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

saabsaab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120408314#Comment_120408314

May have been re-introduced here then after being abolished for a while. From the web..

'Daylight Saving, or Summer Time, was introduced in Great Britain and Ireland on 21 May 1916. The Irish daily newspapers published articles on the eve of the change explaining the measure: ‘Just put on your clock and watch an hour, and work, play, and sleep when their fingers indicate the appointed hour.’ The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Wimborne, had issued a poster earlier in the week with a similar explanation, stating that this altered time would be observed for all ordinary purposes during the summer including licensed houses, factories, workshops and other establishments where hours are regulated by law.'

redlough

Daylight saving should have been kicked about 20 years ago. It's absolutely stupid to keep it going. I don't care what the UK plans to do and also nothing to stop Northern Ireland not adhering to the mainland. Plus we shouldn't be stuck in the past because of the UK/

This was supposed to be done away with a number of years ago, I know it was slowed down as the airlines had issues to update systems so it would not auto change time etc adn then covid but it should be implemented now.

Also we need to make sure it stays at summer time and the night meters stay from 12-9. The winter scam of 11-8 is loved by the electricity companies.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120408793#Comment_120408793

The whole world should be up in arms about the fact that their time zones references a line on the map going through London. It goes through lots of places, but it is not called Zaragoza Mean Time or Accra Mean Time. All the world maps with times zones, show plus or minus GMT.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120408889#Comment_120408889

It's generally referred to as UTC now.

Still goes through London, but it has to be somewhere and changing it now wouldn't really make much sense IMO

It's just used as a reference point for the difference in time between places

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120408863#Comment_120408863

I would abolish it just to see the political arguments in NI. You'd have the nationalist parties arguing it should be abolished and the unionists saying they should keep it

Then you'd have politicians turning up late to debates because they didn't agree what time it was

Should be good for some entertainment 😁

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/26/lebanon-split-into-two-time-zones-in-row-over-daylight-saving

Whatever happens to daylight savings, hopefully we'll be given more than a days notice to any changes

Unlike the Lebanese government which postponed daylight savings for a month with 3 days notice

A fine example of what not to do

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120408920#Comment_120408920

Still got a bit of politics to it.

Why is UTC used as the acronym for Coordinated Universal Time instead of CUT?

In 1970, the Coordinated Universal Time system was devised by an international advisory group of technical experts within the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The ITU felt it was best to designate a single abbreviation for use in all languages in order to minimize confusion. For example, in English the abbreviation for coordinated universal time would be CUT, while in French the abbreviation for "temps universel coordonné" would be TUC. To avoid appearing to favor any particular language, the abbreviation UTC was selected.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120408558#Comment_120408558

Let me ask you a question or two.

What does the term midday mean?

When is midday?

The sun rises to the east of us and sets in the west. What time is it due south?

highdef

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120409781#Comment_120409781

Midday on a clockface is 12:00 or 12 Noon.

Midday could also refer to when the sun is at its highest point, at solar noon although it's more commonly known as "high noon"

I guess both of the above would be technically correct.

Unless you live right on a Meridian (the Prime Meridian in the case of Ireland), then solar noon (when the sun is due south) is at a different time to noon in local time, as per a clock set to your timezone. For example, solar noon is at 13:30 local time in Dublin today. For Galway, it is at 13:41.

I'm quite unsure how my previous comment led to your questions directed towards me. Perhaps you could explain? 🤔

Just to add, solar noon does not occur at the same time every day. Additionally, solar noon right on a meridian does not usually line up with noon, local time but it does on some occasions. No need to go into specifics as to why this is the case as it is outside the scope of this discussion.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120409844#Comment_120409844

Well midday has a meaning - it's 'middle of day' i.e. roughly the same amount of daylight either side of midday. Which is noon which is 12:00 as you say. Midnight also has a meaning - halfway through the night.

Thus we expect the sun to be roughly due south at midday or noon.

It never is of course as we for convenience align ourselves with our neighbouring island and the above only holds trueish at 0 degrees longitude at Greenwich. Since there is a 4 minute lapse for every degree of longitude westwards, the sun is roughly due south in Athlone say at about 12:32. However the broad concept of midday holds.

So called summer time, what we have now is a perversion of this natural order of things. The sun is not roughly due south over Athlone till about 13.32. The whole concept of midday is corrupted.

Our true time and what we should keep to year round is one where there are roughly equal amounts of daylight either side of midday or midnight. And that is the time arrangement that sensibly prevails over the winter months.

highdef

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120409938#Comment_120409938

It depends whether you refer to midday as 12:00/Noon or whether you refer to midday as high noon. For the purpose of consistency and to avoid confusion with others, I stick with 12:00/Noon as being Midday. I'm fairly confident that the majority of people refer to midday as 12:00/Noon rather than the time that solar noon is at their particular location. The fact that solar noon at a given location changes throughout the year makes it even more difficult to use that time as Midday when conversing with other.

