Trouble on Tory Island...

PRidley

aquickword wrote: »

"Its not hard to understand how it worked. I sold the vessel two years ago and due to the fact that she would not operate to Tory untill 2018 I took the opportunity to Lease this fine vessel back for two seasons." This is a comment made by the "previous" owner of the Queen Of Aran yesterday evening on a thread on facebook. Now can anyone explain to me how he knew 2 seasons ago that this boat would have the contract for Tory when the decision apparently hadn't even been made yet?

It isn’t said on the Facebook post that he knew 2 seasons ago that this boat would have the contract. My reading of what was said on Facebook is that the Queen of Aran would not operate to Tory until 2018. That is logical because the current contract would be in place until then.

It might be worth your while asking the Facebook poster the question.

Odyssey 2005

I have been on the Queen of Aran multiple times,And some of those were VERY unfavourable conditions. The vessel felt safe and extremely seaworthy and more than capable to handle the conditions. The seas around Aran and Doolin are far from"sheltered bays".!!
I live in an area where we depend on a private bus operator is our only public transport. Bus Eireann ( national transport company that OUR taxes also pay for) pulled their service and left us to the wolves. The people of Tory are getting a heavily(I'd imagine) subsidised ferry service . They should have zero say on what vessel supplies that service,so long as it's passed suitable for purpose by professionals,which I believe the QoA is.
To call this boat a cast off is extremely disingenuous and it seems to me that the people of Tory want to keep the ferry service away from a public tender process. I assume the current operator tendered also,and was unsuccessful. He lost,get over it. At least you have a transport service,paid for by the rest of the country,unlike us.
Ye have some neck.

PRidley

aquickword wrote: »

If you would also checked online you would see that Queen of Aran is not licensed to carry cargo. It's a passenger boat only. Tor mor I believe was purposely built for cargo and passengers.

Of course that is based on the boat’s current license for the routes in Clare and Galway. She probably doesn’t need a cargo license there.

It isn’t a big deal to get a cargo license for a boat of this type, or for a boat like the Tor more. Mainly a paperwork exercise.

Widdensushi

You would get a pain in your head trying to keep track of who's who and how many accounts have they on here. There seems to be a good few new posters about ����

Odyssey 2005

Widdensushi wrote: »

You would get a pain in your head trying to keep track of who's who and how many accounts have they on here. There seems to be a good few new posters about ����

Bush Telegraph.

wexandproud

Odyssey 2005 wrote: »

I have been on the Queen of Aran multiple times,And some of those were VERY unfavourable conditions. The vessel felt safe and extremely seaworthy and more than capable to handle the conditions. The seas around Aran and Doolin are far from"sheltered bays".!!
I live in an area where we depend on a private bus operator is our only public transport. Bus Eireann ( national transport company that OUR taxes also pay for) pulled their service and left us to the wolves. The people of Tory are getting a heavily(I'd imagine) subsidised ferry service . They should have zero say on what vessel supplies that service,so long as it's passed suitable for purpose by professionals,which I believe the QoA is.
To call this boat a cast off is extremely disingenuous and it seems to me that the people of Tory want to keep the ferry service away from a public tender process. I assume the current operator tendered also,and was unsuccessful. He lost,get over it. At least you have a transport service,paid for by the rest of the country,unlike us.
Ye have some neck.

this is the point i kept alluding to in previous post , if the queen of aran is not fit to to the job she wont be given the licence and the fact she has operated to the aran islands would prove she is a capable vessel . there have been various opinions as to why the replacement was unsuitable , to old was the first one , then it was too to deep of a draft while the pictures would show the draft of the 2 boats is almost the same , the it was to much windage which would make her unstable , if that was the case the boat would be tied to a wall somewhere and left there . while their might me a little more windage on the boat it's the inherent stability of the boat which is the only thing that matters . Does any body on here know if either of the boats have 'ballast tanks '.?? Personally i think there is more to this story than we are getting and like i said before the boat is the scapegoat for something different we are not being told about

while island life would not be for me , contrary to what some people say on here i have no issue at all if people make a decision to live on tory or indeed any other island nor have i any problem with the state subsiding the running of the ferry as it subsidises all forms of public transport around the country .

aquickword

PRidley wrote: »

Of course that is based on the boat’s current license for the routes in Clare and Galway. She probably doesn’t need a cargo license there.

It isn’t a big deal to get a cargo license for a boat of this type, or for a boat like the Tor more. Mainly a paperwork exercise.

And is it capable of carrying cargo or would it have to be altered in any way? From reading some of the comments here I see that the height of the boat seems to be an issue. And the design of the boat would leave it susceptible to catching more wind.

