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Massive explosion and fire at ESB substation caused by copper wire thieves

RIGHTisRIGHT

THE MASSIVE FIRE at an ESB substation in Dublin that left thousands of homes without power on Sunday night was caused by thieves attempting to steal copper wire, the electricity company has said.
Around 120,000 customers had their supply cut off after a blaze broke out at a transformer in the substation on Kylemore Way, in the Inchicore area of west Dublin
The company said in a statement that an investigation has found the fire was caused by “third-party interference” at the site. The overall cost of the incident to the utility is estimated at up to €10 million, a spokesperson said.

Well that was Friday maybe if a description was released it might help jog peoples memories.
This event caused chaos in Tallaght Hospital on Monday because of computer systems going down.

Here is another case from two years ago.

THIEVES climbed an electricity pylon at a Wicklow farm and cut high voltage wires before stealing more than €100,000 worth of copper wire,enough to stretch the length of two football pitches.
Gardai have not yet made arrests in the case but are probing whether the crime was carried out by either eastern European criminals or a Traveller gang.Amazingly, no-one was injured during the course of the theft.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/thieves-scale-live-esb-pylon-to-steal-100k-of-copper-30589896.html

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Ronald Wilson Reagan

emo72 wrote: »

That stuff was there since electrification. Lying there for about a hundred years. And all of a sudden gangs decide "Ya know lads, we'll have that". Mad. Obvious stuff that no one ever thought to steal, what's next?

Your soul.

Sofa King Great

It is a symptom of the lack of regulation of the scrap metal industry. All scrap dealers should be registered and forced to maintain a register of what they take in. Also, payment should be a minimum of 5 days after the person gives over the scrap metal. You'd be less inclined to bring in stolen goods if there was a chance the gardai would be waiting when you went to pick up your cheque 5 days later.

SEPT 23 1989

Sofa King Great wrote: »

It is a symptom of the lack of regulation of the scrap metal industry. All scrap dealers should be registered and forced to maintain a register of what they take in. Also, payment should be a minimum of 5 days after the person gives over the scrap metal. You'd be less inclined to bring in stolen goods if there was a chance the gardai would be waiting when you went to pick up your cheque 5 days later.

passport ID

verifiable VAT number

traceable bank transfer

dinorebel

Irish Stones wrote: »

Three years ago I woke up on a morning a found out that all the covers in my street had been stolen overnight. Just imagine what would have happened is some car would drive over an uncovered manhole! :eek:

Everyday driving in Ireland

12Phase

We need to start here but it should be done EU wide too.
This nonsense could be shut down easily enough with a few simple measures.

The flying mouse

conorhal wrote: »

Have we licenced scrap merchants, banned them from making cash payments and required them to register their purchases and document both seller and the providence of their goods?
No, of course not, which is why a lot of this practice continues, because Ireland doesn't do joined up thinking, proper and enforced regulation or care for tackling problems at their root cause.
Nor has revenue bothered to crawl up the arse, with a microscope, of everybody living in Rathkeale driving a 161 D reg BMW 4x4.

12Phase wrote: »

Simple thing is the scrap metal dealer accepting this should be charged for being in receipt of stolen goods and the book thrown at them.

Also, it's bloody hard to get a large quantity of scrap metal out of Ireland without being noticed. It's not like large quantities of ESB lines or telephone wiring are disposed of on a regular basis through unusual channels.

While I can see it being an issue where you've porous land borders. It really shouldn't be a big difficulty in Ireland to make life very hard for anyone attempting to do this.

kneemos wrote: »

Interesting point.Do we have smelting facilities or is it exported in bulk?
Might not be that hard to hide in a container full of copper cylinders and various odds and ends.

Law brought in since 2012
Cash payments for scrap metal are to be made illegal, and merchants will have to keep records of the name and address of their suppliers.

Metal facilities will also have to keep precise records of vehicles delivering the metal, and the amount paid for the materials. The supplier will also have to provide a signed statement that they are the owner of the scrap.

https://www.google.es/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjXwbnttp3MAhVMfRoKHffrCRwQFghGMAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.ie%2Firish-news%2Fnew-rules-for-scrap-dealers-to-combat-metal-theft-28903438.html&usg=AFQjCNGsWB6BW_kYNtM5t5IXu3-15DaaYw&sig2=I28lIMSEmiZymFOZEx-X2A

Also the copper etc is melted down in illegal smelting furnaces dotted around the country and then exported out in ingots with legalised scrap exports,There is a fair amount of turning the back on where the ingots actually came about but sure there is thousands to be made by everyone

The flying mouse

12Phase wrote: »

I say this of major concern to you with that username :D:pac::P

RayM

I wonder what bothers people more about this - the crime itself or the fact that it may or may not have been carried out by members of an ethnic group, of whom they have an irrational hatred.

Rattser

RayM wrote: »

I wonder what bothers people more about this - the crime itself or the fact that it may or may not have been carried out by members of an ethnic group, of whom they have an irrational hatred.

They're not a seperate ethnic group from the rest of us.

uck51js9zml2yt

Very easy to get it out of the country.
Put it in a van and drive less than 2 hours north
Job done.

Cienciano

Most copper theft these days is done by foreign gangs. They normally take down live lines though

DrumSteve

Cienciano wrote: »

Most copper theft these days is done by foreign gangs. They normally take down live lines though

Jaysus, better let Joe know.

valoren

Allinall wrote: »

It's shocking, Joe.

