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McCann objects against Brewery Complex

merlante

What we have all expected is happening. That bastard, Brendan McCann, has come on WLR with a 200 page objection. Again the man is given prime air time, despite being elected by nobody, and being supported by only very few.

What will happen? Who knows.

My guess is that it will go through minus one floor -- cheers Brendan! Thanks for keeping out the Marriot and taking a floor off the cinema being developed in Railway Square, and all of the other developments that have been blocked and hindered! Have you done Waterford enough harm yet? :mad:

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Freddie59

Trotter wrote:

The outcome was Brendan McCann's face on the front of a local paper.. with 18ish months to go before a general election, Im starting to think this guy might be shrewd..

The more he shouts, the more people complain, the more media attention he gets, the more familiarity votes he gets.

Anyone who botes for him needs their head examined. His smug expression on the paper says it all.:mad: What he's doing is undermining potential investment in the City under the cloak of the planning laws. Does he even live in the area concerned? What will happen is that potential businesses will look eslewhere to invest, while we are stuck in an endless merry-go-round of objections.:mad:

merlante

deisemum wrote:

On every discussion about this development in the last few weeks Billy McCarthy is clearly coming down on the side of the anti development crowd. I missed the rest of the debate.

I noticed that. He has a lot of time for Brendan McCann too. There last week he said something along the lines of, "Brendan McCann is like the one little voice that speaks up against the normal run of things/establishment..." type of thing. In other words, he admires the man. And this is the guy they get to host the debate. Of course he is also the director of programmes at the station... Pity Liz Ready wasn't allowed do it, given that she's one of the few people you get on WLR that can actually speak properly, and has no obvious biases.

McCarthy has lost the run of himself on this one. He influences a lot people, and he couldn't have done more for Brendan McCann if he was on the payroll.

Freddie59

merlante wrote:

I noticed that. He has a lot of time for Brendan McCann too. There last week he said something along the lines of, "Brendan McCann is like the one little voice that speaks up against the normal run of things/establishment..." type of thing. In other words, he admires the man. And this is the guy they get to host the debate. Of course he is also the director of programmes at the station... Pity Liz Ready wasn't allowed do it, given that she's one of the few people you get on WLR that can actually speak properly, and has no obvious biases.

McCarthy has lost the run of himself on this one. He influences a lot people, and he couldn't have done more for Brendan McCann if he was on the payroll.

I would agree wholeheartedly with you. That man has been at this for years. He always goes on about being 'devil's advocate' but he is unable to come across as an unbiased reporter or host.

If you're in theatre, books, etc then you're away. But if you happen to be on the side of something he doesn't agree with, it usually ends up with 'we're right up on time' after a short period. But, again, this brings up the issue of no LOCAL competition for WLRFM. In effect they have TWO licences (Beat included). Surely this cannot be right?

I would take issue with you on the matter of speaking. Correct me if wrong, but are you against local accents or do you mean that Liz is a better interviewer?

merlante

Freddie59 wrote:

I would agree wholeheartedly with you. That man has been at this for years. He always goes on about being 'devil's advocate' but he is unable to come across as an unbiased reporter or host.

If you're in theatre, books, etc then you're away. But if you happen to be on the side of something he doesn't agree with, it usually ends up with 'we're right up on time' after a short period. But, again, this brings up the issue of no LOCAL competition for WLRFM. In effect they have TWO licences (Beat included). Surely this cannot be right?

I would take issue with you on the matter of speaking. Correct me if wrong, but are you against local accents or do you mean that Liz is a better interviewer?

Radio licenses are heavily restricted in this country, and I'm not exactly sure why. WLR have a license for a local station and a regional station: you can't even have two local stations. It's a pity we don't have a pirate station to compete with it. A lot of stations, such as WLR, start out as pirates and then go legit. The lack of competition is a problem all right.

