This article is from page 21 of the 2012-11-06 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 21 JPG
THE prospect of having fine weather for a long weekend could be greatly improved if the power to determine one bank holiday a year was granted to Met Eireann.
An Ennis councillor is calling for the likes of Jean Byrne to have the final say on when bank holidays take place, in order to ensure a greater chance of the sun coming out.
In a motion submitted to the November meeting of Ennis Town Council, Cllr Brian Meaney (GP) called on the council to “request that the Minister at the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation allow Ireland’s Meteorological Service decide the date of at least one public holiday every year”.
Cllr Meaney told the meeting that Ireland had been plagued by bad weather in recent years, adding that it seemed like every bank holiday weekend was “abysmally worse than the last”.
He said if climate change is going to have such a major impact on Ireland’s weather, the government was going to have to start “thinking outside the box” to ensure people enjoyed a decent standard of life.
Cllr Meaney said it was “nonsensical” to have bank holidays at a time of the year where you are guaranteed to have driving wind and rain.
“We are going to have to look at giving consideration to one floating bank holiday weekend which would be decided by the likes of Jean Byrne or Aidan Nulty to have some chance of having a bank holiday weekend with fine weather.”
Cllr Meaney’s proposal was supported by the Mayor of Ennis, Cllr Peter Considine (FF).
However, Deputy Mayor of Ennis, Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind) quipped that it might not be best to leave it up to Met Eireann because even they did not always get the weather right.