Making a balls of the JC Ball at Mooneys

On Friday night last I set off from home to collect Evin, one of our sons who was coming home for the bank holiday week end from college.  Leaving home at 8, I’d have time to get a few things in Dunnes and we’d be home in 30 minutes. What could be easier?

As I drove along the Quays I noticed a crowd gather outside Mooneys. As it was a bank holiday the roads were busy and traffic hoping to turn over the bridge was backed up towards Mooneys Bar where I had to stop. 

I changed lanes as I was heading straight on. The group of kids standing on the kerb within inches of where I was driving looked bigger and were certainly getting closer.  One or two were definitely swaying and I slowed down further lest I tip off them.  I recognised a face or two and proceeded to the junction with Charlotte St.  There I could see a girl lying on the footpath. Her back was probed up against the side wall of an estate agents while a friend kneeled over her. Neither of the girls were more than 15.

I was in a line of traffic and continued on until I got to Redmond Square. I parked and noticed a bus discharging its passengers onto the street.  All young and hardly more than 15.  Some girls had clearly raided their sisters wardrobes and were staggering as they weren’t used to the high heels and platforms. Others may have raided their younger sisters wardrobes for a shorter dress while others just staggered.  They all set off in the direction of Mooneys on the Quays as if a pied piper was drawing them all to party.  Something worrying struck so I posted my feelings on facebook using the old Nokia blockia.

Once I had collected our son we set off home.  The girl at Charlotte St had disappeared and while there was still 40 young people outside Mooney’s I didn’t recognise any faces this time.  A girl was hanging on for dear life to a sign post outside the pub door as she negotiated the last few steps to the night club with her sister’s platform shoes. But still there was the nagging worry at the back of it all.

On Saturday morning the town was full of rumour. Let’s not give any of it legs here but what I saw and describe above I stand over.  I was told that the night club closed prematurely at about 10 O’Clock.  I understand that one girl needed medical treatment.  But Facebook told another story.  Parents posted complaints that their children were worried when clearly drunk children were admitted and it’s easy to see how panic set in.

Mooney’s facebook page had posts from parents complaining and rating it poorly. Today many of those posts have been deleted. Like their children who had been shown the door and refused a refund, when it really counted the opinions of these parents didn’t matter either. Indeed a message in the name of Mooneys on the Quays to their teenage base on facebook describes the event as a disaster however it asks the teenagers to stop rating the event on its page as a one star event as this would jeopardise further JC Balls.

This morning I spoke on Morning Mix on South East Radio with the owner of the nightclub and the presenter, Alan Corcoran.  To put it mildly texts and calls to the show were greatly critical of the event.  One woman described how her daughter complained that teenagers were drunk and vomiting, in some cases on themselves.

What particularly struck me was the admission by the owner that the ticketing is run by organisers who are legally children.  The legal reality however is that it is the owner who is ultimately responsible for his own venue and what happens there. A duty of care exists, not just when the person enters the night club but also on transport to and from the event and also as they stand outside the nightclub.  The owner claims that tickets to the event were forged. However this poses further questions. Why when tickets were discovered to have been forged was money accepted for admission? What steps are the nightclub taking to discover who forged the tickets and whether they have reported the forgery to the Gardaí?

The event seems to try to normalise in youngsters the worst aspects of adult behaviour; binge drinking and anti-social behaviour. I spoke with a local authority worker who told me that on Saturday morning there were bottles and cans to beat the band to be collected along the Quays.

 No amount of apologies by the nightclub owner can change that.  There are good teen events available to young people in Wexford, but this isn’t one of them.  A pub is for drinking or eating a meal, not for 15 year olds on the day celebrating their midterm break.

There are problems in some parts of the country with stags and hens parties. However who sees any merit in adding youngsters to that lethal cocktail? Parents with children who are travelling long distances to Wexford need to ask themselves what their kids are up to.  They also need to take responsibility and educate their kids about alcohol.