I have no problem with accents at all, but a lot of the people they get on the show could do with a course in public speaking. They are after all public representatives and journalists, etc. (they could also do with a course in logic and rhetoric, but that's another story entirely!) Billy McCarthy has some sort of speech impediment, and I don't want to pick on him, but very often the combination of speech impediments and very thick, poorly enunciated accents/speaking makes it hard to figure out what's being said. In short, I don't think having a Waterford accent is hard to understand if people are speaking properly.

Liz Ready has a Waterford accent that is very easy to understand, (i.e. radio friendly) and she would have been less biased. I don't think there is a truly great interviewer on the station, though. Nobody that could handle Cullen, for example.

Freddie59

merlante wrote:

Radio licenses are heavily restricted in this country, and I'm not exactly sure why. WLR have a license for a local station and a regional station: you can't even have two local stations. It's a pity we don't have a pirate station to compete with it. A lot of stations, such as WLR, start out as pirates and then go legit. The lack of competition is a problem all right.

I have no problem with accents at all, but a lot of the people they get on the show could do with a course in public speaking. They are after all public representatives and journalists, etc. (they could also do with a course in logic and rhetoric, but that's another story entirely!) Billy McCarthy has some sort of speech impediment, and I don't want to pick on him, but very often the combination of speech impediments and very thick, poorly enunciated accents/speaking makes it hard to figure out what's being said. In short, I don't think having a Waterford accent is hard to understand if people are speaking properly.

Liz Ready has a Waterford accent that is very easy to understand, (i.e. radio friendly) and she would have been less biased. I don't think there is a truly great interviewer on the station, though. Nobody that could handle Cullen, for example.

I wouldn't exactly class Liz's accent as being representative of Waterford accent - more the the mid-atlantic drone that seems to be a condition of employment at radio stations nowadays. Tony Weldon and Eddie Wymberry are a hell of a lot closer to a Waterford accent than Liz will ever be!

I don't think there are many great interviewers ANYWHERE! Matt Cooper on Today FM is representative of the more ignorant type (in the Billy mould) who ask a question, and before the interviewee has answered, are already asking the next one in a very badgering type of fashion. His interview yersterday with Cullen is a classic example of this.

Our man in Havana

Are there no pirate stations left in waterford now?

col o

I am one of the people mentioned in a pasted transcript from the News & Star in a previous post by Bards. I attended the meeting in the Manor School held by Brendan McCann. I am in support of the Shopping centre and was one of small minority in attendance at the meeting. I drove down from Dublin to attend this so I could witness for myself the type of people who seem to be involved in the constant objections to developments and infrastructures that seem to be occurring in Waterford.

For a start there seemed to be a significant element from the SVAG (Save Viking Waterford Action Group).Then there was elderly residents from the Alexander St/New St Area which in my opinion are the only ones who have a legitimate reason for resisting this development. There seemed to be a grouping of people who I recognised as members of the workers party (I think).I only think this because I see some of them selling Socialist Worker newspapers around the city. There were various other "bohemian" type characters in the room. Also present were various business people and one or two residents of the City Centre/Inner City who were in favour of it.

For the past seven years I have worked in the Dublin Area. I check the News & Star and Munster express website religiously every week to keep up with what is going on in my native City. In the years 1999-2006 there have been hundreds of thousands of jobs created in this country especially in the high tech sector and usually announced with great fanfare in the National media. Practically none of these have gone to Waterford with the exception of Genzyme and Nypro which lasted a grand total of 14months.The largest announcements in the South East have been 800 jobs in Kilkenny and 1000 in Guidant in Clonmel. When jobs are created in Waterford they are rarely in the hundreds. In Cork, Limerick Galway and Smaller towns they have often been in the thousands.

This I have found to be a depressing state of affairs. This has gradually turned to anger when I see Brendan Mc Canns name attached to every single development announced for Waterford. This has been without fail. It has been to the extent that when the Brewery development application was announced, I could guarantee to myself that he would lodge an objection. The reason I feel so offended about this is as follows. Hand in Hand with the Celtic Tiger jobs there have been huge private business developments in nearly every large and medium town in Ireland, Many of these have been priced in the region of 50million up to 250million Euros. For many years there have been little or no announcements for Waterford. Now that there is we have the likes of Brendan McCann potentially holding them up for years. Added to this we have our fisherman’s friends from Wexford doing the same with the North Quays for there own interests.