You say that Winter Time should be observed all year round however Irish surveys revealed that the majority of the population would rather we observed Irish Standard Time all year round. As it stands in Ireland, around the time of the summer solstice, the sun rises around 05:00 and sets around 22:00. If we switched to Winter Time during the current Irish Standard Time period, sunrise would be around 04:00 with sunset around 21:00. Whilst the Irish are generally sociable creatures, not too many of them require daylight to carry out tasks/hobbies/socialising at 04:00, never mind 05:00/06:00 or later. However, during the warmer summer months, you will find that most people appreciate the extra light in the evening, giving several hours of daylight after the working day where you can spend time outside in daylight doing whatever you feel fit. Bring summer sunset back an hour and you lose an hour of evening daylight and instead have the sun rising at about 04:00 when most people are fast asleep.

Would it not be more sensible for the clocks to be timed so that us humans can get to enjoy the daylight hours as much as possible for the majority who sleep regular hours, say 23:00 -> 07:00 or 00:00 -> 08:00, or thereabouts, during the working week? What's the benefit of having the sun rise so early, local time, and set earlier than currently during the summer months? Let's face it, we are fairly limited with fine summer weather so we like to get out as much as we can to enjoy and society usually means that those social times are in the evening.

Looking at the city of Vigo in northwestern Spain, due it being so far north and west in its timezone, solar/high noon occurs extremely late in the day when observing DST (Irish Summer Time as a term obviously does not apply there), as shown below. The example shown is for late June. Note also that sunsets are later than most of Ireland with sunrises being much later than Ireland in June. Being further south, the length of the day is shorter by almost 2 hours in June but their sunrise and sunset times look like the Goldilocks option, regarding normal human activity times.

Comparing with Dublin, Vigo's sunrise times are even later in mid/late December (by about 20 minutes) but their sunsets are nearly 2 hours later, with their daylight period being over 90 minutes longer due to it being further south. Note that solar noon is still very late due to Spain's being generally so far west in relation to its longitude/timezone......you can blame Hitler for that!

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120410089#Comment_120410089

Where are the details of this public survey that purports to support the application of GMT+1 all year round?

When was it taken?

Who made the survey and who paid for it?

What was the sample size and distribution/ profile of respondents?

Most importantly, what wording was used? And what explanations were given?

I have no problem agreeing that if you queued up 100 people on the streets most places in Ireland and asked them something like: 'Would you like to see Summer Time used all year in Ireland?' - that you'd get a positive answer in the 90+%. Simply as most people simply equate 'Summer Time' with 'Summer & BBQs and nicer weather' etc Which is nonsense of course as regards the actual amount of daylight that varies through the year and our varying climate.

If it were tried, there would be open revolt in many rural areas and particularly the west of Ireland during December and January. Possibly OK for people in the likes of Dublin who get sunrise earlier and who can commute on local public transport. Elsewhere you'd have more hazardous driving conditions early in morning, very dark mornings and depression with an increase in suicide likely.

The current system of changing twice a year, whilst people don't like it, makes the best of it overall - a half way house.

highdef

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120410706#Comment_120410706

Where are the details of this public survey that purports to support the application of GMT+1 all year round? The full document regarding clock changing and also includes the application of GMT+1 all year round is available here: https://www.gov.ie/pdf/?file=https://assets.gov.ie/47610/3b7a972574a24ae89873cbfed7ae49c3.pdf#page=null

https://www.gov.ie/pdf/?file=https://assets.gov.ie/47610/3b7a972574a24ae89873cbfed7ae49c3.pdf#page=null

When was it taken? The public consultation was launched on Friday 26 October 2018 and ran until Friday 30 November 2018.

Who made the survey and who paid for it? The Department of Justice and Equality made the survey. Don't know who paid for it but I would guess the taxpayers.

What was the sample size and distribution/ profile of respondents? Not sure on this however the Department also commissioned a number of questions on the Amárach Research December omnibus survey which consisted of 1,000 respondents with quotas set on gender, age, social class and region, to achieve a sample aligned with national population.

Most importantly, what wording was used? And what explanations were given? Click on the link at the top of my post and you can look at all the details yourself however a few snippets are below, for a high level overview.

The Continental Op

IMO from the get go any survey asking for preferences of SUMMER Time over WINTER Time is bias.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120411078#Comment_120411078

Very good but the whole report/ survey is littered with pejorative terminology. It should be abundantly obvious that using the terms 'Summer Time' & 'Winter Time' is any survey/ public consultation of this nature will lead to distortion. You might as well ask do you like 'Good Weather' or 'Bad Weather'. The very terminology used is loaded.

T-Maxx

I voted for Option 2: Keep the DST, not to align with the UK but regardless. Doing away with DST will only result in most institutions having different summer and winter times anyway, ie the result as DST but with an added level of confusion. Eg instead of schools starting at 9am throughout the year it'll start at 9am in summer and 10am in winter.

odyssey06

If you look at the submissions from organisations, so we assume more likely to be aware of the impact of abolishing clocks change in terms of darker winter mornings, it's nothing like 83% in favour. I had a quick scan, it seems fairly evenly split between - abolish / neutral / retain. Maybe a slightly higher number in favour of abolish.

highdef

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120411237#Comment_120411237

Agreed on that. The correct terminology with regards to this country (Ireland) should have been used, that being "Irish Standard Time" and "Winter Time". "Summer Time" is not observed in Ireland, at least not by that terminology.

