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

First up, the online petition now stands at 13,124 signatures.

Wednesday started with delegation from the West, comprising of local public representatives and industrialists, who held a protest outside Leinster house to co-incide with the first cabinet meeting after the Summer recess.

You would be forgiven for feeling frustrated by the people we have put into office, especially after the conduct of the Transport Minister Noel Dempsey today.

While the Minister claims that he is doing everything in his power to ensure connectivity for Shannon, he is refusing to call on Aer Lingus to reverse their decision. He has also not indicated how the government would be voting at an Aer Lingus EGM were one called.

Noel Dempsey is giving the strongest impression that he would like nothing more than to see Shannon’s Heathrow slots go north of the border. They will intervene when Ryanair makes a commercial decision to acquire Aer Lingus, but cannot intervene in a commercial decision when Aer Lingus tries to screw Shannon and the west. Well it’s on the other side of the M50 so who gives a shite.

You can hear Noel Dempsey stuttering and stumbling his way through an interview on the News At One in RealAudio by clicking here.

Willie O’Dea does a U-turn, a flip flop, loses his nerve, falls back into the party line … more

How can you overstate something that cannot be quantified, that is the question Noel Dempsey needs to answer after he told Today FM’s Last Word programme that the impact the loss of Shannon-Heathrow would have on the reagion could not be quantified, while on the News at One (RTE) accused those predicting what would happen if Shannon-Heathrow went, of overstating the impact the loss of the route would have. This government will do everything in it’s power to keep the Aer Lingus CEO sweet, even if it means pissing on the National Interest.

A month later, Enda shows up. The Fine Gael leader has finally decided to show up, Enda Kenny is due to visit the Shannon region on Friday where he will meet public representatives and business people, and so on, and so forth.

See also

Shannon to Heathrow issue - Press Release - John Barry

News at One - GUBU

One hint in press release following cabinet meeting - Irish Election.

Nothing will be done unless local politicians grow a backbone.

Limerick city councillors cowered away from taking action against Aer Lingus this week. They chose to sit on their hands in the misguided belief that they can convince this Minister for Transport to use the Government’s stake to reverse the Aer Lingus decision.

Willie O’Dea, as pointed out before, seems to have been put back in his box after the cabinet meeting. Peter Power has gone all quiet again. as has Collins, and Creegan. not a peep out of them apart from the occasional mutterings.

Anyway, that is the summary of hot air dished out on Wednesday

The only progress made so far is that Noel Dempsey, has finally cottoned on to the fact that a Heathrow link is necessary for Shannon, where as before he was accusing those who demanded it as being over exaggerating the need for the route.

Just some up do date photos of some of the construction works in the City Centre

The picture above is the second Riverpoint building, work is almost complete on this building.

More below the fold.

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I seem to be alternating between Limerick Prison and Shannon Airport this week, although which one is producing the most gangsters has not yet been figured out.

Anyway, After some prisoners smashed their own TV sets last week, prison officials are giving consideration to getting in a big screen so that prisoners can watch the All Ireland hurling final.

Those that did not smash their TV sets last week have the option to watch the match in their cells however, or if they want to share the atmosphere, they would be able to watch it with their fellow inmates.

If the decision to get in the big screen goes ahead, it will be located in the prison’s excersise yard.

Meanwhile, a report on Today FM’s last word states that prisoners at last night’s protest were receiving support from relatives outside the prison, who tossed, amongst other things, food over the prison wall to their compadres inside.

A woman was before Limerick district court today in relation to accusations that she had caused criminal damage to a house and attacked a woman in Delmage Park on 19 August.

Sadie Campion (37) of Pineview Gardens, Moyross, is alleged to have caused €200 worth of damage to the window of the house and also alleged to have injured a woman at said house.

Campion had appeared before Listowel District Court earlier this month, as the district court in Limerick was on Summer recess, where she was remanded in custody until today.

However, Judge Leo Malone, presiding further remanded Campion in custody until September 12th.

The sun sets on the Gaelic Grounds before the team is announced to play Kilkenny.

Limerick hurlers training.

LIMERICK: B Murray; D Reale, S Lucey, S Hickey; P.Lawlor, B Geary, M.Foley; D O’Grady, M O’Brien; M Fitzgerald, O Moran , S.O Connor; A O’Shaughnessy , B Begley, D.Ryan..

Belerussian airline, Belavia, have announced that it is to scrap it’s Shannon to Minsk route from the end of October.

The airline cited poor performance and increasing operations costs as the reason for deciding to scrap the route.

The airline will decide on whether to scrap the route during the summer season in January.

The Shannon-Minsk route carries approximately 7,000 passengers, and is frequently used by the charity Chernobyl Childrens Fund, which brings children to Ireland to recover from exposure to radiation which remains after the world’s biggest civilian nuclear explosion, which happened in the 1980s.