Because after every hangover, reality returns and the reality of JC Balls is that 14 and 15 year olds are simply not emotionally mature nor legally entitled to decide who comes and goes to a nightclub.

Ophelia brings out the best in Wexford

Sunday night was the calm before the storm. A mild warm night followed by a sharp deterioration in conditions.  By 1 o’clock yesterday it sounded as if a there was a low flying jet was overhead.  Neighbours of ours lost power as trees came crashing down.

Thankfully there were no casualties in Wexford.  I remember Hurricane Charlie in August 1987. It was accompanied by heavy rain and floods.  There is little flooding today, Ophelia was chiefly a wind event.  There remain homes without power in Wexford.  These will be reconnected by ESB Networks as resources permit.  The good news is that there are no immediate problems with water supplies in Wexford town.

I’ve heard so many stories in the last day of people calling to neighbours to enquire about their welfare. Two neighbours played cards to keep one another company!

That 3 people died nationally was a tragedy. However a previous hurricane of similar size back in 1961 killed 13.  The reduction in casualties must surely result from the excellent communications using media to warn people and give clear messages. 

Schools will resume in the morning around Wexford Town. Postal deliveries resumed today and business are re-opening even if the levels of traffic are much lower than usual. Wexford will get back to normal and the opera festival will start on Thursday night.

There remains a lot of fallen trees to be cleared. These will be removed over the next few days with the priority being on main and regional roads. In my own area a tree fell smashing a wall and the railings of the local Garda Divisional HQ. Thankfully nobody was hurt but there will be no access to the Rocks Lane until it is removed.

A final thought. It is only at this time we value the work of volunteers and public service workers at all levels in protecting life and property. For those who think that the private sector does things better, the last few days would suggest we wake up and smell the coffee.

In the meantime if you need me to contact the council on your behalf for any storm related damage, give me a ring.

Smoke and mirrors about the firework's display

It’s like a plot from a comic opera.  I actually thought it was an early April Fools gag.   The town looks forward to letting its hair down every year.  Just before the big day the word goes out.  Unless you measure up and get your ticket, then  you can go get a step ladder and gaze from afar.

Ticket master and the touts outside Croke Park are hardly a patch on it. There’s something that’s free, it still remains free but you inconvenience people whose very presence makes the opening night so special and the fun that it is. Other than the year when I was Mayor. I’ve never stood close to the podium.  I’ve always stood close to the Talbot alongside my neighbours from the South End

It is everybody’s favourite night.  For  all the years that the festival has opened with fireworks, there has been just one Health and Safety issue  that I can recall. It resulted with the fireworks ending prematurely as high wind blew fireworks onshore.  So there was the health and safety issue being dealt with.

The reason cited by the Festival Opera is that the proximity of the rail line and the edge of the quay in the area of the main podium presents special challenges that require ticketing limiting the numbers close to the podium to 5,000.  I’ve never heard of possible safety concerns in that area before.  We really need to know what these precise concerns are.

Each year at least 20,000 stand around the Quays to watch the fireworks.  So who is going to police this? Where are the volunteers to check tickets? What’s going to happen to groups where some people have tickets and perhaps their children haven’t?

It’s poorly thought out.  It’s being sprung on people, late in the day. Clearly there has been little discussion with the local authority. When I was Mayor in 2010 I asked that a reception be organised in advance of the return of the Wexford camoige team after the All Ireland Final.  The council has a health and safety plan in place. I was advised and part of the planning in that event.  On the night in the area of where the stand is there were 10,000 people all cheering and in great spirit, parents, children all excited and waiting for a long time in front of the stand and podium. There was no issue. I’m curious as to why now the maximum figure in that area is to be half that number. There was no request for a license from Wexford Borough Council for a license to host that reception.

It’s also a fair question to ask, where do we stand for future public events on the Quays? Will tickets be required for further receptions in the area? The Quays are the public area. I’ve likened it to an Italian Piazza. It’s Wexford’s front room where we can all meet up. 