PRidley

aquickword wrote: »

And is it capable of carrying cargo or would it have to be altered in any way? From reading some of the comments here I see that the height of the boat seems to be an issue. And the design of the boat would leave it susceptible to catching more wind.

I don’t enough about the boat to be certain but I doubt if it would require much alteration to allow it to carry a similar amount of cargo as the existing boat.

It all depends on fairly straightforward calculations regarding buoyancy and stability - all of which would be carried out by a qualified naval architect before being checked by the marine Transport Department before the boat would be licensed.

aquickword

PRidley wrote: »

I don’t enough about the boat to be certain but I doubt if it would require much alteration to allow it to carry a similar amount of cargo as the existing boat.

It all depends on fairly straightforward calculations regarding buoyancy and stability - all of which would be carried out by a qualified naval architect before being checked by the marine Transport Department before the boat would be licensed.

So it's possible then that the boat could end up more unstable in the water if alterations were made to allow it to carry cargo. The point I'm making is that more money would have to be spent making these alterations , whereas the Tor mor doesn't need these done or indeed to pass inspection as it is at the moment. So would it not have made more sense to spend the money on the younger of the 2 boats and made some small upgrades where they might have been needed. Might have saved a lot of arguments and problems in the long run. To me that would have been the most logical thing to do.

Widdensushi

I find it hard to believe there's a secondary school in the island. How many students are in it, I presume only in the teens but I saw a teacher /pupil ratio of three students per pupil mentioned. At a guess eighteen pupils to six teachers. It seems like alot of resources. Primary school I can understand as being necessary but a secondary school having five or six teachers with less students than most teachers have to teach seems like a luxury.

PRidley

aquickword wrote: »

So it's possible then that the boat could end up more unstable in the water if alterations were made to allow it to carry cargo. The point I'm making is that more money would have to be spent making these alterations , whereas the Tor mor doesn't need these done or indeed to pass inspection as it is at the moment. So would it not have made more sense to spend the money on the younger of the 2 boats and made some small upgrades where they might have been needed. Might have saved a lot of arguments and problems in the long run. To me that would have been the most logical thing to do.

The modifications could also make the vessel more stable - it depends what they are. What matters is that they will be designed and approved using facts rather than opinions and approved by the Marine Trandport Department before the boat can run on the route. I don’t understand how people from an island who should have a good understanding of maritime issues could envisage a situation where professionals would risk their reputation by designing and certifying an unsafe boat.

If the new operator is able to buy a boat and spend more money on it than the Tor more operator would have to, in order to make his boat suitable for approval by the marine transport department, one must wonder why the Tor more operator wasn’t more competitive in the tender.

If the logic in your post was followed the Tor more would be awarded the contract without competition. That wouldn’t be a proper use of taxpayers money. It would only suit a few people with vested interests.

Sleepy

Has anyone got a figure for how heavily subsidised each islander is? Given that there's only around 100 residents, their contribution to the exchequer must be pretty insignificant in comparison to the cost of their public services.

The CSO puts the Island's population at 142.

From a quick google 5, 7 and 15 students were enrolled in the Naionra, primary and secondary schools respectively as of 2016.
Taking the National Average of 11.7% of the population being over 65 that would give a (conservative?) estimate of 17 Pensioners

That would leave 98 adults of working age and infants too young to attend education. Even if we were to assume that 100% of these islanders were private sector workers earning the average full time wage of €45,611 (wildly unrealistic given we know there are at least 10 teachers, mainland Donegal's generaly low salary levels and high unemployment rates but we're ignoring property, motor tax, VAT, corporation tax etc. so for the sake of simplicity we'll move on).

That'd give a total income tax level of about €1,110,732 per annum. It's not an insignificant sum to an individual but when you consider this has to cover the cost of funding the schools, pay for the PHN and other emergency services, subsidise the ferry and helicopter services, maintain public infrastructure on the island (not much in the way of roads but harbours aren't cheap to maintain) not to mention cover their share of the cost of running central and local government, the civil service, servicing the national debt etc. it wouldn't come near to the islanders paying their way.

Our society should, and largely does (even if not to the standard most of us would like) take care of our sick, infirm and disabled. It's in all of our best interest to invest in areas of social deprivation in order to try and break the cycle of lifelong welfare dependence, poverty and crime.

Why though, should we subsidise the lifestyle choices of those who simply want to live in isolated places? What benefit to society is there in funding this?

