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TWO WEEKS AGO we saw the arrests of 26 people as part of a crackdown on burglaries in Dublin in recent weeks.
It was also reported this week that the number of burglaries in the greater Dublin area jumped for the sixth week in a row. Gardaí have been issuing warnings to people to take all reasonable precautions with respect to their homes and property during the Christmas period.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, Sergeant Kelvin Courtney of the National Crime Prevention Unit said there is an increase every year in burglaries during the winter months – particularly around Christmas.
At a time when many people have cash in their homes to spend on presents or the turkey dinner, as well as expensive gifts and toys they have already bought, it can be a burglar’s paradise and a family’s worst nightmare.
“There’s just nothing more horrendous”, Courtney said. “It’s utterly personal for someone to come and break in – they’ve come into your castle.”
I’ve been burgled myself and I still think about the fact someone had the gumption to come in and take what they wanted and if I’d only had the doors locked up properly… There’s no point in beating yourself up about it but if you carry out some simple steps you can help prevent it happening.
There are over 26,000 burglaries each year in Ireland and the winter months give the criminals involved a longer cover of darkness.
Aggravated burglaries
People are unfortunately also at risk of a more menacing and dangerous crime – aggravated burglary.
“They do occur and they are an absolute scourge,” Courtney said. “They usually are coming in because they believe there is a lot of money or something valuable in the house. The best thing for you to do as a victim is cooperate for as long as possible.”
Everything can be replaced except your family so do everything to keep your family safe.
Ahead of Christmas, people should avoid keeping large volumes of money at home and should keep expensive items out of plain sight. Courtney said it is really all about making it as difficult for a burglar as possible so lock doors and windows with locks that are difficult to tamper with, have an alarm (and turn it on) and make it hard for them to find your valuables if they do get in by hiding them away.
Gardaí are highlighting these four points of advice for householders in the run-up to Christmas Day…
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China didnt sign , russia ,india , developing countries in africa didnt sign ..so they will probably keep increasing fossil fuel use .whilst we will tax ourselves into thinking we are making a difference with no result
@John Power: exactly, I’m changing nothing of my behaviour for this nonsense
@John Power: There has been an agreement between almost 200 countries regarding the text. We will see whose signature will be on it. Stop lying.
@Murray peter: you may not be changing anything but don’t worry the government will make damn sure we will pay even higher taxes to aid this transition away from fossil fuels. TBH I don’t know why we bother if the biggest polluter countries continue to pollute but I understand we can’t have electric emergency vehicles and solar powered generators etc diesel will always needed.
@Name not provided: check out the news the countries ive mentioned wont sign up to it ..
@John Power: I have checked the news and you are probably confusing the COP28 draft agreement with the various other agreements coming from side-negotiations. Hundreds of countries have been signing those to varying extent. The COP28 draft agreement appears to have almost 200 countries on board, but we’ll see who the final signatories are.
@John Power: the elephant in the room I’d say and all who buy products from these countries are contributing to the mess
What an absolute scam
@Mark Dunne: Explain? Why is this a scam?
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: because it might impact him or cost him a few quid.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: A transition away from fossil fuels led by fossil fuel producers? What could possibly go wrong?
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: C’mon Sean, Mark’s done his research!
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: the oil producers got what they wanted. They went with a hard sell and got their compromise. Not really a scam I suppose, just good negotiation, for them. The rest can complain but they were also negotiating so they agreed it.
This is utter nonsense, keep living your lives and don’t entertain the lefty doom and gloom nonsense
@Mark Dunne: I would not call it a scam, but a PR exercise :)
Meanwhile in Ireland, Ryan stops cows farting and increased fuel bills show were on track to stop climate change
@Terry Molloy: and dont forget turning off the street lighting at motorway junctions to save the world!
“so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science”.
They mean in keeping with scientific method modelling and that conditions in an ordinary garden greenhouse (experiment) scale up to the Earth’s atmosphere.
“Rule III. The qualities of bodies which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.” Newton
When people hear about the fall of an apple (experiment) equating to planetary orbit motions ( universal qualities) without having a ball’s notion of how overreaching and contrived it is, that is empirical science and likewise the Earth science of climate.
It would be so comical if it were not that people of influence are taken in by overgrown schoolboys.
@Gearoid O’Ceilleachair: you are so smrt
@motojack: That was a shite comeback.
Petro state approved. “Transition away from” versus “phase out”.
At least since the world leaders don’t agree on the urgency, I don’t need to stress myself either.
@Lewis Armstrong: Looking at the alternatives to fossil fuels I can see why this ‘agreement’ was reached. Nations that don’t particularly care rightly don’t see how current renewables are up to the task.
It’s time the west stopped tut tutting the world about how we derive energy. Go back to the drawing board and come up with a better alternative to what current renewables offer. You cannot persuade nations to wean off oil and gas when the alternatives are petty and expensive and involve industrialising swathes of the country side and running expensive cables to connect it all up.
