[5]
June 2012: Drunken rows and disturbances - especially on Saturday nights and Bank Holiday weekends - have become such a problem in the town that Gardaí have doubled
the number of officers on patrol. They have also adopted a zero tolerance policy on public disorder: "Anyone who acts the maggot," warns
Superintendent John Moloney, "is going home with a charge sheet."[24]
Also in June, it was announced that the Constituency Commission has cut the total number of TD's by eight to 158. It also recommended that, due to the
increase in population, Counties Laois and Offaly will become, for the first time in the history of the State, three-seater constituencies in
their own right.[25]
To achieve the required population, Laois required only a small slice of Kildare South, while Offaly needed a chunk of Tipperary!
Throughout the year, the Downtown initiative to attract business back to the 'old town' met with considerable success, but the number of empty premises
in Main Street and the Market Square still speaks for itself. Half of the north side of the latter, for instance, is totally bereft of any business.
Standing in the way of commercial progress is, of course, a futile task ("Money doesn't talk; it swears"), but, as a native of the town, I am
constantly dispirited by the generic development on the
'far side' of James Fintan Lalor Avenue. The same big names, the same shelves stocked with mostly the same brands, the same production line service....
You could be shopping anywhere in the English-speaking world.
But above all else, 2012 will be remembered by the people of Portlaoise for one particular reason. At the end of
October, posters began to appear in shop windows seeking information about a missing young local woman, Aoife Phelan. As rumours swirled throughout
the town, a local man was taken into custody and, on November 7th, Aoife's body was found just outside the town.
The suspect was charged with her murder and is presently awaiting trial. As Christmas approaches, the thoughts of many in Portlaoise
and surrounding areas will be with this poor woman, her loved ones, and two families forever blighted by this terrible event.
January 2013: Inspired by the stabilisation of the Dublin property market and the general increase in retail business over the Christmas period,
there are those who believe that, after four years of austerity, 2013 will be the year when we finally 'turn the corner'. Labour Party
members will probably endorse Tánaiste Eamonn Gilmore's optimism,[26] but
there are many who see his comments merely as an attempt to boost the country's 2013 Presidency of the EU, to say nothing of The Gathering, in my
opinion a Bread and Circuses scheme dreamed up by the government to entice foreign visitors to Ireland in the coming year. So, in the red corner,
The Optimist; in the blue, yours truly, aka The Sceptic. Seconds out!
The year got off to a strange start when it was announced that traces of horsemeat had been discovered in hamburgers.
In most cases, the horse DNA - as it was euphemistically called - was of miniscule proportions, but one Tesco burger was found to be 29% horsemeat.
(What to you call a burnt Tesco burger? Black Beauty.) The upshot was (a) more than ten million burgers had be removed from supermarket shelves and destroyed
(b) a field day for the jokers: What would you like on your burger, Sir? A fiver each way in the 2.20 on the Curragh. One meat factory owner's claim that the
DNA testing could have picked up trace elements from the air met with the response 'Yeah, Pegasus!'
On the local front, we had the usual mix of the good, bad and indifferent. Early in the year it was announced that Planning Permission had been granted
for a new primary school complex at Aghnaharna which will replace St. Paul's, Scoil Mhuire and Sacred Heart and, in September, Maryborough NS,
Gaelscoil Phortlaoise and Educate Together moved to their new campus in Summerhill.
In September, Shaws relocated their main store to Kylekiproe, a move heard by many as the death knell of the already embattled Main Street. The
announcement shortly afterwards that the vacant premises would house a revamped, state-of-the-art library seemed to take the sting out of the situation,
but whether it will restore footfall to the area remains to be seen.
The same month also saw the successful staging of the National Ploughing Championships which, over three days, attracted more than 200,000 people to Ratheniska, just
outside the town. Attractions included 1,400 trade tents, musical performances, designer clothes for dogs, the President and Taoiseach, art and craft displays,
great weather, fashion shows, dancing, and live robotic milking. And, of course, the ploughing championships themselves, in which 340 competitors vied for a prize
fund of €18,000. The event, during which an estimated €40 million changed hands, is scheduled to return to Ratheniska next year.
[27]
Other highlights included
Reasons to be less cheerful:
You can decide for yourself into which category you'd put the following:
And there you have it, a very broad, selective outline of what happened in our town in 2013: a year that begin with
warnings about burgers, and ended with such wind and rain
that Pegasus himself would not be cleared for takeoff....
And, finally, congratulations to The Optimist in the red corner above: with unemployment figures slowly falling and property prices on the way up - at least in Dublin -
it seems that we are no longer in recession. After years of harsh budgets and the EU/ECB/IMF Troika watching us like a hawk, December 15th saw our formal exit from the
three-year, 85 billion euro
bailout programme, and we are a sovereign nation once again. So proud/confident/smug/arrogant/churlish - delete as you see fit - was our government that requests by
senior European Commission figures to
visit Dublin on 'Exit Day' were firmly turned down.[30]
The Gathering, incidentally, was a great success and generated €170 million
in tourist revenue.[31] I hereby eat humble pie.
(a) the memorably warm summer
(b) the opening of Portlaoise Youth Cafe
(c) the James Fintan Lalor Inaugural School
(d) the success of the Christmas Market and - by previous standards - the spectacular street lights
(e) how overall crime in the town was down 7% on last year's figures (tempered somewhat by the 45% rise
in theft)
(f) how local actor Robert Sheehan's star continues to rise (and how his support for the Dunamaise Arts
Centre shows he hasn't forgotten where he came from).
(a) The untimely deaths of Jim Tynan, popular proprietor of Jim's Country Kitchen
for nearly thirty years,
Jim Yorke, photographer and music-lover; and everyone whose death brought sadness to Portlaoise. Ar dheis
Dé go raibh a n-anamacha uaisle.
(b) At a Medical Council enquiry in December, it emerged that a doctor who worked in Portlaoise hospital
(February-April 2009), "didn't have a clue".
His potentially disastrous actions included reading an X-ray
upside down and attempting to use a scalpel to insert a line. Appparently he was given the job because
no-one else applied for it.
Is that any way to run a hospital? Who's in charge there? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
(c) More than €11,000 went
missing from the Scoil Chríost Rí Debs Ball Fund.
(d) While attending a fire at Hepburn Court, Ballyfin Road, the Fire Brigade was attacked by a gang of youths.
Thankfully there were no casualities, but damage to the fire tender put it temporarily out of commission.
(e) The town is rated near the bottom (40th out of 42) in the latest litter survey.[28]
Only the streets of Castlebar and Dublin Inner City (North) are dirtier than ours.
(a) Town Councillor Matthew Keegan's call for the legal drinking age to be lowered to 17.
(b) The number of Laois County Councillors is to be reduced from 42 to 19.
(c) As the debate over turbines continues to divide people, the CEO of Element Power claimed that wind
farms could increase the County Council's
income by €100 million over the next twenty-five years.[29]
(d) Labour senator John Whelan's intention not to run for the Senate again. He intends to contest the next
General Election.
[24]
The Leinster Express. Wednesday, June 13, 2012.
[25]
The Irish Times. Friday, June 22, 2012.
[26]
Front page of The Irish Times. January 1 and 2, 2013.
[27]
Facts and figures from the Leinster Express Ploughing Spectacular supplement. October 1, 2013.
[28]
Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) League report for 2013
[29]
As reported in the Leinster Express. December 24, 2013
[30]
Front page of The Irish Times. December 14 and 15, 2013.
[31]
The Irish Times. December 23, 2013.
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