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RESCUE TEAMS INVOLVED in the search for missing crew members of Rescue 116 are said to be “disgusted” at the operators of the M7 toll after being charged for their two vehicles and boats on the way back from the search effort yesterday.
A massive rescue operation took place off the northeast coast over the weekend for missing crew members Paul Ormsby and Ciarán Smith.
Rescue 116 crashed three weeks ago while preparing to refuel at Blacksod, County Mayo.
Captain Dara Fitzpatrick was recovered at sea soon after the helicopter went down, but died later in hospital. The body of pilot Captain Mark Duffy was found in the wreckage of the helicopter last week.
Carrick River Rescue claimed on Facebook that they were making their way back from the search in Blacksod and had to travel through the Midlink M7/M8 toll.
Free passage denied
It’s understood the toll worker in the booth called management to ask if the rescue workers were allowed free passage without paying. It’s claimed this was refused.
However, the rescue workers thanked the Limerick toll operators for not charging them on their way to the rescue mission.
In a statement to TheJournal.ie, a MidLink spokesperson said “a toll was correctly applied in this instance for the Carrick River Rescue vehicles that used the M7/M8 PPP motorway at the weekend”.
He said there is a “strict interpretation” of the Bye-laws.
MidLink M7M8 Ltd collects a toll for passage along the M7/M8 PPP tolled motorway for our Client, Celtic Roads Group (Portlaoise), under Bye-Laws enacted by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (formerly the National Roads Authority).
These Bye-Laws specifically set out the classes of vehicles that are exempt from tolls. Vehicles exempted from paying tolls are limited, but for instance, include emergency vehicles from the fire brigade, An Garda Siochana, Defence Forces, ambulances and vehicles specially modified for disabled drivers.
Operators do not have individual discretion.
Excellent work
The statement went on to say that MidLink and Celtic Roads Group “recognise the excellent work that is being done on an ongoing basis by groups such as the Carrick-on-Suir River Rescue in difficult situations, including in this instance, the search for the remaining Rescue 116 crew members”.
“We also acknowledge the ongoing distress for the Smith and Ormsby families.”
Our company’s management will make contact with the Carrick-on-Suir River Rescue directly later today to discuss the matter and we will also be making a donation to Carrick River Rescue in recognition of the service they provide.
In a letter to the toll operators, seen by TheJournal.ie, Fianna Fáil Senator Keith Swanick called for the company to “publicly and without delay express an apology to the Carrick-on Suir River Rescue members”.
Swanick, who took part in the search this weekend, also called for the volunteer workers to be given a refund – although, he pointed out, it is “not about the money, it is about the principle”.
“The members of Carrick-on-Suir River Rescue were charged tolls for two rescue boats and two vehicles on their return from Blacksod, after spending the weekend searching for coastline of Mayo.
“Over the weekend I saw at first hand their brave work in the vicinity of Blackrock Island off the coast of Blacksod in Mayo. Their vehicles are clearly marked as emergency services and to add insult to injury, they were given free passage through a separate toll operator via a different route on their way to Mayo,” wrote the senator.
Volunteer workers
He highlighted that over a thousand volunteers “from every corner of Ireland” were involved in a major sea, air and coastline search for the missing crew members.
“People have driven hundreds of miles to drop off parcels of food, make small donations of their time and money, to help support the search efforts,” added Swanick.
Ciarán Smith and Paul Ormsby have not been found and approximately 120 private fishing vessels, countless Coast Guard, RNLI, River Rescue and Civil Defence vessels were involved. 99% of the people involved are volunteers, supported by An Garda Síochána and all the other full-time emergency services.
Swanick said the incident of being refused free passage is “quite frankly an insult to their dedication, bravery and selfless work”.
He also called on the toll operators to carry out an immediate revision of their policy.
Weekend search efforts
The Air Accident Investigation Unit, An Garda Síochána and the Coast Guard have expressed their sincere appreciation to the Commissioners of Irish Lights (CIL) and Marine Institute who were supported by GSI (Geological Survey Office), for the extensive search conducted in the vicinity of Black Rock lighthouse following the tragic loss of Coast Guard helicopter Rescue 116 on 14 March.
The search operation conducted by the Marine Institute’s Holland 1 ROV concluded this afternoon when the Granuaile departed Blacksod Bay.
Superintendent Tony Healy confirmed that the Garda Water Unit would conduct diving searches in the vicinity of Blackrock Light as soon as wind and tidal conditions are considered suitable.
He also confirmed that he had requested Coast Guard and Civil Defence volunteers to continue with targeted searches of coastal areas and monitoring of specific areas of interest.
All mariners are reminded to keep a lookout for any material associated with Rescue 116 and to report any findings to Malin Head Coast Guard Coordination Centre.
