Some useful tips on how to avoid freezing pipes and what to do in the event of leaks etc. Please pass it on…

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If you live in a house with an attic, you probably have water storage tanks and pipework up there. To help avert freezing, open the attic door for a while to get some heat up. If you are able to, put a lamp with an old-style 100w incandescent bulb into the attic and leave it on overnight – making sure it is not touching anything flammable so you don’t start a fire. The aim is to get a small heat source into the attic. Use a table lamp and extension lead if you don’t have a socket or existing lamp in the attic. Whether you have an attic or not, set the timer on your central heating system to come on a couple of times during the night to prevent freezing.

If your hot or cold water in your bathroom goes off, you probably have frozen pipes – which you will need to thaw in a supervised manner. Ice expands as it is thawing, and it is this that causes pipes and fittings to burst. First, find the stop-cock for the water supply into the building – there should be a stop-cock under your kitchen sink. If not, it is probably out on the footpath, under a metal cover about 150mm in diameter. This is in case you need to turn off the water coming into the building. Try turning it off to make sure you can do so if necessary – you may need a tool to turn off the stop-cock at the footpath. The cold water at your kitchen sink is supplied directly from the mains – so turning off the main supply into the building will turn off the cold supply at your kitchen sink.

If your water pipes are frozen but your heating is working, open the attic door to warm the attic. If there is water in the big storage tank but no water in your bathroom taps, you probably have ice in the pipes from the bottom of the storage tank to your cylinder or taps / toilet cistern. Use a hair dryer or hot air gun to warm these pipes and get water flowing through them before they freeze solid all the way through the pipe run. Bring towels and something to catch water, (roasting dish, bucket), just in case. Once water is flowing, try to prevent freezing by keeping the attic above zero (lamp or other source of heat) and insulate the pipework and tanks – old blankets are better than nothing.

If you find a burst or split pipe, turn off the water supply at the stop-cock and call a plumber. But such creatures are hard to get these days, so you may need to act yourself before your ceilings start to bulge with water and your house is flooded. Don’t sit and wait helplessly. Hardware shops and plumbers merchants sell a waxed repair tape, sometimes called Denso tape, which you can wrap around a pipe for a temporary repair. If the burst pipe is coming from a water storage tank (a big tank – not the small expansion tank for some central-heating systems), turn off any valves on the pipes from the tank and repair the leak. Turn off the supply into the tank as well. If one pipe is leaking, but it is possible to thaw the others, do this and then drain down the tank by running either the hot or cold water in the bathroom.

But the best thing is to prevent leaks by stopping the pipes freezing – so get some heat into your attic (and insulate your pipework and storage tanks).

Dublin City Council has been advised by Met Eireann that the severe weather will last until at least the weekend. The temperature at night will drop to below – 7C.

The Council’s winter gritting programme is in place. Please click here for further updates

The Council asks that people check on their elderly neighbours to ensure that they are safe. Care should be taken on pavements which may not have been gritted.

Please keep in touch with the weather forecast from Met Eireann for updates.

Please click here for details of Salting of Roads.
During this cold weather householders are advised to conserve water by not leaving taps running. For information on how to minimise the risk of frozen pipes, please click here.

Before you travel, you might find our Traffic Cameras helpful to plan your journey.

You can also get up to date traffic information for Dublin city on 103.2 – Dublin City FM on the air from 3pm to 7pm today and longer if neccessary.

The political system in Ireland needs reform and we know it.

The ship of state is sinking and there’s nothing we can do about it, so others have come in to bail us out. How it came to this is another debate. But since this crisis began more than two years ago, political reform has very much been on the agenda.

Many argue that we are not being best served by our representatives; that perhaps they are not fit to meet the challenges that confront our nation in the twenty first century. Yes, the system needs to be reformed. But we need to be clear first why we’re doing it if that reform is to be successful.

If we are proposing major changes to our political system in the hope that this will somehow change voter behaviour, then this is a mistake. And if we are proposing systemic reform in the belief that this will suddenly deliver us better politicians, then we’re fooling ourselves.