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120411734#Comment_120411734

You can't even use the term Irish as the Irish people will always tend to vote for that over anything that isn't "Irish".

You might as well say do you want Irish Summer time or British Winter time because as soon as Irish is on one side of the equation then the imagination can all to easily add something bad on the other side.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120411237#Comment_120411237

If you can figure it out and not be fooled by the "pejorative" terminology, why would other people not be able to do that as well?

A different survey had the question, Keep or Abolish clock changes. It came up with a big majority in favour of Abolish. Abolish is very "pejorative".

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120412272#Comment_120412272

Because we are debating this here and "other people" asked in a survey would have to make their mind up there and then.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120412325#Comment_120412325

I'm happy to take their answers at face value.

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120412435#Comment_120412435

I'd have gone with keeping UTC all year round but after reading a few of the arguments here I'm being persuaded that IST AYR would be the better option. So my answer would be different now to if someone had asked me the question a week back on the street. I'd need some persuasion that most people would know what Irish Standard Time was, I certainly had the wrong idea of what it was at the start of this thread. UTC and GMT I'm fine with but the nearest most people get to those acronyms is adjusting the time on their computer.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120412325#Comment_120412325

I think it's a bit unfair to assume that the majority of people answering surveys don't understand the question being asked

Now I'll admit that I firmly believe there's plenty of idiots out there, but it's probably unlikely the survey somehow managed to somehow find all the stupid people in the country

Also, it's not exactly reasonable to assume because you didn't agree with the majority of answers that they respondents answered the questions incorrectly.

If the position was reversed and the majority of responses agreed with your views then would you be as likely to question the methodology? I'll be honest, I probably wouldn't, people in general tend to smile and nod when they hear something that aligns with their views rather than ask difficult questions

dxhound2005

In the EU survey only 0.24% of the Irish population took part. Given that children would not have taken part, it might be around 5,000 adults in 2018. When asked to state a preference to Keep or Abolish clock changes, 88% said Abolish. I will take that at face value.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_5302

Edit: Wrong calculation, 5,000 not 20,000.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120412272#Comment_120412272

I agree to an extent but many people asked off the hoof can be steered in a given direction with the use of leading questions/ ambiguous phrases.

If there is ever to be a change to our current system, I would sincerely hope that it would be put to a public referendum. With suitable debate beforehand and the various pros and cons thrashed out.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120414282#Comment_120414282

They won't run a referendum for this, there's no changes to the constitution required and it's a very expensive way to basically just run an opinion poll

There is a vote in the Dail required for any changes to daylight savings so it will certainly be debated there. There may also be a citizen's assembly convened on the topic

dxhound2005

Referendums are good. But they do leave it to one set of people on a day to set the future for everyone coming later. 72.2% of those entitled to vote did so on the Brexit question in the UK. Just over half of those have taken away the possibiltiy of EU membership from all future generations.

It could only be based on the proposal from the EU to stop changing clocks. And there could be the two alternatives which exist every year. Or plenty more say +2, +3 etc. What could not be offered is a 35/17 week type of arrangement still changing clocks. Which would disenfranchise a big number on this thread who keep telling us that it is the logical set up. But of course their political representatives cannot offer any arrangement to please everyone either.

For myself I would be happy for the legislature to select a fixed time zone. If after a few years it provoked major unrest, it could be changed to a different time zone. Going to the new system, and holding a referendum at the same time is not necessary. And if you worry about people being confused, that could be a source for confusion. A referendum could be held some time later also, but it would still be a minority setting the future for everyone.

My prediction is that if clock changing is done away with, someone proposing to bring it back in a few years, would get very little support here, or around the EU.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120414338#Comment_120414338

Well there should certainly be an advisory referendum on such a matter that will impact on many peoples lives. Far more relevant than it seems at first glance. Could easily be run in conjunction with some other constitutional issue. What's to be worried about? The people?

dxhound2005

It could be complicated. One question would have to be: Keep or Abolish clock changes? Then: If Abolish, which of the following permanent time zones do you want (pick one from 6? choices, or none of the above). But at least it is not as mad as reducing something like Brexit which would take hundreds of pages to explain to a simple YES/NO. Or similar to that when EU treaties were put to referendum here in the past.

Referendums have had as low as a 29% turnout in the past. No doubt there would be a healthy turnout, but a Keep vote of even 51% would see a minority making that choice for all following generations. Including underage people alive now who cannot vote. While the rest of the EU could legislate for the change, Ireland would stop it happening in every country by that result in our referendum. There would certainly be an element of "stop Brussels taking over our lives" in the campaigning, and that sentiment is evident also on this thread.