They also reiterated their sympathy to the families of Dara Fitzpatrick, Mark Duffy, Paul Ormsby and Ciaran Smith and expressed the hope that with the extensive monitoring both at sea and on shore that the remains of Paul and Ciaran would be found.
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I live in Roscommon so I have to climb a tree just to get a phone signal.
I well believe that. Funny, but not funny.
You put a whole new meaning to tweeting from a tree.
Looking forward to jettisoning UPC.
UPC broadband is constantly going down. Sick to death of having to reboot the stupid box every few hours. Awful customer service too. Bring on Sky.
What annoys me the most about upc, they make you use their stupid routers and not let you bridge it and use your own router
Jake,
Sky is no better, goes down a few times a day and very slow. Their TVs is good but am just about to leave them with regard to broadband.
What router are you using Scoprionvenomm? We have the the Cisco EPC running in bridge mode since day 1.
I live just outside Naas/Newbridge and have one spot in the entire house that gets 3G (on a windowsill) and companies can not “find” the address to get a phone line in never mind fibre
Technicolor yes my mam has a Cisco epc3925 and I have a ASUS RT-AC66U connected to it and it’s brilliant but in my apartment I have that technicolor which is terrible would love the Cisco EPC3925
Two points: piggyback on eircom = inflated line rental charge & UPC are up to 200Mbps, not (maximum) 60Mbps. There is no comparison in service speed, and the post loss-leader prices are the ones you should publish (where the process sky rocket), not the special offers. Sky may have the better TV service and box, but you always pay a fortune for it.
Hi Alien8 – a couple of things here. The only UPC plan which is cheaper than Sky’s is at the slower speed of 60Mb/s and it’s mid-priced plan is 120Mb/s. Only the most expensive one is 200Mb/s and this costs about €200 more for the first year so not a direct comparison. Sky’s line rental is included in the price. All of the big players have discounted sign-up rates and these are the ones we’ve compared. You’re probably right that prices will go up once Sky has established itself, but we can only compare the prices that apply now and that we know now.
I disagree Sir! I’m with UPC and I pay €42 a month for 150mb fibre.
Granted, its not “unlimited” as there’s a 500gb a month cap. I’ll take 500gb cap over “unlimited” every time.
Vodafone recently contacted me to offer the same but for €35 a month. Couldn’t switch since I’m locked in with UPC
Anyway, they can all hark on about 100mb this, 150mb that and super smart routers but not will single person will ever get the maximum speed advertised. Doesn’t matter if they use a router or hardwire connection. It’s all a con
I just signed up with UPC.
120 Mb/s and unlimited local, national, and mobile calls. 400 minutes international.
@ €25 for the first 4 months, and €50 after that, it’s only €20 more per year than Sky’s offer.
I think UPC are offering a better deal here.
WRONG. As per usual. Can you not write an accurate article? Is it that difficult?
Sounds like a good deal @Andrew Doyle, but that’s different to what UPC’s advertising now (unfortunately for punters). They’re only €50 a month after the introductory offer runs out for the same package.
Sky are €30 per month for 6 months with evenings and weekends then €50 per month after, is it a 12, 18 or 24 month contract as I think vodafones €40 per month for fiber and calls works out the same over 12 months but cheaper over 18 or 24…
Eircom do home phone, unlimited fibre internet, TV with multiroom and HD pack and unlimited emobile calls, texts and 15GB of data for €105 if you ask them. Plus a new phone.
I’ve yet to see better.
That 150 connection is probably between 10 houses even so UPC are the best option in my area anyways
Both Sky and Eircom could only offer me a maximum of 6 mb on my line, this despite me living 15 mins from Dublin City Centre, not only that but they couldn’t give me any time frame as to when our services would be upgraded to Fibre despite their map sating it was available in my area, so their deals were completely irrelevant to me.
In reality I was lucky to see 2 mb on my line and I was forced to change to UPC who were able to offer me 120 mb, which I’ve had for the last week and which is going to save me €195 over the term of the contract compared to my existing Eircom deal which had a significantly inferior service offered.
I live in France, get 1gb speed internet (unlimited), and for the mobile: free texts to all french numbers, free calls to others on the same network, free unlimited calls to most eu, us and Canadian landlines(!), and 30 free roaming days a year in most eu countries without changing price(!!!) Total cost €46. Free Mobile is the name of the company. Ridiculously good value!
@Andrew Doyle:
I have to disagree with you Andrew. I have been using UPC for 4 years now. I have the 200mb/s service. I regularly check the speed and it’s always between 203-205 mb/s. Until this week my upload speed seldom passed 12mb/s but I checked it today and it’s now19mb/s upload speed. Those speeds I quote are using a LAN cable rather than wireless as wireless has too many ‘overheads’ so the speed I measure is 20-50mb/s depending on which laptop I am using.
