Should Ireland ditch daylight savings regardless of what the UK and NI do?

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120397190#Comment_120397190

And those in Belmullet would not have dawn until nearly 10am in December. What a disaster it would be if we ditched the existing system.

Furze99

Clearly if we need to abolish the changing clock, then we stick with the time as it is as of this past few months. Fine and bright late these afternoons and into early evening and no need to change that.

The idea of settling permanently on what will happen tomorrow, is just plain stupid. Very dark mornings in winter, frozen roads for longer to mid morning and downright depressing.

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120399148#Comment_120399148

That would be Greenwich Mean Time GMT in old money or internationally know by its successors name Coordinated Universal Time UTC we even have our own name IST which I'm sure anyone can work out what that stands for.

So we would stay on IST = GMT = UTC which would get my vote.

EDIT> ABOVE IS WRONG surprised no one picked me up on it? Think thats an indication that the jargon has people a little confuse?

Irish Standard Time IST which we use in the summer is UTC + 1 (GMT + 1). In the winter we use UTC or as I prefer the old fashioned name GMT.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland

The Continental Op

For those interested in the legal side of it:

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1971/act/17/enacted/en/print.html

Standard Time (Amendment) Act, 1971

Winter time.

1.—(1) (a) Notwithstanding section 1 (1) of the Standard Time Act, 1968 , the time for general purposes in the State shall during a period of winter time be Greenwich mean time, and during such a period any reference in any enactment or any legal document (whether passed or made before or after the passing of this Act) to a specified point of time shall be construed accordingly unless it is otherwise expressly provided.

(b) The period beginning at two o'clock Greenwich mean time in the morning of the 31st day of October, 1971, and ending at two o'clock Greenwich mean time in the morning of the 19th day of March, 1972, shall for the purposes of this Act be a period of winter time.

(c) Subject to subsection (2) of this section, the period beginning at two o'clock Greenwich mean time in the morning of the Sunday following the fourth Saturday in October in any year after 1971 and ending either at two o'clock Greenwich mean time in the morning of the Sunday following the third Saturday in the month of March in the following year or, if the last-mentioned Sunday is Easter Day, at two o'clock Greenwich mean time in the morning of the Sunday following the second Saturday in the month of March in that year shall for the purposes of this Act be a period of winter time.

(2) The Minister for Justice may by order do all or any of the following—

(a) vary the period of winter time prescribed by subsection (1) (c) of this section, either generally or for a specified year or specified years,

(b) prescribe, either generally or for a specified year or specified years but not so as to affect the operation of subsection (1) (b) of this section, that there shall be no period of winter time,

(c) amend or revoke any order under this subsection (including this paragraph).

(3) An order under this section shall not come into operation until it has been approved by resolution of each House of the Oireachtas.

odyssey06

The Journal sums up state of play.

Stalled at EU level if not dead

82 percent polled favoured same time zone on this island

https://www.thejournal.ie/eu-plans-to-abolish-clock-changes-6024800-Mar2023/

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120399236#Comment_120399236

Interesting, so the Minister can order a change, but cannot go ahead without a vote in the Dail is my understanding of it

So there'll be no referendum or anything on it

However, I could see it being a topic for a citizen's assembly

BrianD3

No matter what we do, we're just tinkering around the edges. Unless we can manage to install giant movable solar mirrors in space, the northern latitudes will be grim in winter. With more light than we need in summer.

i would favour leaving things the way they are or maybe changing to summer time in mid-late february each year.

Or look at societal measures like working shorter hours during the winter, people might then be more productive and less prone to seasonal affective disorder.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120399307#Comment_120399307

Right, space mirrors it is, someone tweet the idea to Elon Musk 😁

I kinda feel the shorter work hours would be nice, but the flip side is that employers would probably demand longer working hours in summer

The idea with permanently shifting the clocks to summer time means we'd have longer evenings all year, but a lot of dark mornings in winter

Admittedly it wouldn't make much difference in December, tinkering at the edges as you say. However it would make a difference in November and January, and to me it seems better to come home with a bit of sunlight left

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120399214#Comment_120399214

Or Zulu time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_time_zones

Zulu is used in civilian airport weather reports, as well as being one of the Military zones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aFvzTY7l90

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120399238#Comment_120399238

Someone was on radio earlier bemoaning the change and the supposedly awful and health threatening effects of adjusting to the change in hour.

A sensible listener messaged in, wondering how half the population and more seem to manage to adjust quite well once if not more a year when they go off on their Ryanair holliers and breaks to god knows where. No complaints whatsoever.

