There was a time when Guinness was the biggest employer in Dublin and the St James’s Gate brewery was once the largest in the world. Its workers were among the highest paid in the capital in the 19th century and the Guinness family was ahead of its time in providing housing, pensions and other benefits to employees and their families.
That housing still exists and the Iveagh Trust — an approved housing body — has a portfolio of 1,640 homes in Dublin. In the late 1870s, Arthur Guinness purchased St Stephen’s Green and donated it to the citizens of the city. There is a statue there in his honour.
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Horse-drawn carts and Liffey barges were replaced by sleek bulk-liquid heavy goods vehicles decades ago as the means to move stout to Dublin Port for export. Now, the movement of those trucks is threatened by Dublin City Council’s plans to reduce traffic along the north quays.
Parts of the plan will be implemented this summer with “bus gates” on Bachelors Walk and Aston Quay restricting access for Diageo’s fleet of vehicles to the port. More than 90 per cent of the five-axle lorries travelling on Bachelors Walk from 7am-7pm “are movements from Diageo”, according to the council.
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As revealed by The Irish Times, this would force Guinness lorries to take circuitous routes to the port, resulting in increased journey times, up to 927 more tonnes of CO2 emissions, road safety risks and additional costs of up to €2.2 million a year for the company.
So far, Diageo’s pleas on the matter have fallen on deaf ears and the council looks set to proceed with its plan. Where once the Dublin Corporation of old would probably have bent over backwards to accommodate Guinness’s needs, the council now appears to just shrug its shoulders at the company’s dilemma. The current plan to ban the trucks makes little sense. A compromise is needed.
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