Longford Leader Comment: The unjust transition biting hard

With 150 local Bord na Móna employees fighting for their jobs, a huge crowd, including workers, their families, union representatives and political figures, assembled in Lanesboro on Monday evening to voice their anger over the crisis.

The BnM job losses were announced following the recent suspension of operations at the ESB’s peat fired station in Lanesboro, Lough Ree Power.

Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice slammed the treatment of the long serving workers as the ‘unjust transition’ away from peat as opposed to the company’s just transition plan.

The loss of 150 jobs to a rural area like Lanesboro / Ballyleague and surrounding villages is considerable.

“The same as 3,000 job losses in leafy Dublin,” argued Deputy Fitzmaurice who insisted that people come first in rural Ireland.
The loss to this economy would be ‘catastrophic’ suggested another speaker and the consensus was the BnM had to be stopped in their moves to lay off their Mountdillon employees.

It was harrowing to hear the first hand accounts of employees who are facing a very uncertain future.

One employee told the Leader: “I have a young family in school with three kids, sure I wouldn’t have a chance of getting replacement employment locally.”

That is the stark reality.

All at Monday’s protest were unanimous that they want to protect and save the jobs of the BnM workers for the foreseeable future and in what is a very difficult scenario, hopefully their voices don’t go unheard.

Read more on this story | Save our jobs: Hundreds turn out for Bord na Móna protest in Lanesboro

Congratulations Darragh

On a massive sporting weekend for the nation, where Shane Lowry’s success at The Open dominated the front and back pages of every newspaper, here in Longford we also have a significant achievement to celebrate.

On Sunday morning, at the World Swimming Championships in South Korea, Longford’s Darragh Greene became Ireland’s first swimmer to go inside the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Qualification time as he set a new Irish Record in the heats of the 100m Breaststroke.

He then set another Irish record on Tuesday morning in the 50m breaststroke as he secured qualification for the semi-final in a time of 26.94. Massive congratulations to Darragh and his family.

LISTEN | Longford swimmer Darragh Greene says he was 'fired up' to perform well after qualifying for World Championship semi-final