Minister 'captured' in Moyle

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 30

All captions to DRD Press Office

Adds Sept 30

Cara McShane, Moyle Council chairman, had this to say:

On Wednesday 9th September**, I was honored to be invited to the official launch of the new catamaran ferry between Ballycastle and Rathlin Island. Although there were many potholes on the journey over to Rathlin, .... Daithí's blog

[** 999?]

Seems that Cara missed the formal dress wear part of the invitation that I received personally from one of the company directors and this latest revelation won't endear her to the DRD press office which seems keen to put the best possible spin on news about the Rathlin ferry.

Conor Murphy, Minister for Regional Development, also seems keen to hide behind the words of Lord Adonis rather than shed light on the role played by his officials in last September's operation of the MV Canna with an invalid passenger certificate and, presumably, void insurance.

Perhaps the Minister could also explain precisely what his department's stance is on the purchase of ferries - we've had YES, NO, YES - and why the Small Ferries Project team seems deficient in folks who actually operate ferry services and why all lifeline services across the UK and Ireland aren't part of the study. Some ferry operators appear not to have been told about this past Tuesday's event in Brussels.

Maybe the folks at CMAL will present the Minister with an SFP monogrammed tie - and a copy of their own press release.

Bushmills Riverbank

Some visitors to Bushmills tonight liked this photo so I said I would put it on NALIL blog. There are some more images on the Tom from Turfahun photostream.

Click to enlarge images

Meanwhile over on Main Street who should we point the finger at for the Conservation Zone mess?

Rathlin - The Man in the Calmac Jacket

Where Yellow and Blue Make Green

Is this a secret EU mission to Rathlin Island to discuss the price of fish? Where's the customary DUP press release?

dupphotos

Diane Dodds, MEP, and Mervyn Storey, MLA, are on tour with a gentleman wearing what I'm told is a Calmac jacket, an item of protective wear supplied by the company that used to provide the ferry service to Rathlin Island.

Might he be the chair of the Rathlin Development and Community Association? Might he also be one of the skippers of the new but troubled RIFL catamaran, the Rathlin Express?

Ballycastle's New Dry Dock
8 September 2009

The Rise and Fall

'Lifeline service suspended?' and other photos - click here

The Great Rathlin Drought of 2009?

The Irish News ran a story last week entitled "Water shipped to island".

Here are some snippets from the September 2 article:

"NORTHERN Ireland Water (NIW) faced a wave of criticism last night after it emerged that it had been forced to ship thousands of gallons of water to residents of Rathlin Island."

"In 2004 ... a £400,000 mains water supply came into service."

[Was that the budgeted figure? Did the project not go over budget?]

"Over the August 31 bank holiday weekend NIW prepared for increased tourist numbers by shipping extra water to the island." ... NIW spokeswoman

[Has extra water been shipped at other periods of peak demand?]

"I’ve been told by residents on Rathlin that the pump from the island’s bore-well failed and that people were left without running water for large parts of the last two days," .. Cathal Newcombe, SF councillor

“Over the August bank holiday weekend a technical problem was identified with pumps on Rathlin Island.

“This resulted in the intermittent loss of supplies to a few customers directly linked to the pump.

“NIW provided bottled water to the properties affected where appropriate.” .. NIW spokeswoman

No mention has been made of an earlier problem with the newish Rathlin water supply:

Rathlin Island

8 January 2007 - incident lasted for three days

"Coliform bacteria failures in final waters at the water treatment works, service reservoir and in the water supply zone. Investigation by NI Water was unable to identify a specific reason."

Do the Rathlin boreholes have sufficient current capacity to meet the needs of the islanders, the tourists and the animals? There's been plenty of rain but is it getting through to the boreholes?