Why are we not using the salt from Carrickfergus?

Judgement Day wrote: »

No you're the one claiming the current process is correct when you've no knowledge of it.

Yes. Because someone somewhere made a decision to buy salt. Whether they thought about it for more than 10 seconds or not, I don't know, but saying it's wrong with no reasons to show why it's wrong is not an argument, it's a random statement. You may as well say "we should make all our clothes locally" with no reason for why we should do it

amacachi wrote: »

Time = Distance/Speed.
Now we're hoping obviously to minimise speed. Mathematically we could do this by differentiating etc. but for simplicity let's just look at the two components on the RHS of the equation as they are. In order to minimise the time we need to minimise distance and/or maximise the speed of delivery. I would take a massive stab in the dark and guess (I haven't verified this on Google maps or anything) that Carrickfergus is closer to most if not all of the places we need to get the salt to. I'll also take a guess that lorries will travel at least close to the same speed that ships laden with Salt would do.
Bearing these two things in mind, I imagine that "they're local" is quite a good reason to buy from there instead.
It's odd that the UK were able to up their orders overnight with no problem while the NRA couldn't do so.
There are a couple of reasons I can think that this is the case.
A) The NRA wasn't willing to pay a higher price for the salt than they're accustomed to or
They're locked into something with the mine they're been purchasing from until now.

There is another option, one which perhaps you believe, that there was no extra capacity in Carrickfergus. This doesn't seem to hold up too well when they increased their output.

So everything should be bought locally? Regardless of any other factors? What if Carrickfergus are charging €2m a tonne to get it Wednesday, and North Africa are charging 50 cent a tonne and we get it Friday? Do we go to Carrickfergus then?

That "half a yank" from the NRA was on the radio during the week and the HOOK asked him why the hell they weren't getting the salt from an Irish mine and he said that they were getting salt from them. But the mine has other customers and also there is only so much salt they can dig in the given time.

Arguably a bulk tanker can get salt here at a lower carbon usage per tonne and probably a lower time per tonne than trucking it down from Carrickfergus one truck at a time
depends on the quantities involved and where they're going i guess

Right beside the Larne railway line too. An NIR 111 could drag down a nice sized batch, but I think they prefer ship delivery as they have their own loading dock and I don't think Translink have any intention of going near railfreight.

Judgement Day wrote: »

I would have thought it would have made sense to source a reliable local supply of salt after the January debacle

Clearly you don't have an iota of information about the ability of the mine in question to supply for a contract from the NRA whilst also servicing it's existing contracts from the UK, nor an iota of information about the commercial viability of same.

I love the way posters just think it's a simple matter of x and y, and fail to think about anything else..... I suppose lets not let any thought get in the way of another C&T mindless rant.

AngryLips wrote: »

:pac: we shouldn't be using any salt for grit until local salt can be acquired instead this carry-on where we're flushing money out of the country on foreign salt while there's plenty back home

There are no local salt mines in Ireland (i.e. the Republic) and since the one in Carrickfergus is officially in the UK if we want any salt we have little choice than to continue flushing money out of the country on foreign salt.

I am probably over simplifying it.. but I would imagine EU Procurement rules have alot to do with it, and it depends alot on what type of frameworks/contracts for the supply of salt are already in place.

Either way you can be sure the NRA are unable to place an order tomorrow morning for x amount of salt using tax payers money without some sort of formal tendering procedure.

EDIT; It seems on reading the whole thread this point has already been aluded to. Apologies.

I`m not so sure this Salt-Stock issue is any more than a red herring to deflect attention from other changes to the response mechanism.

It`s now apparent that the Dept of The Environment and the Local Authorities have substantially downgraded their Severe Weather contingency plans countrywide.

I watched Noel Dempsey parade his troops for the RTE News camera`s three weeks ago when he claimed there were 55,000 tonnes of salt stockpiled in the Republic.

Given that the worst of the weather was confined initially to the eastern seaboard region that amount should have been more than sufficient to allow a comprehensive programme of road treatment.

Now either Mr Dempsey was startlingly misinformed,or he was being economic with the facts as the continuing state of major roads in and around Greater Dublin starkly contradicts everything the gentleman said.

It is not merely about the availability of Salt,it is about having Staff and Equipment available 24 hours if necessary to attend to the many other tasks which copuld keep our roads operational.

As an example yesterday afternoon saw a very dangerous situation at Clonskeagh Road/Beaver Row which had cars,trucks and buses sliding dangerously on a totally untreated icy surface.

This situation had in fact been ongoing for 48 hours,but had developed to a situation which threatened to result in injury or worse.

The eventual outcome was the arrival of the Gardai in a Renault Van complete with blues and two`s .

They proceeded to unload several; bags of salt from the back of the van as well as a couple of plastic shovels with which they set about spreading the salt/grit and freeing the stuck vehicles.

Now this begs the question whether if the Gardai are now responsible for Road Treatment on a major national route,are the Council Workers now providing the escorts for the Banks Cash deliveries ?

Something is VERY wrong here and it`s my belief that Mr Dempsey and Mr Gormley are not being fortright about whatever policy change has occured.

I would be quite happy if either of these Ministers simply admitted publicly that the State Agencies were no longer getting involved in Road Treatment during adverse weather events...then at least the individual motorist would be able to make their own arrangements for better or worse rather than struggling on in the expectation that the Local Authorities would eventually address their responsibilities.

This has little or nothing to do with salt stocks...believe me !!