The west needs to invent a power source similar to nuclear and have it deliver energy at such a cheap rate that it makes no sense to burn fossil fuels. It’s time to undercut oil and gas on price.
Unfortunately up until now, the green movement has been trying to price oil and gas out of the market via carbon and excise taxes – which have failed miserably. All this does is takes money off poor people in rich countries and gives it to rich people in poor countries.
The green movement needs to, ‘cop’-on and stop the finger-wagging, tut-tutting and name calling. Shut up, and come up with a realistic power source.
@Laois Weather: An alternative energy source was invented back in 1955. It’s called a flux capacitor. It can produce 1.21 Jigawatts. It could solve the world’s energy problems but for some reason never got acceptance by the scientific world. Worth looking up if you’ve never heard of it
@Laois Weather: Wind and solar are already cheaper than fossil fuels.
For the producer.
Unfortunately the state allows the RE producers to charge us a price equivalent to the cost of fossil fuel produced energy.
So we pay while the RE companies make away with the loot.
@Laois Weather: So what we need is a magic box and we should invent one.
Well that might happen but I’d rather start with things we know can be made to work even if it isn’t easy than wait for magic to happen.
Imagine how many COP conferences it took to finally call for a move away from fossil fuels.
Incredible when you think about that.
Great news finally!!
@Stephen Pender: It’s a little bit more complicated than you might think.
@Stephen Pender: great news? It’s watered down because they need the oil states on board or the alternative is they also walk away. Personally I don’t think this will have much effect at all. In a few years we’ll be discussing if we can keep it under 2% rise in temp. Nothing much will change.
@Stephen Pender: unless you’re going to give up most chemicals, every piece of plastic in your life, including in fabrics of your clothes, ‘transitioning’ away from oil is never going to happen.
Transport of all kinds accounts for 60% of oil production, and that is – slowly – being addressed & improved.
The other 40% however is going to be much harder.
Either way, the whole premise of COP is now redundant and should be binned. It is the ultimate junket.
@TheGood Feign: Why do they need the oil states on board?
What would the oil states do if the consumer states moved to RE?
did they really think these oil rich countrys would vote for getting rid of oil …really?? basically the new statement is a play on words about as usefull a chocolate teapot.
oil producing where never going to vote for it and fair play to them,this nonsence of climate change has gone on far to long.
@John O’sullivan: You probably work in the fossil fuel industry.
@John O’sullivan: it’s like asking ireland to give up
On international tourists, never going to happen
I’ll never drive an electric car
@Harry Cock: no real man ever would
@Harry Cock:
Cars for the gullible.
@Murray peter: Why not? Is your manhood dependent somehow on fossil fuels.
@Harry Cock: Imagine Steve McQueen’s Bullitt made with electric cars. Fairly crap.
Almost 200 countries? There are 195 countries in total, this is a lazy headline.
@Fred North: maybe they are foreseeing the break up
Of the UK and a two state in Palestine among others but I agree lazy
WELL ✔ DONE EVERYONE.
2050…….it’ll be TOUGH……but we CAN DO THIS
@Ken Mc Carthy: no, we can’t, and we won’t.
@Ken Mc Carthy: it will be expensive I just been quoted €13800 for solar panels and a battery, I have also been told solar panel grant being reduced on 1 of January 2024. I not dismissing the achievement but Ireland politicians are saying one thing while doing another. Carbon tax payments should be exempt for people who fork out on solar panels considering this payment has been collected since 2010 to stop the ice caps melting. Best fraud ever given the big polluters don’t charge their citizens this tax while these countries carry on polluting with the exception of China who have improved their carbon foot print.
@Liam Foy: can’t really argue with any of that……I CANNOT COMPREHEND the stopping of that grant in Jan., it wasn’t really a ‘ game changer’ anyhow……I’m in the same boat as you…..I have 2 properties I was looking at installing solar panels—- after extensive research & quotes I gotta admit- I just left it / the input will never realistically justify the ‘reward’……..DEFINITELY something that needs addressing by government
@Ken Mc Carthy: if you believe that I have some magic beans id like to sell ya….
@Liam Foy: the irony is you can spend a fortune to pay the fuel price to go see a few blocks of ice lol
@Ken Mc Carthy: Oh please. Solar panels are a crock of s**t and every other renewable is either unrealistic or unsustainable. Biodiesel? where are they going to get all the land? wind turbines? again, where are they going to get all the land? Is this going to cost more for below average income families or less? can big apartment blocks be heated by renewable? Or are poor people going to be priced out of the basic human right of being warm in their own house and is the whole landscape of Ireland going to be fuel crops and wind turbines? So glad ill be long dead then.
@Pauline Gallagher: The beat place to locate wind turbines is at sea.
@Pauline Gallagher: think harder!
@KDSFkZpO: Why? Im not getting paid to come up with this s**t.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: How many of them will be needed for the entire world to go renewable? will make navigating ships a lot more difficult ?
@Pauline Gallagher: Think of a circle.
