The controversial Dublin city 30km per hour speed limit will remain in place after votes to reduce the affected area and abolish the measure failed to pass at last night’s city council meeting. The meeting got hot and heavy at times, with councillors scrabbling on technicalities of the discussion – an obvious indicator of tension.

Labour’s Andrew Montague who had proposed the original measure was seeking an amendment to the area that the speed limit affects. This amendment failed to get the requisite 26 votes. As did Fine Gael’s Bill Tormey’s proposal to withdraw the limit.

Watch the discussion here. Interesting to note the mentions of Eamon Gilmore and RTE! (It appears my video has the stutters, apologies)

Last night’s Dublin City Council meeting was Firework Central. The meat was in a postmortem of The Big Freeze in the city. Dublin City Council live webcast their meetings.

It’s quite clear that many councillors had no clue what was happening in the city last week. Time and time again, councillors recounted how they attempted to contact parts of the essential services infrastructure of the city, but those calls were lost in the ether under a tonne of phone calls from the general public.

The biggest alarm bell rang, however, when City Manager John Tierney admitted that one of phone lines added to respond to calls from Dublin residents was installed but not activated. All a bit blushworthy especially when seen in the backdrop of the city bringing extra people in over the weekend to answer those calls. They were hardly filing their nails, but what a mess!

A brief moment of levity was supplied by Sinn Fein’s Criona Ni Dhalaigh who admitted she was screaming at the telly when the Minister of Snow popped up.

The aftermath of the cold snap is still with us. Water is still off in many parts of the city. And despite Tierney’s assertion that 95-97% (that quickly changed to up to 95%) of all refuse has been collected by the city, many parts of Dublin are still stockpiling rubbish. Interesting to note when one sees their neighbours’ private bin collection company able to traverse their streets and pick up their rubbish!

Another interesting development was Cllr Mannix Flynn addressed the Council bringing forth allegations that public housing allocations were corrupt.

Flynn made several references to an independent and confidential report that prove these allegations and was given ample room to voice his charges. Councillors vigourously denied his allegations, pointing out that some housing decisions might seem unfair until those cases were examined thoroughly. Councillors had not seen Flynn’s evidence prior to the meeting. I wonder will the public get to see Flynn’s evidence too?

Photo: Dreamstime