People vote for different reasons. Reducing the power of one’s ballot through a part list system say, or giving people fewer candidates to choose from, will not change those reasons. At the same time, changing the way a politician is elected will not radically change the type of people that go in to politics or the things they have to do to get (and stay) elected.

Changing the system isn’t going to change behaviour as the people in the system will just adapt to their new reality. If you want to change the system, you have to change the people – the voters and the people they vote for.

You have to give them a reason to change, you have to motivate them to think and behave differently. Give the people leadership and they will follow it. But give them glorified city and county councillors and they will follow them too.

To a point. And perhaps that point has now almost been reached. All of this clamour for change of the system is a readiness on the part of the people to think and act differently – a willingness to opt for something else if only it can be provided.

But can it? It bothers me when I hear TDs complaining that they cannot do their jobs – they cannot serve in the national interest – because the system doesn’t allow them to, but that once the system is changed they will all of a sudden be better politicians and better leaders. It is convenient rubbish. A clever excuse, but at the end of the day it’s trying to have it both ways. And it is ultimately an abdication of responsibility.

Take George Lee. Here was a person who had the potential to transcend the localism of our political system, someone who the people would elect because he was seen to have the ability to contribute to the national cause. But he lost sight of this potential himself and went off chasing car clampers and campaigning against bus lanes for local votes and cheap media coverage. He became disillusioned (with himself, arguably), and he left. Person-led reform of our political system was set back a decade.

And yet it is still possible, despite everyone getting their fingers burned on that occasion.

Maybe one is not enough. Maybe the answer is to have more – a critical mass of like-minded politicians to influence the behaviour, not just of the electorate, but of other public representatives around them. Never before has the opportunity to achieve this been so immediate, with the body politic looking for something new, and with a general election on the near horizon.

The ground is incredibly fertile. The only thing that is missing now are the candidates. Individuals willing to stand up and put themselves forward to their local electorate on national issues, not local ones; people who do not have any preconceived notions about how politics should be done, and who have the vision and the courage to show how politics could be done.

Yes, we still need reform of the system if we want to achieve the results we all so desperately desire: better government. Three key changes would be to devolve more power to local representatives; remove the whip on votes other than the budget and election of An Taoiseach; and, introduce term limits.

That could improve national politics. But only once we elect politicians who are national, not parochial. Until we do that, no reform will succeed.

Important notice – disruption of water supply

Sunday 21 November 2010

07:30 – 00:00hrs

Dublin City Council advises that due to essential works there will be disruption to water supply resulting in a reduction in service with reduced pressures and loss of supply in some areas on Sunday 21st November 2010.

The areas likely affected are listed below:

Rathfarnham Rd, from Pearse Bridge to Terenure Cross Roads;
Terenure Road North to Harold’s Cross at Harold’s Cross Park;
Terenure Road East to Rathgar Avenue;
Rathgar Avenue to Harold’s Cross Road;
Highfield Road from Rathgar Road to Palmerston Park;
Rathgar Road to Rathmines;
Rathmines Road Upper and Lower;
Castelwood Avenue, Belgrove Road, Charleston Road, Ranelagh Road, Sandford Road, Ranelagh Village;
Chelmsford Road and Appian Way to Leeson Street Upper;
And all above surrounding areas.

Dublin City Council will provide a number of mobile tankers in the area.

The tankers will travel to the streets where we receive the most calls or where they are most needed. People requiring assistance can call our customer services on 01 222 4520 (Sunday 9am -5pm).

All efforts will be made to minimise disruption as far as is possible. Dublin City Council apologises for the inconvenience caused. With your co-operation and understanding we hope to keep the disruption to a minimum.

For further information:

01-2222222 (Normal working hours)
01-6796186 (After hours)
01-2224520 (Sunday 21st November:  9am-5pm)

What’s involved?

• 2 hours of your time in the next 2 weeks
• Whenever suits you
• To deliver a flyer to 2-300 homes in your area (on your road or nearby)
• We will give you the flyers and a map and you can deliver it in your own time

In the next two weeks we are aiming to deliver 30k flyers to households across the constituency. It’s an ambitious target, but with help we know we can reach it.