The area of a circle is related to the square of the radius.
If you double the circumference (of the radius) of a circle then the area is increased by a factor of 4.
4 times larger.
Now draw a circle around Ireland, roughly double our land area. That’s 4 times the amount of space into which to put wind turbines. Little to none of which is used, unlike our land.
There are already several such sea located wind farms, and somehow shipping manages not to crash into them.
In addition, sea located wind turbines have at least 2 major advantages over land based:
1) any irregularities or obstructions encountered by the wind flow – such as trees, hills, buildings, etc – result in turbulence, which has a significant negative effect on wind turbine performance
2) there is almost always wind at sea
The sea is – by far – the best location for such things.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere:
“…OR the radius”
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: Im not talking about ships crashing into them, im talking about them interfering with navigation and radar signals
@Pauline Gallagher: You must be aware that navigation uses GPS or its equivalent, from satellites.
And a reason shipping does not tend to crash into these things is radar.
They are no different from the multitude of oil and gas rigs in that respect.
@Ken Mc Carthy: Eamo give it ad Eamo take it away. He is only good at costing everyone money.
All his showboating led to a big nothing as usual.
Except another nice trip to the middle east!
I’ll be a fossil by the time this happens!!
@Mark Gannon: we have nothing to worry about with this climate nonsense lol
The argument do you believe in God !people argue show me proof then I will. Climate change ! the world is going to explode show me proof nothing new that hasn’t happened in the world before we humans ever set foot on it. And yet the people who got the world in this state with their policies are still making the decisions about how it should be run it would be farcical if it wasn’t true. For all you greens on this page electricity will not save the world read up and educate yourselves on what parts are required to build an EV car how those parts are found and excavated from the ground how those minerals are then turned to parts for cars and electrical items around world by the time an EV is produced it’s production caused more damage to environment than 20 turf fires burning for 200 years.
@Paul Bennison: sources: Facebook memes
@Paul Bennison: well said Paul
Do a bit of research and you will find the Climate models are fairy dust. They don’t give today’s Climate with historical data. The Climate is a Mathematically Chaotic system which we cannot model with any accuracy . Local weather forecasts are unpredictable after 7 days. They massage the data in the big models to get the results they think they should be getting. It’s called Confirmation Bias, remember “Climate Gate” when the climate scientists were found out during a email leak . Unfortunately any scientist that disagrees is quickly cancelled.
Phasing out hydrocarbons so we can make phones, computers, insulation materials, shroud for electrical cables, plugs, kettles, paints, adhesives and just about everything else from wool, cotton, timber and glass I suppose. Great idea guys (does anyone actually think?)!
@Damian Moylan: Plant based plastics.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: That was tried and the plant was banned! Hemp!
200 countries except several of the significant one’s didn’t. The two biggest populations didn’t nor Russia. Basically this will do almost nothing as the increases from China and India will make what the likes of Ireland do irrelevant. But hey Ryan gets to act like we are saving the planet while taxing the ordinary people into oblivion.
@Michael Cooney: Imagine you are in a small boat and it springs a leak. You start baling like mad. Then you spot another person, with a bigger bucket than you, and he isn’t doing anything. Are you going to throw a strop and stop baling, or try to bale even faster, in order to save everybody’s lives, his included?
Is this not really a sell out for what would really need to be done
@Shaun Gallagher: it’s a step in the right direction and you only have to read a few comments in here to see that any changes are going to be tough.
@Shaun Gallagher: whatever is going to be done is going to be done by, in the main, people who don’t attend COP junket trips.
I don’t think the EU was serious about Cop28 when the best man they chose to represent Europe was a barefooted dancing LBGTQ flag-waving window box lettuce grower to save the world.
@Pat Collins: Doesn’t sound like Wopke Hoekstra to me.
We’re going no where, “transition away ‘ means nothing. My Grandchildren are doomed.
@Ian McCulloch: your grandchildren will not be impacted whatsoever
So what exactly did they agree too??
Woeds are powerful, but actions are louder than language.
@AnthonyK: A very poor paraphrasing of ‘Actions speak louder than words’
@AnthonyK: Woeds don’t exist. Maybe in this future they will …
Selfish, short-sighted actors are once again sabotaging our collective fate in the name of profit.
200 countries sign up and then what a ‘transition’ away from fossil fuels? What exactly will that amount to? Meaningless spin by a group of wealthy folk who flew from all over the planet when they could have used Zoom. Utter nonsense
Very hard to take any comfort from this based on our record to date.
Its a joke there are only 195 countries in the world
More ground we give to these climate freaks the more ground they’ll take. I wonder how many of them hopped on their private jet to get there. Won’t be long now until we’re eating bugs and getting one holiday a year.
Why don’t the people who believe fossil fuels should be phased out start showing us now how this will be achieved .They can start now by stopping using all petrol, diesel,kerosine,jet fuel,natural gas etc. Of course also everything made with fossil fuels should be included which is just about everything.
Let’s stop Sunday trading
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