("Preserving the Irish language" isn't a valid answer btw, we already waste a fortune on that in our education system, nonsensical translations of public documents etc. and the only increases in interest in the language that I can see is as a barrier to social inclusion to make "nice" middle class parents feel better about their offspring not having to share a classroom with those of immigrants.)

PRidley

Widdensushi wrote: »

I find it hard to believe there's a secondary school in the island. How many students are in it, I presume only in the teens but I saw a teacher /pupil ratio of three students per pupil mentioned. At a guess eighteen pupils to six teachers. It seems like alot of resources. Primary school I can understand as being necessary but a secondary school having five or six teachers with less students than most teachers have to teach seems like a luxury.

From Department of Education website there were 4 - four - students there in 2016/2017. There is no information on the number of teachers.

PRidley

Sleepy wrote: »

Has anyone got a figure for how heavily subsidised each islander is? Given that there's only around 100 residents, their contribution to the exchequer must be pretty insignificant in comparison to the cost of their public services.

The CSO puts the Island's population at 142.

From a quick google 5, 7 and 15 students were enrolled in the Naionra, primary and secondary schools respectively as of 2016.
Taking the National Average of 11.7% of the population being over 65 that would give a (conservative?) estimate of 17 Pensioners

That would leave 98 adults of working age and infants too young to attend education. Even if we were to assume that 100% of these islanders were private sector workers earning the average full time wage of €45,611 (wildly unrealistic given we know there are at least 10 teachers, mainland Donegal's generaly low salary levels and high unemployment rates but we're ignoring property, motor tax, VAT, corporation tax etc. so for the sake of simplicity we'll move on).

That'd give a total income tax level of about €1,110,732 per annum. It's not an insignificant sum to an individual but when you consider this has to cover the cost of funding the schools, pay for the PHN and other emergency services, subsidise the ferry and helicopter services, maintain public infrastructure on the island (not much in the way of roads but harbours aren't cheap to maintain) not to mention cover their share of the cost of running central and local government, the civil service, servicing the national debt etc. it wouldn't come near to the islanders paying their way.

Our society should, and largely does (even if not to the standard most of us would like) take care of our sick, infirm and disabled. It's in all of our best interest to invest in areas of social deprivation in order to try and break the cycle of lifelong welfare dependence, poverty and crime.

Why though, should we subsidise the lifestyle choices of those who simply want to live in isolated places? What benefit to society is there in funding this?

("Preserving the Irish language" isn't a valid answer btw, we already waste a fortune on that in our education system, nonsensical translations of public documents etc. and the only increases in interest in the language that I can see is as a barrier to social inclusion to make "nice" middle class parents feel better about their offspring not having to share a classroom with those of immigrants.)

The CSO 2016 small area census shows that 33 people on the island work from a total of 121 (the 142 you referred to must be from 2011 censes). That is 27% employment. The remainder are in education, retired, unemployed or unable to work.

Sleepy

So, basically, between them the 121 citizens of the island are likely contributing less than €374,022 in income tax towards the cost of providing them with essential services, education etc. That'd barely cover the cost of the teachers in the schools, nevermind maintaining a harbour, roads,subsidising their ferry etc. It's a parasitic existence.

wexandproud

aquickword wrote: »

So it's possible then that the boat could end up more unstable in the water if alterations were made to allow it to carry cargo. The point I'm making is that more money would have to be spent making these alterations , whereas the Tor mor doesn't need these done or indeed to pass inspection as it is at the moment. So would it not have made more sense to spend the money on the younger of the 2 boats and made some small upgrades where they might have been needed. Might have saved a lot of arguments and problems in the long run. To me that would have been the most logical thing to do.

carry cargo would probably add to the stability as it would be placed as low as possible on the boat .If you ever notice a large ferry being loaded , all the heavy lorries are put on the lower decks and all vehicles are evenly spread . .even big container ships have a plan for loading and unloading , they don't just grab containers and throw them on anywhere

wexandproud

PRidley wrote: »

The modifications could also make the vessel more stable - it depends what they are. What matters is that they will be designed and approved using facts rather than opinions and approved by the Marine Trandport Department before the boat can run on the route. I don’t understand how people from an island who should have a good understanding of maritime issues could envisage a situation where professionals would risk their reputation by designing and certifying an unsafe boat.

If the new operator is able to buy a boat and spend more money on it than the Tor more operator would have to, in order to make his boat suitable for approval by the marine transport department, one must wonder why the Tor more operator wasn’t more competitive in the tender.