Is it important? Yes. Flyers (or leaflets) are the most direct way that a public representative can communicate with the people they represent. It allows us to get our message across on any number of issues, but it also engages people and encourages them to get in touch with their local representatives.

If you want to get involved in politics at this most important time for our country, if you want to help a new candidate in your area, then we’d very much appreciate your help.

Email me at info@eoghanmurphy.ie with your name, address and a contact number and I’ll be in touch.

Many thanks,

Eoghan

Where? If you live in Dublin 2, 4, 6 or 8 – or if you don’t, but still want to help.

Dublin City Council is to break its association with Guinness’s Arthur’s Day due to its association with alcohol. I am urging officials in the Council to reverse their decision before setting a precedent that might have serious drawbacks for the city in the future.

It’s not responsible behaviour on the part of the Council. The council should be supporting this, doing what it can to make the event better – for punters, businesses and everyone in Dublin. If there is a concern about over indulgent behaviour at such events the answer is not to walk away and wash your hands, but to engage and use your involvement and your influence to ensure that the event is run properly.

Some of my senior colleagues on the Council seem to be pursing an agenda against this festival. It’s a bit curious because from their comments in the Council they clearly don’t understand what the festival is about. I doubt any of them were even at it.

While yes, Guinness is using it to promote themselves, for the punter it is essentially a music festival. And it has the potential to grow in to something quite significant for the City and the country.

People were out in town, eating, drinking, having a good time and enjoying themselves. That’s a good thing. They were spending money and businesses were making money. The rest of the world is already aware of this festival and soon enough it’s going to be a reason to come to the country in September, so there’s a tourism potential also.

It’s a very innovative idea for a musical festival. Fans love it, the venues love it, and from speaking to one of the bands on the night, they love it too – it’s unlike any other festival they do.

Yes some people will go out on these nights and take it to excess. But they’re not doing it because of the festival, they’re using the festival as an excuse to indulge what is likely an already established pattern of behaviour.

No one is advocating alcohol abuse. But at the same time it’s perfectly acceptable that taking a drink be part of our social and cultural occasions. I would be worried that this new policy could have a very damaging knock on effect for other cultural events in the city that rely upon different types of sponsorship.

A few weeks ago it was mobility week in the city centre. Though it still needs to grow as a concept, it’s getting better each year. On the Friday I got a chance to try out an electric bike, cycling up Fishamble St (a steep enough hill beside Wood Quay). A bit of craic. And on Wednesday I was meant to help pedal power an outdoor cinema on Fade St (Market Bar) but a torrential downpour put a stop to that unfortunately.

The best thing about mobility week was the closing off of some of the Grafton zone to through traffic – SouthWilliam St, Drury St etc. This was very cool. Some shops had put stalls out. People were stopping and talking in the street. Eating, drinking. Someone had put some fake grass down, the sun was out and it created a very nice atmosphere. A very people friendly, relaxed environment in the city centre.

Essentially what they were experimenting with was the creation of a new part of the city centre. It’s already there of course, the different buildings, the bars and restaurants. But the idea of pedestrianising it redefines it as a public space, changing it in to another Grafton St, only a bit trendier. Like what you find in other medieval cities around Europe when you ramble off the main track.

There is huge potential here, for people and businesses alike, to promote a new part of the city centre core and I’m all for it. A group is now pushing this idea in a big way – of a pedestrian zone around Grafton street. Take a look at their proposal here http://www.dublin2walk.com/.

I think it needs some tweaking but in the new draft development plan I have put the essence of this proposal in as an objective. And I’m going to be taking it up in a big way once the plan comes in to force in January 2011.

On the 6^th September 2010 Swan Leisure, Rathmines, will open for business. Swan Leisure is the business name of the new public leisure centre in Rathmines Square, Lower Rathmines Rd. Swan Leisure is operated by Dublin City Sports and Leisure Services Ltd. on behalf of Dublin City Council for the community of Rathmines and the surrounding area. Initially, Swan Leisure will be open for pre booked swimming for local schools only from the 6^th September.