Now I am reluctant to mention that Brendan Mc Cann is from Galway and the fishing boats on the North Quays are from Wexford. My own parents are from Cork and Dublin and the repugnant term “blow ins” was used to label them many years ago. However I do wonder if his raison d’etre would be so intense if he was back in Galway. Especially now that it has leaped ahead of Waterford in the urban hierarchy.
At this point I should say when I attended WIT Brendan McCann lectured me and I found him to be decent and civil.

It is my opinion that many of the people who attended McCanns meeting in support of his objections were fairly well established in life. In other words they won’t be depending on the brewery complex to provide them with a job. One or two others had businesses in the area. Perhaps they don’t welcome the competition. When I put forward my argument I stated that Waterford was becoming a backwater in the retail stakes. A female attendee sitting behind me contradicted my argument with the following statement,” Waterford isn’t a backwater. We have enough shops. I love to shop as well but we don’t need this”

I stood aghast at the simplicity of her argument. She didn’t seem concerned about the tens of millions of Euros being spent in Cork and Dublin by Waterford people who are attracted by the larger variety of Dublin/Corks retail pool. Then again why would she when her own family are well off due to selling land to developers in a certain part of the city that would have yielded millions of Euros.Others hailed the amenities that were lost with the Park in Railway Square and Wyse Park. They seemed to have forgotten that these were simply reservations for Wino’s.

The point of my diatribe is this. I have gotten sick of reading and talking about McCann and his endeavours. That is why I attended the meeting in the Manor School.
I would encourage anyone who reads this to attend the second meeting at 800pm on Monday 30TH January in the old Manor School. Make your displeasure be known. If you miss the meeting don’t worry you will no doubt get another chance. The Alternative is to allow people some with dubious agendas deny our city of vital infrastructure. I would also suggest sending letters into the three city newspapers and the phoenix column of the News & Star.

You may have ideas of your own of which I would be glad to hear. In my opinion Brendan McCann whatever his agenda is a menace. He and some of the loony fringe elements that follow him around are dragging Waterford down in the dirt and sending us back to Hicksville in comparison with every other town In Ireland. He can only be countered if people are vocal about there displeasure and make it known to Brendan McCann and Co.[/B]

Bards

Totally agree 100% with what you have to say... I for one will try and attend on the 30th...anyone else going?

meldrew

Well said and keep up the good work , I'm ashamed to say I did'nt go to the last meeting and you travelled all the way down from Dublin for it , I'm not surprised at the attendence there apart from the local people who it really affects its the usual rabble of naysayers who are against everything and who we seem to have a lot more of in Waterford than anywhere else .
The next thing we know they'll be organising marches against it

deisemum

Unfortunately I cannot make tomorrow night due to a prior arrangement which also includes the next 2 Monday nights. He has his own agenda. Why didn't he object to GMIT when they built that ugly extension? What an eyesore when you're entering Galway. I agree about having to travel if you want to do some decent shopping. Waterford shopping has improved but it's way behind the rest of the cities.

Please post the date of the next meeting that is arranged. Those in favour of the development will have to speak up so people will see that it's not only those against the development that attend. As the Waterford News and Star are in favour of this development they will probably give a more balanced report of the meeting than wlrfm

Freddie59

col o wrote:

You may have ideas of your own of which I would be glad to hear. In my opinion Brendan McCann whatever his agenda is a menace. He and some of the loony fringe elements that follow him around are dragging Waterford down in the dirt and sending us back to Hicksville in comparison with every other town In Ireland. He can only be countered if people are vocal about there displeasure and make it known to Brendan McCann and Co.[/B]