If the logic in your post was followed the Tor more would be awarded the contract without competition. That wouldn’t be a proper use of taxpayers money. It would only suit a few people with vested interests.

while the stability test and particularly the calculation are complicated at least somebody else here knows something about the principals of it , and how a licence is granted . It's not as if some one is granted the tender , goes off and finds a boat and shouts '' all aboard ''

aquickword

wexandproud wrote: »

while the stability test and particularly the calculation are complicated at least somebody else here knows something about the principals of it , and how a licence is granted . It's not as if some one is granted the tender , goes off and finds a boat and shouts '' all aboard ''

The point i'm making is a tender was grated to the boat before any work or modifications were carried out and passed. I believe work is still being carried out on the boat. Would you get an NCT for a vehicle if work was still being carried out on it?

aquickword

PRidley wrote: »

From Department of Education website there were 4 - four - students there in 2016/2017. There is no information on the number of teachers.

So now the children of the Island are being targeted for getting an education. Have you absolutely no shame at all? Are they supposed to swim the 9 miles to the mainland to get their basic education that every child on this Island that we call Ireland is entitled to? It's not just one island its every islands right to have an education for their children. The user Sleepy is aptly named for thinking that to solve the problem whole communities should be uprooted and moved to the mainland. The narrow mindedness of some people astounds me.

Bob_Marley

Sleepy wrote: »

Has anyone got a figure for how heavily subsidised each islander is? Given that there's only around 100 residents, their contribution to the exchequer must be pretty insignificant in comparison to the cost of their public services.

The CSO puts the Island's population at 142.

From a quick google 5, 7 and 15 students were enrolled in the Naionra, primary and secondary schools respectively as of 2016.
Taking the National Average of 11.7% of the population being over 65 that would give a (conservative?) estimate of 17 Pensioners

That would leave 98 adults of working age and infants too young to attend education. Even if we were to assume that 100% of these islanders were private sector workers earning the average full time wage of €45,611 (wildly unrealistic given we know there are at least 10 teachers, mainland Donegal's generaly low salary levels and high unemployment rates but we're ignoring property, motor tax, VAT, corporation tax etc. so for the sake of simplicity we'll move on).

That'd give a total income tax level of about €1,110,732 per annum. It's not an insignificant sum to an individual but when you consider this has to cover the cost of funding the schools, pay for the PHN and other emergency services, subsidise the ferry and helicopter services, maintain public infrastructure on the island (not much in the way of roads but harbours aren't cheap to maintain) not to mention cover their share of the cost of running central and local government, the civil service, servicing the national debt etc. it wouldn't come near to the islanders paying their way.

Our society should, and largely does (even if not to the standard most of us would like) take care of our sick, infirm and disabled. It's in all of our best interest to invest in areas of social deprivation in order to try and break the cycle of lifelong welfare dependence, poverty and crime.

Why though, should we subsidise the lifestyle choices of those who simply want to live in isolated places? What benefit to society is there in funding this?

("Preserving the Irish language" isn't a valid answer btw, we already waste a fortune on that in our education system, nonsensical translations of public documents etc. and the only increases in interest in the language that I can see is as a barrier to social inclusion to make "nice" middle class parents feel better about their offspring not having to share a classroom with those of immigrants.)

You think you know the price of everything, but you clearly know the value of nothing. By your logic, everyone left in the rest of Ireland should be moved to Dublin.

There's also plenty of disadvantaged areas in Dublin that don't pay their net way either in terms of taxes, if you want to go down that route, then actually no money should be spent outside certain post codes in Dublin, and the postcode areas that certain multinational corporations fill in on their tax returns to avail of the specially constructed low tax rates for them. Looks like the Banana Republic is still alive and well.

Widdensushi

aquickword wrote: »

So now the children of the Island are being targeted for getting an education. Have you absolutely no shame at all? Are they supposed to swim the 9 miles to the mainland to get their basic education that every child on this Island that we call Ireland is entitled to? It's not just one island its every islands right to have an education for their children. The user Sleepy is aptly named for thinking that to solve the problem whole communities should be uprooted and moved to the mainland. The narrow mindedness of some people astounds me.

I googled the school and all I found was that an extension was opened in 2006 at a cost of 1 million, at that time there was fifteen students and seven teachers. It seems an excessive expenditure for few students. It's not practical to provide every person in the country with what they are entitled to unfortunately.

wexandproud

aquickword wrote: »

The point i'm making is a tender was grated to the boat before any work or modifications were carried out and passed. I believe work is still being carried out on the boat. Would you get an NCT for a vehicle if work was still being carried out on it?

