when the Japanese company offered to build a Dublin underground free! Anyone still have their number? Time to bring them in rather than leave it to this shower of imagineers!
Just in time for the singularity so.
https://futurism.com/father-artificial-intelligence-singularity-decades-away/
These are plans for the next generation, what about all those plans which were promised for this generation??
“Possible” light rail for Cork. Possible, lol
@Tom Collins: Basically not even an idea, but a thought thats like a fart in the wind!
Blah blah blah…
No mention of Community Banking ensuring the future of Post Offices both Urban and Rural
Tom O Callaghan
No new prisons? Pity.
Every plan fg has brough forward has failed.
22 BILLION on climate change readiness???
I wonder how much time and money will be wasted on consultants and Quangos. Millions probably just like the NDP plan which was nothing more than talk waffle and bullshit. Anyway i could give one decent proposal for rural ireland that would make Ireland wealthy. Grow cannabis undr licence and export it to the states and use it for medicinal drugs. a down to earth real money maker . Of course we are all caught up in bullshit schemes that create no wealth.
Dublin is crumbling. Solution: defer fixing anything until 2027 when it’ll be time to rip up the plans and re-design them for the umpteenth time.
DART Underground gone. Luas extensions for lines that have been designed already years ago, pushed until after 2027, Metro North which has perfectly valid planning permission still lies gathering dust on the shelf, while we re-design it as “Metro Link”. Even the bus programme isn’t scheduled to be finished by 2027.
Very disappointing from a Dublin perspective.
Typical Irish government spin and broken promises, I have lost count in the last 25 years of the amount of times that we’ve seen these grandiose plans rolled out, and they rarely if ever come to fruition. We are great at electing politicians in this country, who promise the earth but rarely deliver.
Yep election hipe…Let the brand sheep lap it up.Come election day the sheep will leave their pens and vote for brand F.G.FF…and a scattering of the others the same landlords,publicans who will tell you the sky is green to get elected.Tell you they love their country,county,town ect..And then make laws to suit the rich and powerful .At the sheep’s expense.And roll around the next election and the sheep will elect the same LIARs again.
Why not announce what is going to happen in 5 years time. Reason is because nothing is going to happen.
If they want to make up for a lost decade of austerity (buzz word for screw them) then maybe a few tax breaks for those of us who work for a living.Clamp down on the banks so we don’t have another “lost decade”. When they hand out all these contracts to their favorite developers double tax them to pay back the money they owe the country. Fix the roads we already have before we build new ones. Make laws that punish those who screw the system..from welfare cheats to top civil servants. That might be a start, then give us a vision of the future, not some election manifesto.
One billion for redevelopment of ‘villages’ of under 10,000 is very little when you divide it out. This is disgraceful.
Ireland was ruined by the majority who complained. yes the plans destroyed lots and probably even more if finished, but the sad thing is only about 10% survive. Those who fought are nearly all late now and those community’s no longer.
Yet in the 00s did not do any better, people complain again no good solutions put forward, just a mess again.
ah thats great, a few extra hospital beds by 2040
People lets get real this goverment that is propped up by fianna fail and the independent alliance party the hardship they put on the people of this country bailing out banks and robbin the pension reserve you only have to look at the frontline services the homeless and they are talking about this projectof 2040 all hot air the one thing about theses politicions they look after themselves and they are not answerable to nobody the one thing they forget is they are put in the people and its time to get them out the work the frontline services and other services are doing which is nothing unusual under staffed and under funded is fantastic i rest my case.
We will definitely never see any of the services or constructions they are promising. Never!! Too late for the people who are alive today. They are one hundred year projects! It’s hard to believe how beneficially forward thinking humans were in the past compared to the absolute fools we have in power today! The only aspect of life that is gaining momentum is technology, the exploitative areas and greed I’m afraid, and they are being helped along nicely by the Governments and their many partners in crime.
Look forward to seeing this plan rot on the shelves with all the other ones.
Wait a minute, is it “light-rail TO Cork” or “light-rail IN Cork”? I can’t imagine travelling by LUAS all the way to Cork, particularly when the InterCity rail service is so good. They could probably do with a light-rail service around Cork themselves all the same.
I see Limerick gets left out of upgrades to elective surgical facilities again. Not just content to fcuk the city’s hospitals over by closing Nenagh & Ennis Emergency Departments after eight….
Bla bla bla more lies for votes.
Tossers.
Shrek was known as the greatest fairy tale never known. We now have the best fairytale part of which was outlined by the minister for no hosing Murphy and along with Sean de Rossa looked out of his depth. More imagination in Grimms fairytales
I would love to see the luas red line connect to knocklyon
High hopes? FFS this is Ireland, where begrudgery rules, commentors, politicians and media will have any hopes dashed before the day is out!
Great , but all to late . We should have a lot contained in this article already in place . If you look at Europe,middle east etc we are years behind in term of delivering real change . Galway City for example is like a car park most of the time . Yet government and local authorities are not capable of delivering the real change that this country needs .We are to quick to delay and push out projects .For example it took 40 years to build a dual carriageway from Tuam to Galway and limerick
If they’re going to expand the Luas it needs to be new lines, not evenore extenlnsions to existing lines where you already can’t get onto a tram in rosh hour unless you livr far enough out.
Ireland 2040
https://youtu.be/7-yQ4s6IBec
have your say