Limerick Blogger - independent Limerick news, sport, events and forum

Cals bridge at a time when people didn’t have to worry about scumbags in Limerick

In days of yore, one could take a shortcut from Hyde Road to Roxboro via the Cals footbridge, which transverses the cement factory railway line between Caladonian Park and Hyde football pitch.

Limerick City Council has finally decided that the access route is to be closed off permenantly. thus cutting off this shortcut.

According to Limerick - A Stroll Down Memory Lane Volume 5, the bridge was originally red, and could be seen packed with football fans watching games in either of the football pitches it overlooks. The railway line it crosses used to also be very busy, with the last passenger train using the line in 1964.

The bridge was painted grey in 1980, and we knew it as the bommin bridge, don’t know where it got that name though.

I am also not sure if the Council are going to tear the whole bridge down, or just block it off and leave nature take it down for them. Being Liemrick City Council, and their reputation for doing a half arsed job, I would opt for the latter.

But the bridge has become a hot spot for anti-social behaviour, with youngsters dropping rocks on passing trains from the bridge and it has also become a place where scumbags generally like to hang out, free of the prying eyes of the Gardai.

Michael McDowell, taking questions for the Taoiseach in the Dáil yesterday put on a pretty lame performance, defending the government’s inaction on suspected extraordinary rendition flights at Shannon Airport.

Addressing the chamber, the Justice Minister re-iterated that the Government had the word of the US administration that there were no illegal rendition flights passing through Shannon, and to question the word of the Americans would mean that they would not be invited to the White House on St. Patrick’s Day.

I guess the opportunity to give some rich American in Washington, a bowl of dead grass is more important to the Government than the human rights of people who are lifted in one country and dumped in another

Ireland has hosted the third highest number of secret CIA flights in the whole of the EU.

The debate continued in the Seannad. But Fianna Fail senators tried to sidetrack the debate.

Dermot Ahern is said to be livid over the revelation by an EU parlimentary committee’s investigating CIA flights that the Irish authorities failed to properly inspect 147 of them.

The claim has gone out that the release of the report two days before the Taoseach is due to speak to the committee, was designed to embarrace him. But the Americans said that there was nothing untoward on those flights, so why would Bertie be embarraced?

Over 10 percent of all CIA flights within the EU under investigation, passed through Shannon Airport.

The aircraft known as the “Guantanimo Express” has made several stops at Shannon, and groups such as Amnesty International want to know if there were detainees on these flights. However the government has consistantly refused to inspect these flights, claiming that they have assurances from the Americans that there is no shenanigans going on at Shannon.

These are the same Americans who stated that Saddam Hussein was buying yellowcake uranium from Niger, a claim which was discounted by the man they sent to investigate it.

The Irish Examiner has the story on Dermot Ahern’s fury at how the Government have been made look like propper gobshites to the rest of Europe.

Limerick County Council may be asked by the man appointed to sort the area out, John Fitzgerald , to hand over the three estates of Craeval Park, Delmage Park and Pineview Gardens to the City Council.

This would give the residents of the area representation on City Council, and the area of Moyross would then be under one local authority rather than two.

County Councillors are said to have been in favour of handing over the estates to Limerick City Council.

The Irish Examiner has a report here.

The Clare People reveals this morning that Ireland’s top three pollouters are located in the Mid-West region.

Number one on the list is Moneypoint power station near Kilkee in County Clare. The station pumps over 5.3 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. Arsenic is also being pumped out of the coal burning station.

In second place was the ESB power station at Tarbert. High levels of cromium were reported to be emitted from this station.

And Limerick took third place with Aughanish Auminium pumping high levels of arsenic. The aluminium company came second in Ireland to Moneypoint in the amount of arsenic being pumped into the air.

Limerick County Council workers who want to connect the people of Palaskenry and Kildimo to a water supply they don’t want, clashed again with locals yesterday.

Several protestors turned up to demonstrate their opposition to their water supply to what they claim is a poluted River Deel.

I’m sure indymedia will have more in the coming days, but for now, that is the only info I have.