Letters to the Editor: Haphazard roll out of broadband plan

EDITOR – I live in Ballylickey near Bantry. I am on the N71.

Up to recently I had about 1mb of broadband from Eir. Since lockdown this has fallen to zero.

I have been promised broadband by Vodafone and Eir.

I got two modems from Vodafone and neither worked. I got one from Eir which didn’t work. Line of sight being the problem.

I tried Sky and they told me no chance. They checked the National Broadband Plan. That won’t be happening in my area for three to four years.

The hub for broadband is in Market Street in Bantry and since they laid broadband to Castletownbere some time ago they have since improved the Bantry town broadband.

They brought the cable to Ballylickey and brought the cable at the cross up the Coomhola road instead of up the N71. No one on the line was allowed to connect until the line was in Beara, ie from Glengarriff West.

I attended a meeting in Castletownbere where the chief executives of Eir and Vodafone proudly declared that every house in Beara would have fibre to the door.

Some time later they connected Ballylickey  to 100 yards from my door. So I can now see a broadband pole from my entrance, but I can’t get any date for when I will be connected.

I am not the only one in this predicament. The roll out appears very haphazard for such an important service.

Neill Clarke,

Ballylickey,

Bantry.

We need far more footpaths in Clon

EDITOR – I AM writing to you about the need for more zebra crossings and footpaths in Clonakilty and the surrounding area.

As someone who spends a lot of time in the town, and feels the need to cross the road quite a bit, I can certainly say that there are very few crossing points where I feel safe crossing.

If walking from the centre of the town out towards the rugby pitch, greenway and hospital, there is little to no footpath. Pedestrians need, and deserve, a safe way to get to these places. If you were to venture out in the direction of the rugby pitch, let’s say if you had training there, and couldn’t drive, is it really too much of an ask to be able to do so safely?

It would generally be younger people who need to walk out that direction and it is so dangerous. It is a blind spot for cars and an area where they tend to drive very fast.

Likewise, in the town centre, the crossing points are not shown on the road clearly. It’s almost as if we are supposed to guess when and where cars are going to stop and let us cross.

I would like to see safer, and clearer crossing points in the town of Clonakilty, and a footpath all the way out to the rugby pitch.

Hannah Brosnan,

Lyre,

Clonakilty.

Why are we still funding this ‘sport’?

EDITOR – How sickening to learn of yet another state hand-out to the beleaguered and discredited greyhound industry. It will receive a budget allocation of €17.6m, despite the horrific revelations of animal cruelty and massive over-breeding of greyhounds that rocked the ‘sport’ in 2019 following the RTÉ Investigates programme.

When I think all those dogs that end up in little shallow graves, shot through the head, or the ones exported to Spain or China to meet an even worse fate, I wonder at the decision-making process that led to politicians opting to use taxpayer’s money to continue propping up this failing industry. Did they stop to consider why so many commercial sponsors have withdrawn support from the industry, and why there has been a steady decline in attendance at tracks nationwide over the past three years? The industry’s clam that greyhound racing is a highly successful money-spinning enterprise that boosts rural economies is undermined somewhat, I’d suggest, by its need for State funding.

It’s time to pull the plug on this ‘sport’ that turns life for man’s best friend into a veritable hell on earth.

John Fitzgerald,

Callan,

Co Kilkenny.

Name and shame ‘greedy’ landlords

EDITOR – Landlords are currently trying to increase rents by 8% across this country. The limited protections that this Government has for tenants are not working at all.  They were not able to bring in rent increases last year because of the ban but now they are trying to double up from 4% to 8% because the Government is lifting the ban, which should stay.

The greedy landlords who try this on before we are even out of the pandemic, should be named and shamed. This situation will be the cause of evictions and more homelessness. There were 448 rent warnings on arrears issued to tenants across this State and they are the ones who need to be protected at all costs.

Noel Harrington,

Kinsale.