I must say that I for one am embarrassed by the fact that you travelled such a distance and people like me didn't attend. Yes they are sending us back to Hicksville. The people you mention who are handing out leaflets are on every bandwagon in Waterford - for everything and against everything. I sometimes think they don't even know what they're handing out leaflets for!:mad:

lostexpectation

you may be annoyed by McCann busy bodiness but IMHO you little to worry about as far as I've seen objections like this ( where there doesn't seem to a MAJOR problem) only manage to maybe knock a floor off the height of a tall buidling or reduce the size of a place by 5% im sure you'll get your shopping centre soon enough.

merlante

lostexpectation wrote:

you may be annoyed by McCann busy bodiness but IMHO you little to worry about as far as I've seen objections like this ( where there doesn't seem to a MAJOR problem) only manage to maybe knock a floor off the height of a tall buidling or reduce the size of a place by 5% im sure you'll get your shopping centre soon enough.

That's what I'm afraid of. He took a floor off, or 3 screens off, the new cinema being built in Railway Square. Bastard.

merlante

col o wrote:

I am one of the people mentioned in a pasted transcript from the News & Star in a previous post by Bards. I attended the meeting in the Manor School held by Brendan McCann. I am in support of the Shopping centre and was one of small minority in attendance at the meeting. I drove down from Dublin to attend this so I could witness for myself the type of people who seem to be involved in the constant objections to developments and infrastructures that seem to be occurring in Waterford.

Very well said!

I've been living in Dublin for 9 years, and I have made all the self same observations as yourself about what is happening to Waterford. (I intent to head back in a years time though) And the **** that comes out of a lot of Waterford people's mouths are not doing us any good. I have been vociferous on the subject of Brendan McCann here, and other places, before. It seems that there is good awareness of McCann and the damage he is doing on the internet; here people seem to be more up to speed on current affairs and are often exiled from the city for one reason or another, so they keep an eye in the national media for mention of Waterford. If you're feeling masochistic, why not become a reader of the Irish Times.

Well done for heading down from Dublin. Your presence was felt by the looks of things.

lostexpectation

merlante wrote:

That's what I'm afraid of. He took a floor off, or 3 screens off, the new cinema being built in Railway Square. Bastard.

what harm did that do, did it reduce the quality of or diversity films shown there. I seriously doubt it.

and was really him that did that?

Trotter

lostexpectation wrote:

what harm did that do, did it reduce the quality of or diversity films shown there. I seriously doubt it.

and was really him that did that?

Well.. it would have reduced the frequency of the films, and therefore reduced the service, making it less flexible for customers.

And yes.. he was the main whinger that caused the trouble.

col o

The problem is guys that Mc Cann and his followers can only agree on one thing.

Objection.

If you ask them what should go there instead you will hear forty differnt voices that can't agree.

People at the meeting get about two opertunities to raise their points.Therefore those for the development at the last meeting got to raise about six points.

At the last meetig their was the usual soundbites by Socialist party heads like,"fat cat developers" and "capitalist"

You can say that the best McCann can hope for is to get a floor taken off the structure.That will condemn us to mediocre building projects in the city.In the example give of the cinema it will be three screens.

The cinema is a great example.A guy told me last week that the crowd who run the present cinema will run the one in Railway Square.This will be good if they diversify their schedules.
It will be bad if they just transfer operations.It will mean still just one shabbilly run cinema in Waterford.

Do not underestimate the damage McCann is doing.He is turning Waterford into a place more like Tullamore or Mullingar than Galway.This suits him and his followers.

The Save Viking Waterford Group will get plenty of airtime at the meeting.Especially since the person chairing is a member of the group.The keep quoting York as an example Waterford could follow.The fail to mentio that York has the largest medieval cathedral in Europe which rivals Notre Dame.Also a lot more of Yorks medieval walls are intact.

The thing is we can sit down pick up the paper and grumble among ourselves when we read about McCann.This won't stop him.I am not suggesting breaking up his meetings or whacking the guy either.However if there were more people at the meeting making their distaste known.The media will pick up on it and it will encourage others.Send a couple of letters in to the Newspapers,All of them(The Munster is strangely Quiet on the issue).This will encourage others to get involved.At the moment it is just people like the chamber of commerce which of course will be accused of being pro-capitalist.

