"Green" policies are destroying this country

The minister for transport is expected to do that. Just happens to be Eamon now. His predecessors were shite at sorting it too.

Hint for what? Not being in power for longer?

Hopefully. It would be great to get it going

i know, i was looking at the dart west plans too which i think is getting planning permission this month (the rail line is my back garden wall!), you'll be able to take a tube to glasnevin and change and go to connolly or out to leixlip on a DART, like in a real country! years away though unfortunately.

You may want to think about going in more details. It is easy and lazy to dismiss green policies which pretty much contributed if not triggered German protests as a simple removal of diesel subsidies. You need to think why they were removed and while usual scapegoat may be ukraine conflict that was only final nail in the coffin. The same apply for all of the other protests.

Borrowing car is quite complicated and not that practical due to insurance issues. A lot of insurance companies only allow to transfer insurance to a car you get from garage if yours is being repaired and even that is allowed only for certain number of days in a year. The system is completely stupid.

A lot of countries insure cars and anyone with valid license can drive insured car.

The problem in Ireland is insurance companies don't really know whether they're insuring the driver or the car. In fairness though (and I've SFA sympathy for Irish insurance companies) the courts here have never nailed that one to give proper clarity. Hence why open insurance of 25yo and older, along with a string of other 'conditions' they then insure both reluctantly by the back door and for the consumer that's an expensive ordeal.

Had a bang of this a couple of years back - brother's GF in Madrid (full licence there) wanted to drive my car over to the Wild Atlantic Way to visit it with her Spanish parents. Rang insurance and in fairness gave her a 4-day pass for €35 in my car. All went well, happy holiday.

Thought to myself when renewing I'd just add her to my policy for the next year as she had already been here 'on one' and there was - to pardon the pun - a Spanish inquisition from the Insurance Company. She was not living here, so adding her to my policy was 'loading'. Unreal. So, that got dropped sharply.

Looking back, it costed me €35 on insurance 'admin' charges to allow her drive for four day - they were quoted €13K for a rental (when it was mental and newspapers ran headlines of €52K for a rental). Happy days, they got the bargain.

But it shows how we as a nation we're great Europeans when it suits.

OK. Hadn't put those together in fairness. The public talk was not of green/environmental policies directly. Germany was all about the tax, France for the paperwork and the regulations on permanent land use, eastern Europe on the grains. I see the point about France and Germany where both issues could be linked back to environmental drivers

But if course you're 100% wrong getting people out of cars and into active transport has already been happening in ireland. Have a look at the canal cordon count, massive growth in cycling and walking, and rapid decline of car commuting, how else do you explain that? How do you think copenhagen and amsterdam transitioned from car dependent to walking and cycling cities?

I mean you could simply resd the plan yourself instead of depending on a journalists spin on it

Polish farmers protest is aimed against EU climate policies and agricultural imports from Ukraine. In launching the strike, the Polish farmers join a wider series of protests by their counterparts around Europe in recent weeks, including in Germany, France, Romania, Greece, Lithuania, Belgium and Latvia.

We both know that's not how the world works. The media and ER have a responsibility to report it properly. If there is a segment on the news or current affairs programme you expect a certain level of factual discussion and wording. I shouldn't have to fact check every report or plan being discussed.

What transpires about the measures announced for the city centre don't amount to the banning of through traffic for private and commercial vehicles as was touted in the media this week.

Green MEP Ciaran Cuffe was talking about air travel lately. He said people should think twice about a shopping trip to New York or a stag in Prague. Are weekends in NY in fashion?

While i get his point, its a hard sell as a few days away somewhere sunny is the highlight of many peoples year. Inflation, rent/mortgage increases, bad weather, work stress etc wear people done and they need a light at the end of the tunnel.