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.
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