On the 27^th September the leisure centre will open fully to the general public and provide a complete service. A marketing campaign will be launched to promote the facility in the local community using banners, posters, flyers and local media.

Services offered:

• 25m Swimming Pool
• Gym
• 2 Fitness studios
• Sports Hall

Opening hours:

• Monday to Friday – 7am to 10pm
• Saturday & Sunday – 10am to 6pm

Pricing and access programmes:

For more information contact:

swanleisure@gmail.com or contact reception on 01-4967908/01-4967909

On Saturday 11 September, I was asked to speak at a meeting organized by Dublin Young Fine Gael under the title Vision for Dublin.

Thanks for inviting me here today and well done on the initiative in putting an event like this together. This is absolutely what you guys should be about.

Mark spoke to you about the manufacturing side of technology. I want to talk to you about the development and services side. I want to talk to you today about a vision for Dublin as the high-tech capital of Europe.

You’re all familiar, I’m sure, with Silicon Valley in the US. But what does it mean to you?

• For many it’s simply a location, a physical area where similar businesses working in a particular area of technology are all located.
• For others it’s a brand for that type of technology work – the way Coca-Cola is the brand for all cola. So that if you hear that a company is located in Silicon Valley, immediately you imagine it as being involved in cutting-edge high-tech stuff.
• Still again, for others it’s a way of thinking: where young men and women walk out of university and have the confidence and ability to start their own businesses. Where a premium is placed on innovation and creativity; and staff sit around playing pool and table tennis, and companies have mission statements like: ‘Don’t do evil’. It’s cool, it’s young, it’s fresh. It’s the future.

It’s also extremely successful. Last year somewhere in the region of 40% of all venture capital funding in the US went to Silicon Valley.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with venture capitalism, this is when private individuals or companies invest their own money – a lot of the time in start-ups or growth companies pushing a new product or idea. They’re not investing in the market, they’re not buying shares per se. They are putting their own money (and sometimes expertise) in to a new project they believe will succeed.

When someone is putting their own money on the line, in such quantities, then something is up, something good. And almost half of venture capital money in the US is going in to this one industry in this one area.

And my vision for Dublin is that we do what they’re doing there, here. We position ourselves as the silicon valley of Europe, the high-tech capital of the EU.

The best thing about this vision is that we’re not even starting from scratch. We’re kind of leaning in the right direction but we need a couple of things to happen to push us over. We have a history with technology. At one point in time we were the second largest exporter of computer software in the world. This little island. Those days are gone now as production even in that line of things is moving to cheaper countries.

But that’s OK, because with the establishment by Google of its European and North African HQ here in Dublin, the paradigm shifted. Companies weren’t coming to Ireland because of our skilled workforce alone, they were coming for a whole host of reasons – accessibility, the euro, quality of life, young vibrant culture.

Dublin could now be a place for skilled workers from all over Europe to come and work, together with Irish graduates, and Google recognised this. And the coming of Google, and others, has made the ground extremely fertile. And now we’re growing great home-grown produce.

Just around the corner from the Morrison Hotel is a small loft-type office building. I went up to meet some guys there who are running a start up that develops iPhone apps. Very cool stuff and their office is just like you’d imagine it. Big room, about 10 people at Macs and laptops, posters on the walls, listening to music, a fusball table.  A year ago when Dublinbikes was launched, taking the initiative, they developed an app for the system free of charge. It lets you know how many bikes are at the spots, where there’s a space to drop one back. The company behind Dublinbikes, JC Decaux had their own app which they had used in other countries so this app that these guys worked on had to be shut down.

But what theydid was in fact better than what JC Decaux had. JC Decaux are huge, they run these free bikes all over Europe. They must have spent a fortune employing a big tech company to develop this app. And then a bunch of guys in Dublin, in a small office, developed a better one, for free.

We saw the same innovation in an earlier presentation with the Visit Dublin mobile app. That’s our potential right there. We’re also at the cutting edge of digital animation. One of the Oscar winners for Avatar learned his animation skills in Ballyfermot Art College, and the Book of Kells film developed here in Ireland was nominated for an Oscar as well. So in digital animation we really are at the cutting edge globally.