I heard it on the wireless!

Radharc na Sleibhte

RayM wrote: »

I wonder what bothers people more about this - the crime itself or the fact that it may or may not have been carried out by members of an ethnic group, of whom they have an irrational hatred.

I'm only bothered they didn't fry themselves.

12Phase

The flying mouse wrote: »

12Phase wrote: »

I say this of major concern to you with that username :D:pac::P

Yeah you should see the bill! 3 phase is bad enough

conorhal

The flying mouse wrote: »

Law brought in since 2012
Cash payments for scrap metal are to be made illegal, and merchants will have to keep records of the name and address of their suppliers.

Metal facilities will also have to keep precise records of vehicles delivering the metal, and the amount paid for the materials. The supplier will also have to provide a signed statement that they are the owner of the scrap.

https://www.google.es/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjXwbnttp3MAhVMfRoKHffrCRwQFghGMAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.ie%2Firish-news%2Fnew-rules-for-scrap-dealers-to-combat-metal-theft-28903438.html&usg=AFQjCNGsWB6BW_kYNtM5t5IXu3-15DaaYw&sig2=I28lIMSEmiZymFOZEx-X2A

Also the copper etc is melted down in illegal smelting furnaces dotted around the country and then exported out in ingots with legalised scrap exports,There is a fair amount of turning the back on where the ingots actually came about but sure there is thousands to be made by everyone :(

I see that two years after that article they were still talking about it but I don't see the legislation:
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/d%C3%A1il-to-debate-bill-on-regulation-of-scrap-metal-1.1838794

And then there's the question of what kind of inspection regime is put in place to enforce it. We're great in this country for enacting legislation (which I don't think we have in this case) but not all that great at doing anything after that.

Dravokivich

ted1 wrote: »

In all fairness critical systems should be on a UPS.

Eh... They don't last all that long. They are designed to allow you to power down computer equipment and to minimise damage during a power outage.

gctest50

Dravokivich wrote: »

Eh... They don't last all that long. They are designed to allow you to power down computer equipment and to minimise damage during a power outage.

Eh...tell cat dat

you only need them until the generators wake up and have a bit of a stretch and get going anyway

poa

Well since the Rathkeale Rovers are in jail now and no longer selling dodgy generators and stealing rhino horns; I suppose money has to be found for the weddings and jeeps in other ways.
It could be Eastern Europeans doing it for export, but they are mainly into stealing high-end cars to order and stripping them for parts for export. The profit margin in car parts is higher than scrap metal.
In London there was a gang cutting catalytic convertors off cars and weighing them in, but they have been caught.
I remember in the early 2000's in the UK they were stealing aluminium road signs. So the councils began replacing them with plastic ones and putting stickers on the back to say they weren't metal so don't bother stealing it.

ted1

Dravokivich wrote: »

Eh... They don't last all that long. They are designed to allow you to power down computer equipment and to minimise damage during a power outage.

Rubbish, some are. Any UPS that is spec'd right will keep critical systems going for hours or until the backup genie gets going.

Why do you think that they are called uninterruptible power supply??

Dyr

ted1 wrote: »

Rubbish, some are. Any UPS that is spec'd right will keep critical systems going for hours or until the backup genie gets going.

Why do you think that they are called uninterruptible power supply??

I like you. You remind me of the entire room of managers I had to sit in with when we were running through some theoretical power loss scenario, they were coming up with what they'd do in the first fifteen minutes then the half hour then the hour. Email the whole client database, put notices on the websites, redirect everything etc etc

It was all very impressive until I told them I'd powered down all the servers within twenty minutes of mains power going kaput

emo72

Ronald Wilson Reagan wrote: »

Your soul.

I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier.

ted1

Bambi wrote: »

I like you. You remind me of the entire room of managers I had to sit in with when we were running through some theoretical power loss scenario, they were coming up with what they'd do in the first fifteen minutes then the half hour then the hour. Email the whole client database, put notices on the websites, redirect everything etc etc

It was all very impressive until I told them I'd powered down all the servers within twenty minutes of mains power going kaput

You sound like a graduate who doesn't understand what the word critical means, are you the one telling accounts you can not bill people as you shut down the billing server, or customers can't book online as you shut down the server ,or ATMs don't work because the server us down , or no one can masje calks, send texts etc because the server us down. What about hospital life support machines, have you shut them down too! Or as this is about ESB, can you explain to the people that the country had a black out because you shutdown the control servers

CabanSail

ted1 wrote: »

Rubbish, some are. Any UPS that is spec'd right will keep critical systems going for hours or until the backup genie gets going.

Why do you think that they are called uninterruptible power supply??

That assumes that the batteries are OK when they are needed. Many of these systems are put in and then it is assumed the job is done. When they are needed they fail. Sure there are policies written that they should be tested and batteries changed at regular intervals. Those policies are written by the same clowns who save money by cutting back on maintenance staff to get themselves performance bonuses.

TheRealPONeill

RIGHTisRIGHT wrote: »

....This event caused chaos in Tallaght Hospital on Monday because of computer systems going down....

So the hospital doesn't have an UPS ??

RIGHTisRIGHT

Read in the paper yesterday evening it was Romanians.

gctest50

RIGHTisRIGHT wrote: »

Read in the paper yesterday evening it was Romanians.

Bit more likely to be the Romani