This afternoon.
Houseboats moored on The Grand Canal at Robertstown, County Kildare.
Meanwhile…
A petition to allow a number of people to live permanently on their houseboats along the Grand Canal in Dublin has amassed almost 6,000 signatures.
Waterways Ireland had asked the owners to move their boats, as they had overstayed their allocated time and were breaking the rules.
The owners were told that their boats would be lifted out of the water, stored and could be later sold at auction, if they did not comply.
A bill for the cost of lifting the boats would also be sent to the owners.
However, after a meeting with Minister of State for Heritage Malcolm Noonan last week, Waterways Ireland agreed not to remove any liveaboard boats, for now.
Houseboat owners in limbo over lack of full-time permits (RTÉ)
All because of the banks, they’re on the grannnnnd canal
€300 a year for an annual permit doesn’t sound that much, to be honest, unless I’ve misunderstood the deal. But if they’re stuck, maybe they could set up a GoFundIt?
Cheap way to live if you don’t mind the rats.
It’s the fact that no one will sell them the permits, is the issue.
Tbh I think they should cost an awful lot more – like, one of the people featured in the article is a vet, who presumably has a lot of money; it’s a bit strange that this well-off person is being given a large chunk of prime city centre real estate for free
As someone who lives on a boat and accepted that I couldn’t just moor up in the city centre, I don’t want to pay more for my permit because I had to take out a loan to buy my boat. The issue here is that these boat owners wouldn’t accept that they had to moor their boat at one of the permitted locations and are just being entitled and demanding they be granted permits anyway. I don’t really have sympathy for them to be honest
It’s called a mortgage. Known to plenty. No sympathy for them either. Boats are the cars of the canals. Get rid of them and this pretend artisanism of privilege.
Well, what I meant about the loan thing is that lots of these people bought their boats outright and so don’t have loans, but also won’t play by the rules and instead expect that they should be allowed to moor wherever they want. If you buy a boat you should respect the canals as a waterway and only moor where permitted, instead of just pulling up wherever you like.
Waterways Ireland has a Large Office in Enniskillen and all who adjourn there have to be
paid, fed and watered and befor the pioneering work of the late Ruth Delaney the canals
would have been filled in, Waterways Ireland is just another Quango and we have a large
and growing herd of these bodies…..would their profileration have anything to do with the
filling of Quango boards with political parties election casualties
I love to see the barges on the canal but I don’t want to see the canal become a permanent residence for a select few