Alot of people don’t even understand speeds anyway, even some reps that will try sell it don’t understand the way it works which is laughable, I had a sky rep recently tell me my 120mb upc connection was terrible because I was only able to download data at about 12.5Mb/sec..he then suggested I should switch to there new service and I would get my full 80mb/sec download speed..suffice to say my jaw dropped at this idiot.
I moved into a new house a few months ago and rang sky for tv and broadband. They said a guy would be out in 2 weeks to install tv and a week after that to install broadband. The TV guy didn’t show up and i had to ring sky to find out what happened and after a few calls they rescheduled the appointment. Then I got a text to say that the broadband guy would be delayed. I cancelled the order and upc had a guy out in a couple of days. No ugly satellite either. It was awful dealing with sky.
Fibre is installed by an engineer.
I think Mr. Smith’s been rumbled
Sky have had fibre broadband for months now in selected areas, they don’t just magically install it overnight and turn it on the next day.
Unfortunately I am in an apartment that only has Internet access by Magnet which is absolute sh^te & it is a monopoly so I can’t choose another supplier.
If you’re an owner / occupier get onto the management company,if enough residents express a wish to have another provider they can source a new supplier.
Wow magnet is sh**te a mate of mine has them he lives in apartment and his speeds are 70-100 megs I can only dream of those speeds.
Sky Broadband was great in the beginning but then the broadband would drop out for about 3 hours around midday and also midnight.
If you’re bitstream, there’s your issue. If it’s LLU and it still happens just check your wireless channels.
There should be a law about stating speeds like 200mb etc if the contention rate on the connection is 1:5, this means you wille realistically never see the speed that’s advertised.
Unlike eircom and its resellers, I always get the full advertised speed with UPC.
After 6 months you are paying €50, same as Eircom. What about in year 2? The article is misleading. Sky have an ‘introductory offer’, same as Eircom et al. They’re not undercutting anyone.
If their broadband is as good value as Sky or UPC television subscriptions, I think I will stick with Smart DNS, IPTV, DVB-T and VOD services. ISP’s in Ireland offer about as much excitement and value as asking Timmy Mallet to open a Harvey Norman in Malin Head.
Sort out the rip off prices. As for subscription TV, cut the cord!
Change after 6 months so
How? You’re in a contract.
Hi Ian, nothing misleading here. The comparison is based on the first year, including whatever introductory offers are available from all the providers. The second year is much less relevant because Sky’s contract is 12 months – if anyone sees a better deal after that. which they almost certainly will, they’re free to switch.
Anyone getting sky broadband think twice.After sales service and technicians call outs disgraceful and as for faster speeds, dont believe a Word of it.Only two months to go in my contract and i will rid of sky n goin back to eircom tg.Horrific service is not the word
I won’t pay it I won’t wifi is my basic human right!
Lol. Peaceful protest !
Still waiting on my sky viewing card after 20 days, first they told me it was 7 days then 10 now they are blaming it on the Christmas post definitely switching after this.
After Sky gave me the run around for over a year on when fibre would be introduced and kept trotting out the same “soon” line I wont be going back to them, their CS is also horrific. Currently on Eircom and have had no issue’s and will be getting rid of sky tv plan in the new year to just have broadband going forward. Netflix’s ceo just stated traditional tv will be dead in 15 years lets try and make it sooner
“at least to begin with”, as with all scams they use a bit of cheese, amazing how we are more concerned with broadband speed than the quality of the gunk that oozes out of out taps.
If they can provide a service that simply works and if their customer care matches what they offer for tv (which I have found pretty good), then they will clean up. Easier said than done in rural areas of course. And no, I don’t work for sky.
Their broadband isn’t great at all. Slow and disconnects a lot. Customer service not great either, prepare to be on hold for a long time. Thinking of getting it elsewhere at the moment. Will keep their TVs package though, happy with that.
fibre broadband wars? They lob in an introductory offer and then charge near as much as the others after that. I don’t see the others dropping prices to match. Anyway the services are all very different in all areas, some with fibre, some without, some on magnet some on mobile modems. This is hardly a broadband price war.
Sky can only offer 24mb/s broadband to my house. It seems crazy considering I’m currently living in a densely populated area – a few hundred yards away from a university and near dozens of multinational companies which employ thousands of people. I hate to think of the speeds people in rural areas have to put up with.
Owen
I’m with sky and am on 24mb/s but never get more than 8. Do you get anywhere near 24 ?
All these services just piggyback on Eircom and Eircoms fibre network is still in it’s infancy. UPC have been working on theirs solid for years it’s completely independent fast and reliable and I only pay 46 per month inc home phone with 100 free minutes. I think I have like a 300gb monthly allowance but I will never use that unless I downloaded like 10 movies every single day. Another thing nobody gets full speed while using wifi you need to plug in your network cable to get full whack.
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