. but the tender would not have been granted to a boat it would have been given to a person , persons or company and they might have named the boat in the application process , the contract would have been awarded , its then up to the service provider to provide a surveyed and certified vessel to fulfill the tender conditions . Like when a builder tenders for a large construction job , he might not have all the machinery to do the job but would source it when and if he is given the contract . There is a town bus service down here which is relatively new , the people who won the contract to provide it didn't even have a bus when they won the contract
the awarding of the contract would be a totally separate process that the licencing of the vessel

PRidley

aquickword wrote: »

The point i'm making is a tender was grated to the boat before any work or modifications were carried out and passed. I believe work is still being carried out on the boat. Would you get an NCT for a vehicle if work was still being carried out on it?

No, but the difference is that the proposed boat won’t be used until the new contract starts. It is only at that point that the licenses and approvals must be in place. Same with NCT - you only need it when you drive a car on a public road.

Using your logic you would expect all work to be done before the tender. What would happen if someone else won the contract.

aquickword

Widdensushi wrote: »

I googled the school and all I found was that an extension was opened in 2006 at a cost of 1 million, at that time there was fifteen students and seven teachers. It seems an excessive expenditure for few students. It's not practical to provide every person in the country with what they are entitled to unfortunately.

Did google also tell you what the alternative is? Most if not all of the children that attended the school from the period you mentioned have now got jobs because of their education and are currently working on the mainland paying their taxes like everyone else. Are they not entitled to live were they were born have families of their own and give them the same education they received themselves?

PRidley

aquickword wrote: »

So now the children of the Island are being targeted for getting an education. Have you absolutely no shame at all? Are they supposed to swim the 9 miles to the mainland to get their basic education that every child on this Island that we call Ireland is entitled to? It's not just one island its every islands right to have an education for their children. The user Sleepy is aptly named for thinking that to solve the problem whole communities should be uprooted and moved to the mainland. The narrow mindedness of some people astounds me.

How did my post target the children of the island? I merely stated that there were 4 pupils in the post primary school in 2016/2017. I didn’t give any opinion on whether I thought that was an acceptable use of taxpayers money or not. Neither did I give an opinion on the possible effects of the small numbers on the limited social interaction of the pupils. Of course, stating facts can get in the way of your emotive “the whole world is against us” comments.

I don’t understand why you reference another poster in your response to my post. If you have a comment to make on their posts please respond to their posts directly.

ohnonotgmail

aquickword wrote: »

Did google also tell you what the alternative is? Most if not all of the children that attended the school from the period you mentioned have now got jobs because of their education and are currently working on the mainland paying their taxes like everyone else. Are they not entitled to live were they were born have families of their own and give them the same education they received themselves?

given the pupil teacher ratio i'm not surprised they got such a good education. If only other pupils were so lucky.

PRidley

aquickword wrote: »

Are they not entitled to live were they were born have families of their own and give them the same education they received themselves?

The reality for most of us in the real world is that we cant live where we were born, have families of our own and give them the same education we received. More often than not we have to move away from where we were born so that we can work and earn money to raise and educate our families.

If we decide to stay where we were born we have to put up with poorer services and opportunities for ourselves and our children. We don’t have any entitlements in this world - but we do have choices. We make those and live with the consequences - just like those who wish to live where they were born.

aquickword

PRidley wrote: »

No, but the difference is that the proposed boat won’t be used until the new contract starts. It is only at that point that the licenses and approvals must be in place. Same with NCT - you only need it when you drive a car on a public road.

Using your logic you would expect all work to be done before the tender. What would happen if someone else won the contract.

If you mean by someone else winning the contract that has a boat already capable of doing the service without needing any work or alterations, then i would say well done for having the foresight to have the boat ready. My logic is this; if i was wanted to hire a machine for doing a particular job i wouldn't be hiring from a Company that told me they had the machine but it needs to be altered and upgraded when my other option is a Company that has what i'm asking for on hand already.

wexandproud

aquickword wrote: »

If you mean by someone else winning the contract that has a boat already capable of doing the service without needing any work or alterations, then i would say well done for having the foresight to have the boat ready. My logic is this; if i was wanted to hire a machine for doing a particular job i wouldn't be hiring from a Company that told me they had the machine but it needs to be altered and upgraded when my other option is a Company that has what i'm asking for on hand already.

the boat will be ready when the time comes . you wouldn't go and hire a machine before you had a job on the chance you might have work

Bob_Marley

wexandproud wrote: »

the boat will be ready when the time comes . you wouldn't go and hire a machine before you had a job on the chance you might have work

The contract was to supply an actual boat, not the equipment to work on it.