Please go if you can or spread the word.If enough voices are heard we may be able to drown out these Lunatics.

merlante

lostexpectation wrote:

what harm did that do, did it reduce the quality of or diversity films shown there. I seriously doubt it.

and was really him that did that?

Yes, Cineworld in Dublin has something like 15 screens, all of them are either being cleaned or being used at all times. This means that a cinema can show about 10 films at any given time. Check Cineworld, Dublin on entertainment.ie. Compare it to the Waterford Cinema, which *should* be the biggest and best cinema in the south east. The current one has 6 screens! The new one will have 8. 8 is very different from 11. 11 would mean we could show 8 films at once. There are about 10 good films circulating cinemas at any given time; that includes 2/3 arthouse/foreign films. Waterford gets 0 arthouse/foreign films and misses out on other, perfectly mainstream films, such as Brokeback Mountain, which the whole english speaking world is talking about, but which (apparently) will not even be shown in Waterford!

I've even known people to travel from Waterford to Dublin for big film releases. I am very disappointed at these rumours that the useless crowd who are running the old cinema will get the new one, because they have no standards.

And yes, it was sheerly the McCann factor that got the cinema reduced in size.

col o

merlante wrote:

Very well said And the **** that comes out of a lot of Waterford people's mouths are not doing us any good. I have been vociferous on the subject of Brendan McCann here, and other places, before. It seems that there is good awareness of McCann and the damage he is doing on the internet; here people seem to be more up to speed on current affairs and are often exiled from the city for one reason or another, so they keep an eye in the national media for mention of Waterford. If you're feeling masochistic, why not become a reader of the Irish Times.

Well done for heading down from Dublin. Your presence was felt by the looks of things.

I agree with this statement.A lot of people in Waterford don't seem to be able to think outside the box.I remember a city cllr Halligan of the Workers Party involved in objecting to the student village on the ring road.The basis of his objection was that "high rise developments" had a history of social problems.This was a spin on the "Ballymun tupe ghetto" as if the two were comparable.

There is also a guy who I went to school with who is now the prominent trade union spokespan for Waterford making speeches about bringing Waterford to it's knees.This was at one of the Radiotherapy protests. What an advertisement to attrack foreign investment.Waterford has an uphill battle if people like this are in positions of influence.

Could you explain the Irish Times thing in Referance to Waterford.I cannot find any but I am aware of the D4 bubble they live in.

lostexpectation

merlante wrote:

Yes, Cineworld in Dublin has something like 15 screens, all of them are either being cleaned or being used at all times. This means that a cinema can show about 10 films at any given time. Check Cineworld, Dublin on entertainment.ie. Compare it to the Waterford Cinema, which *should* be the biggest and best cinema in the south east. The current one has 6 screens! The new one will have 8. 8 is very different from 11. 11 would mean we could show 8 films at once. There are about 10 good films circulating cinemas at any given time; that includes 2/3 arthouse/foreign films. Waterford gets 0 arthouse/foreign films and misses out on other, perfectly mainstream films, such as Brokeback Mountain, which the whole english speaking world is talking about, but which (apparently) will not even be shown in Waterford!

the diversity and quality of films shown has very little to do with the number of screens in a multiplex... oh looky here, a disagreement with distributors

now if McCann had got on to the distributors .... http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=50788501#post50788501

merlante

lostexpectation wrote:

the diversity and quality of films shown has very little to do with the number of screens in a multiplex... oj looky here, an disagreement with distributors

now if McCann had got on to the distributors .... http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=50788501#post50788501

Having enough screens definitely bloody helps though!

col o

I honestly think that Waterford is large enough to sustain at least two Cimemas of the Size of the one in Parnell street maybe three.Maybe one like cineworld in Parnell st in Dublin Showing a mix of mainstream and arthouse and a smaller one.

There planning to build one in Carlow which will be the largest in the South East.So there you go we will have another second rate facility in comparison to smaller towns.This is beginning to become embarrising.Maybe if we put a thatch roof on everything it will get built

merlante

col o wrote:

I honestly think that Waterford is large enough to sustain at least two Cimemas of the Size of the one in Parnell street maybe three.Maybe one like cineworld in Parnell st in Dublin Showing a mix of mainstream and arthouse and a smaller one.

