[3]

In October 2007, Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail) announced that two Portlaoise railway bridges (over the Mountrath and Mountmellick roads) were by far the two most struck bridges in the entire country. The former unfortunate edifice took a total of 17 hits in the first nine months of 2007 while the latter - under which I walk a few times each day - was battered 13 times. Clearly, Portlaoise is not the place to be if you're a bridge. On a serious note, it seems that, despite all the signs and warnings, some drivers, in charge of forty-tonne battering rams (I have seen them being forced under the bridge and nonchalantly driven off), are either illiterate or totally heedless of the safety of others. More power to Iarnród Éireann, therefore, for calling a spade a spade when they described truckers passing through Portlaoise as "the dumbest in Ireland." [10] Real history was made on Thursday, June 28, 2007 when the annual meeting of Portlaoise Town Council elected the very first black mayor in Ireland. Since his arrival in Portlaoise as an asylum-seeker from Nigeria in 2000, Rotimi Adebari has been involved in various community and cultural organisations. He was elected Town Councillor in 2004 and has won many awards for his work in the area of multi-culturalism. In May, 2007, Rotimi named Person of the Year by Exclusive magazine in Dublin. We are very proud of his achievement and wish him nothing but good for the future. In November and December, our town hit the national headlines again when it emerged that nine local women had been given the wrong cancer diagnosis at Portlaoise Hospital. They were initially given the all-clear, then told that they were, in fact, suffering from breast cancer. The subsequent reaction and behaviour of the Minister for Health, the Health Service Executive and the hospital itself was nothing less than disgraceful. Not alone were these women never offered counselling but, unbelievably, they never even received a proper apology. Official investigations[11] of the entire sorry affair concluded that it was due to "system failure". System failure. No-one accepted any responsibility. No-one was deemed to be accountable. No-one was named or blamed. Aren't we living in a great little country? Wherever you are in the world, please pause for a moment and think of these nine brave women and the trauma they are suffering. So what’s it like living in Portlaoise today 2007? Of course we share the universal complaints from the older generation that the youngsters of today are ‘gone to the dogs’. And despite the plethora of recreational activities, many young people still whinge that there’s ‘nothing to do in this dump’. As someone whose connections with the town go back generations, I have a sentimental, but not, I hope, uncritical attachment to the place: We have a Post Office that seems to have forgotten that its primary function is to look after post. Sure, you can pay bills, top up your phone, invest money, buy all sorts of greeting cards. But you’ll also wait in line for ages - today it took almost twenty minutes - to buy a stamp. Is the Postmaster – or whoever is in charge of staffing – blind to the plight of elderly people waiting patiently as only two or three of the six counters are normally in use? I am furious with our local hospital for causing such unnecessary suffering to innocent women who trusted it; I am angered by the increased prevalence of drunkeness and loutish behaviour, mystified by the lack of a more visible Garda presence on the streets; amazed by how few faces I recognise on my daily wanderings around the town (at home I'm a tourist!); astounded by the amount of construction; appalled by the ubiquitous flouting of traffic regulations (I regularly see modified cars roaring past the Garda Station and, despite legislation banning hand-held mobile phone use in cars (September 1st, 2006), drivers yakking away while controlling (?) their vehicles with one hand.); and I wonder what's going to happen when our so-called good times shudder to a halt and the Celtic Tiger lies whimpering at our feet. December 2007. Listen. What’s that… in the distance… but definitely approaching. House prices falling… building workers being let go. Whimpering. Getting louder by the day. Brace yourself for 2008! On Thursday, September 25th 2008, the Central Statistics Office finally confirmed what the dogs in the street have known for ages.... Ireland is now officially in recession. February 2009: Between January 2008 and 2009, house prices in Portlaoise fell by up to 17% compared to about 10% nationally. In the same period, the numbers seeking unemployment benefit in the town increased by a staggering 120%. [12] No great surprise: the long queues outside the local dole office tell their own sorry tale. Welcome to the meltdown. [10] Report in The Irish Times newspaper. October 2, 2007. [11] Published on March 5th, 2008. [12] Report in The Irish Times newspaper. February 7, 2009. . HOMEPAGE