And that’s what we need to capitalise on. How? I’m going to give you six ideas. They’re not mine. They exist out there in the ether, but we need to put them together.

1. First, we need to recognize the links between Silicon Valley and Dublinthat already exist, and build on them:
   • Dublin is twinned with San Jose.
   • An Irish Innovation Centre has been established in San Jose.
   • There is an Irish Technology Leadership Group that is tasked with developing Irish IT firms in Silicon Valley.
   • In April the President and founder of that group said that one of the next things we needed to do was to establish an actual physical link between the Valley and Dublin. By that he meant: a direct flight. You can’t fly from Dublin to the West Coast of the US anymore. It seems counterintuitive that one of the first steps in creating a high tech virtual partnership between two places would be the creation of an actual physical link. But it makes sense. If a global player is to establish a European arm in Dublin they need to be able to get here quickly and easily. Easier travel encourages more travel, it’s that simple.
2. Broadband infrastructure
   To be serious about being a base for such an industry we need to rapidly evolve our infrastructure in the City. We need to invest in state of the art broadband in Dublin City centre – this is the critical infrastructure of the future; akin to railway lines of the past and roads in the recent past. We are miles behind. I was in Toronto eight years ago doing student summer work, I went to visit my boss. He had one machine controlling all the media in his house, with music, the web, streaming television, when we were still using dial-up at home that took about five minutes to connect. Things are better now but the infrastructure is still lousy.Google is currently piloting a new type of fibre broadband with speeds faster than anything currently on the market. I knew they’d want to start setting up trialing it in Europe so I went to them and suggested Dublin. They said that they would roll it out here in Europe, but not in Dublin. Why not? We have to wake up, realize we’re aiming at a moving target, and get ahead of other countries, not just catch up.
3. Expand the Digital Hub
   Right now, this is a cluster of over 100 high tech and creative enterprises and we can grow it into a high-tech version of the IFSC, attracting foreign companies as well as nurturing home-grown start-ups. We take the Digital Hub, which already exists and is successful and use it as a nucleus for the expansion of our own Silicon Valley proper. I know we’re talking about a virtual market place here but what Silicon Valley tells us is that for centres of excellence to emerge and be successful, the component parts must be physically near to each other.
4. Build Dublin as a content management hub – a foundation for ‘cloud computing’ across Europe. More and more, file storage, emails and other programs will stay online, stored in huge servers. We can provide this physical base. This basically means positioning Dublin as the internet server for other European countries. Think of it as an electricity grid-like method of providing internet based computing. No one else is doing this and it’s going to become more important in the coming years as computer platforms change and internet and computer use relies more and more on on-line and off-site management of information.
5. Widen the UCD-TCD Innovation Alliance
   We need to include other universities and third-level institutes, including a new University of the Arts. Create more shared laboratories and incubation space, to foster greater collaboration and the delivery of an idea to the early product development phase. This is about encouraging creativity. Putting education, training and research at the centre of this new economy. Silicon Valley works so well because of its formal link with Stanford University.
6. Venture capital
   Encourage the clustering of venture capitalists and venture capital firms to invest in emerging enterprises and drive the continued growth of the high-tech sector in Dublin. Silicon Valley receives 40% of America’s venture capital funding. We should have a similar aim for Dublin in Europe.

Other elements will also play a part, and forums like this are a great way of hearing and developing these ideas. Elements that can drive Dublin as a modern urban space to attract companies and workers from abroad, with new ideas like electric car clubs, smarter waste management, better public transport, energy efficient buildings and a living, breathing city centre. A better quality of life will attract a better quality of investor, a better quality of worker.

We need a new economy, we need to invest in young entrepreneurs, start-ups and innovators. One example of where there is huge potential for each of these is the high-tech sector – things like software development, electronic innovation and internet services. We’ve shown with Google and others that we can attract the big players, now we need to merge that with home-grown talent, that we know we have. Ultimately, this is about developing the same thing with the high-tech sector that worked in the IFSC with the financial sector.

Thank you