Events like public receptions may become rare in the future.  It seems to me that councillors from outside Wexford don’t quite get it as to how Wexford town people value the Quays. It’d be useful if the Festival Opera would liaise with the Mayor and explain what they propose and seek the agreement from the Mayor in whose name the bye laws that govern the Quays are enacted.

By the way, I’ll let you in on a secret. Some of the proposed viewing area s are in private ownership and the likes of St Peters College will take a dim view on the organisers suggestion that people would go there to view fireworks. Another  final point, the fireworks are not detonated from the stand but from the arm of the Quay and the Ballast Bank.

See you there.

Wanted! Local democracy for Wexford Town. Apply Within

There are few areas of life more subjective than politics. Everyone has an opinion, everyone can tell you what they think might happen.  The intensity of the moment means that when an issue slides out of the headlines and onto the backburner, More than 3 years on from the decision to abolish the local borough council, perhaps it’s timely to look back at what Phil Hogan axed.

Minister Hogan sexed up his abolition with a forecast that abolishing councils would save €420M in the four years up to 2017.  Phil Hogan got his way and then got his free pass to the EU Commission.  However there was little money saved by cutting the number of councils. Quietly the pay bill has climbed.  

What we got was towns run by rurally elected Councillors.  In Wexford just 3 councillors now live in the town as opposed to 12 previously on the Borough Council. To compensate the towns for the loss of their council additional seats were allocated to districts. In most cases these seats went to rural based candidates in 2014. What happened in Wexford was reflected many times around the country. Town voters didn’t see the need to vote for town based candidates. Simple as.

But while the focus is now on undoing the decision to abolish town councils, it’s time to move the debate on. Two things need to be done; a decision on what population is required to support a town council and what powers are to be given to these restored bodies.

It’s unlikely that restored councils will have the same number of seats as previous. If that were to happen, then County Council’s could possibly lose some of the extra seats allocated in 2014. That might not be a bad thing as 31 councillors in Wexford all wanting to contribute on an issue makes for a time consuming and slow decision making.

The term Mayor should only be used in relation to a town council. People visualise a city or large town when they hear the word Mayor. Often people assume that the Mayor is an ambassador for a town. That’s only true to an extent. Mayor’s used to have real powers. All Mayors are ex oficio members of all committees and sub-committees in the council.

When I served as Mayor it coincided with a campaign by the council to encourage tenants to buy out their ground rent from the councils. I must have signed off on hundreds of applications that year. The Mayor had to verify tenders and CPO’s. The Mayor is required to give legal effect to many of the councillor’s decisions. But the Mayor is also the ultimate ombudsman with the council officials. Councillors would often contact the Mayor to ask for something specific to be done. I don’t know if our present Mayor has those powers any more.  Wexford Borough District Council doesn’t have its own cheque book. The housing committee where all councillors could discuss issues regarding housing in the town disappeared at a time when one was more needed than ever.

We hear a lot about the council isn’t working but we hear little of what the solution may be. Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that the 2014 local election was seen as referendum on the government. Voter turnout was greater in rural areas than in urban areas as it generally is. That disadvantaged urban candidates at a stroke. Some successful candidates campaigned on national issues that they had little chance of influencing. The County Council was supposed to deal with policy issues only meeting as little as 3 or 4 time a year.  The real business was supposed to be done at district level. That never happened.  Instead we had councillors who saw the council as the next step on the way to the Dail use the council to deliver national messages.

So urban issues dropped further off the agenda.  It used to be the case that it was easy to contact a councillor, you'd see them on the street. Now? There's a lot less of them with more work to keep them going.

So what can be done? Restore the urban councils, give its members a say with a housing, justice and enterprise committee. The sooner this happens the better. There is increasing alienation in Wexford Town among citizens from their council. Most people couldn’t name the Mayor and apart from George Lawlor, few people are aware of who to go to when things are tough.

And that was not what was supposed to happen according to Phil Hogan. Better decision making placing the interest of the town at the heart of the district was supposed to be what would result. We don’t need another run at a failed system at our next local elections. Time to go back to what works.