The whole adjustment difficulty thing is just nonsense made up by snowflakes and professionals with irons in the fire.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120396312#Comment_120396312

We did it during WW2. They had double summer time, we didn't. Cross border train trips of -55m and so on happened without issue.

dxhound2005

EU members can live with neighbours who do not change their clocks, as well as having neighbours in different time zones. Greece and Bulgaria have borders with Turkey, and Finland has a border with Russia. No reason that the UK could not learn to live with the reverse situation. They can already cope with near neighbours being in a different time zone, like France and Holland.

Turkey and Iceland are candidates to join the EU. I think their populations would not like to be forced to change their clocks every 6 months. Especially the Turks who might see it as being imposed by Greece. I think they would probably get a derogation, if the EU is still hanging on to the old system.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120399759#Comment_120399759

Well I think the clock change adjustment does have an impact but yeah it seems overblown to me... So would an extra hour of darkness in winter mornings. As would summer mornings getting brighter even 'earlier'.

If you change jobs and have a different commute \ work schedule you're going to experience a similar adjustment.

So I haven't seen anything that demonstrates getting rid of the clock change to be a clear cut call for us.

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120396478#Comment_120396478

I'd get rid of the winter time change but there's always a resistance to change even when the change would make things better.

I'd settle for shortening winter time change to a month either side of winter solstice. The daylight us down to about 8 hours for those couple of months so it doesn't matter how it's divided.

Why people like daylight savings is beyond me. Takes the hour that lots of people could actually use to enjoy themselves after work and gives it to the morning when it's useless because most people are just going to work.

Swaine

Or may be just leave it alone? Throwing us out of sync with NI and mainland UK would do serious economic damage not to mention confusing the life out of people in the border counties.

mcburns07

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120400380#Comment_120400380

Why would it do economic damage though? Genuine question here.

dxhound2005

Border people are resilient. They cope with this sort of challenge, all round the world.

mcburns07

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120400437#Comment_120400437

That's what I don't get. Plenty of people all over Europe cross time zones on a daily basis for work and leisure.

dxhound2005

Yes, and I never heard of masses of English people getting confused when they take a ferry or the tunnel to France.

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120397190#Comment_120397190

I can't find the article but there's a town in Australia on the border of Queensland and New South Wales that has an hour time difference because of the 2 states having different daylight savings time zones. The residents there do have 2 clocks and watches, and if the shops are closed in their town they can drive a few minutes across the border to get what they need "an hour earlier".

dxhound2005

15 of the 50 US States have more than one time zone. Even individual counties in a State can be divided.

Nebraska • Time zones: Mountain time and Central time • The western section of the Cornhusker State, including all the counties in the state's panhandle, is in the Mountain Time Zone, while most of the state's population is in the Central Time Zone. Cherry County in the northern part of the state is divided by the Mountain and Central time zones.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120400473#Comment_120400473

I have, but that's usually because they've arrived drunk and forgotten which city they're in

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120400683#Comment_120400683

Yeah and even some states do daylight savings and some don't, and yet they manage

My old Casio watch from 1995 had the ability to show time in two time zones. I'm pretty sure if the technology existed back then, then we can handle it

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120400424#Comment_120400424

As I said it would probably do more for cross border trade, shops would be open for an extra hour either side of the border

You'd have people heading over to do their grocery shopping early, or late because they missed the off licence hours 😂

dxhound2005

My Citizen watch is regulated by a radio signal from Germany. If I stayed up until the early hours, I could watch the hands whizzing round to the new time.

https://www.citizenwatch-global.com/support/pdf/h800/e.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCF77

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120400903#Comment_120400903

Yeah I used to have the Casio version, it was awesome, although I did miss the seconds ticking backwards because it was digital

Fr Tod Umptious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120396478#Comment_120396478

This is the only good option for Ireland, but alas it's not actually an option.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120400918#Comment_120400918

You can always start another poll 😉

As discussed earlier, we wouldn't be given an option because it doesn't require a referendum, just a vote in the Dail

I imagine if it was going ahead the government would do a lot of polling or put it to a citizen's assembly. But the decision is ultimately out of our hands

Fr Tod Umptious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120400926#Comment_120400926

I was more referring to the EU.

Back in the late 90s I believe it was decided that all countries in the EU would have the same time changing date, i.e last Sunday in March and last Sunday in October.

So even though the EU is continuing to change the clocks for now there is no scope for Irish legislators to change the date those clocks change.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120400967#Comment_120400967

The rest of the EU came on to the UK and Ireland dates. It was good enough for us back before that agreement.