SUMMER DOESN’T last forever but summer time might, if the Government follows the lead of the British parliament, which is to consider plans in the autumn to permanently move the UK’s clocks forward by an hour.
British prime minister David Cameron has signalled that he may back the changes and stressed that if the plan sees the light of day, it will be implemented across the UK. Unless the Government accepts that the times are a changing too, Newry will move into a different time zone to Dundalk overnight.
Under the proposal, which is being supported by British road safety groups and environmentalists, who believe it will reduce the number of road fatalities and lessen carbon emissions, Britain will switch to Central European Time.
If the Republic moves too, the sun won’t go down on Galway Bay until close to 11.30pm at the height of summer, while on the winter solstice, it won’t rise until at least 9.40am.
Senator Feargal Quinn has sought the abolition of winter time for 15 years and he welcomed the debate.
“The only thing that has stopped it happening has been the Scottish farming lobby,” he said. Scottish farmers reacted furiously to the proposals and politicians there warned that children’s lives would be put at risk because they would be forced to go to school in darkness.
Mr Quinn said school hours could change in winter to offset any such dangers and said that even if Britain failed to move, the island of Ireland should act. “We should be prepared to leave the nursery even if mammy doesn’t come with us,” he added.
Speaking in the Dáil in June, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said there were “no plans to change the present summer time arrangements” and his spokesman said yesterday the position had not changed.
Since the foundation of the State, our public representatives have spent a lot of time clock-watching, most notably in 1923, when Britain brought in daylight saving time and politicians here were conflicted on taking the same leap into the dark.
Speaking in favour of the switch, Senator James Douglas warned then that having a different time zone to the North would harden partition, but Senator Maurice Moore was having none of it.
“I regret that that an Irish government should follow in the footsteps of an English government,” he thundered. He said the change would be “just to please a few lazy fellows in the towns who will not get up early. Why should the poor country people be caused all these annoyances to please the fellows in the towns?”
The rural-urban divide may be less of an issue today, however. An Irish Farmers’ Association source said farmers would not oppose a move to permanent summer time. Technological advances meant it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to the nation’s cows and sheep either.