There planning to build one in Carlow which will be the largest in the South East.So there you go we will have another second rate facility in comparison to smaller towns.This is beginning to become embarrising.Maybe if we put a thatch roof on everything it will get built

How big will the one in Carlow be.

In any case, until someone tells me otherwise, we'll have an 8 screen in Railway Square, a 5 screen (I think) in Patrick St., something on the Dunmore road, (which appears to currently be in the wilderness) and I believe, something out by the glass factory. That's potentially 4 cinemas, but only one crap one currently exists...

No doubt there are people in Waterford who think we have "enough cinemas"!

meldrew

Its probably off - topic but has anyone been to the cinema in Patrick St lately ?
I went to see King Kong a couple of weeks ago in cinema 4 and the picture and sound quality were pure rubbish ,they actually stopped the film after about half an hour to try and fix the problem and it was still rubbish .
The whole place gives the impression that its being run into the ground and if that is the case if it closes when Railway Square opens theres another prime peice of land that will need to be developed in the city centre , manna from heaven for McCann and his cronies I suppose

trishw78

I really hope it's not true. can anyone say the word monopoly. Competition is good and healthy and that's why the cineplex always looks so grotty. It has no competition. I went to see narnia a couple of weeks back I really wanted to see match point but I was told it wasn't going to be shown in waterford. But a couple of weeks later I see it has appeared in the cinema but not on the main screen on one of the smaller ones.

col o

Apparently the one in Carlow is going to be the tallest Cinema in Ireland according to what I have read.I know this is vague but if it was in proportion it would be about the size of Cineworld in Parnell St,Dublin which has 17 screens.

I was in the Cineplex in Waterford about 7 years ago.I was in town visiting my folks.The speakers in the Cinema blew they had it so loud.The music sounded like a warped recordplaying.The pitch going up and down all over the place.
Another time I was watching the Quiet American and they characters heads were cut off for the first 10 minutes of the film.

Gangs of New York.I nearly went deaf it was so loud.I thougt I was back in my "rave"days.When I was leaving there was two old ladies waiting for the crowd to leave before they got up to.They had there fingers in their ears.

I was watching the grudge another day and the kids were off school.There was two groups of teens texting each other and screaming (pretending they were scared) through the whole film.I was tempted to say something to them.The only reason I didn't was If I had gotten some lip of them.(Which I probably would)I would have belted one of them.I was on the verge of complaining to head ffice or Something like that,But McCann is consuming my energies lately.I hope I am not turning into your namesake Meldrew.

meldrew

LOL

We all need to take yourself and Phoenix's lead and start letting McCann know what the people of Waterford think of him

col o

I was just reading in the Munster express.Apparently the Waterford Congess of Trade Unions have added their voice in support of Brendan McCann's objectionsAlso David Cullinane of Sinn Fein has expressed "concern"

This is a bad sign if there is not more people speaking out for the development at the meeting tonight.On a previous post some said the next thing we will see is people marching against it.I did not think this likely at first,But with WCTU,Sinn Fein and the workers party getting involved I think it could be a reality.

Unless of course there is opposition to McCann then David Cullinane won't see it as a vote catcher.However I have a feeling they are going to make it like a "radiotherapy" issue" so they can raise their profile.

Trotter

Can I just apologise that I cant make it.. gotta go to a funeral. I hope some other boardees can be there to make our concerns felt.

Cabaal

col o wrote:

I honestly think that Waterford is large enough to sustain at least two Cimemas of the Size of the one in Parnell street maybe three.Maybe one like cineworld in Parnell st in Dublin Showing a mix of mainstream and arthouse and a smaller one.

I was up in the Cineworld Cinema in Parnell St on Saturday night, very impressed with the choice of films and the layout of the place.
I'd prefer have one good cinema like it in Waterford then two ****e one's (if their run anything like the current one)