Welcome to a new Ireland community in the fediverse. Any suggestions or concerns in relation to this community please put them in this thread.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/54117599

A new €2 handling fee will be introduced on parcels ordered from outside the European Union from November.

This is on top of the €3 charge that was introduced in July.

A NEW HANDLING fee to be imposed from November on parcels ordered from outside the European Union will likely apply to each item within a package, a customs compliance expert has warned.

The new fee, which is designed to cover costs associated with customs processing, will likely be €2, but the exact details haven’t been released yet.

The fee will be on top of the €3 customs charge which has applied to every unique item in orders worth €150 or less coming from outside the EU since 1 July, a charge imposed in a bid to improve EU security and level the playing field for businesses.

Customs compliance expert Brian Murphy told The Journal that it’s “very likely” the new handling fee will also be placed on individual items in the parcel.

“That fee is going to be on top of the customs €3 fee. So, it could double the charges again, potentially, and that’s very real and coming in very soon,” he said.

If the handling fee applies per unique item in a package, the cost of each item would increase by around €5 in total after the €3 customs fee is also applied.

Murphy said the €3 fee was just one of a number of changes coming over the next 18 months as part of an overall EU customs reform plan.

“It’s the largest shake-up of EU customs since 1968, and e-commerce parcels are a particular target of this plan,” he said.

“The future of e-commerce imports into the European Union is changing dramatically. It’s not just tariffs or duty anymore.”

Murphy said changes around classification of the product, packaging rules, deforestation rules and forced labour checks will all converge over the next 18 months to make imports of e-commerce goods “more complex and more costly”.

He previously said that despite the positive intention of the €3 fee, it disproportionately impacts online shoppers in Ireland, largely due to our e-commerce reliance on the UK.

Sinn Féin spokesperson on finance, Pearse Doherty, said news of the new handling fee will “come as another nasty shock to shoppers in Ireland”.

“These fees put all the burden and responsibility on ordinary people and member state’s postal services, while letting online giants like Shein and Temu off the hook,” Doherty said in a statement.

“Instead of holding these corporations to account, the EU is dumping all the responsibility on ordinary people by applying badly designed taxes on individual items.”

Operating under two separate legal systems and governments, the island has found itself dragged into a racial argument whose vocabulary was manufactured elsewhere.

As slogans imported from Britain’s far right – “invasion,” “two-tier policing,” “indigenous rights,” and “white replacement” – took hold, I realised I had confused a history of being oppressed with an immunity from learning how oppression worked. It was a comforting equation that Ireland’s record with women, children, and Travellers should have made impossible years ago.

A friend of mine was racially assaulted in Dublin recently. He’s also the kindest man I’ve ever met and an asset to the community, which makes it even more painful to witness. He did everything right.

He’s out of work while recovering. He has two very young kids whose father’s face looks different now.

It’s not enough to not be racist these days. We must be anti-racist.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/50635390

Coming relatively late to the game in 1961, IRELAND's history with the medium of TV is far from being a boring one! Delayed starts, over-investment, terrorist attacks and more! All within the first 25 years of Ireland's main broadcaster, RTÉ being on the air!

The word "INSANE" is overselling it. But considering that Ireland lagged behind, basically started as a cheap copy of British television, and barely had the talent and resources to keep the lights on during the first few decades, RTÉ managed to suffer through all of its growing pains, rose to a few significant challenges that made the world take it seriously, and has a few notable records under its belt.

Uploaded to YouTube by Adam Martyn.

These Irish families get up at all hours of the night to watch AFLW and host viewing parties with 30-plus people for big games.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/53049103

Singer found fame after starring in The Commitments and with his band The Frames

Glen Hansard won an Oscar in 2008 for the song Falling Slowly. Photograph: Mikolaj Rotkowski

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Oscar winner Glen Hansard, who found fame after starring in The Commitments and with his band The Frames, has been killed in a motorcycle crash in Co Dublin.

Hansard (56) died following a single-vehicle crash at the Strawberry Beds, Lucan, just before 4.30am.

According to a brief Garda statement, which did not name Hansard, the incident took place on a stretch of Lower Road, between Tinkers Hill and Rugged Lane.

“The motorcyclist, a man in his 50s, was treated at the scene but was pronounced deceased a short time later,” the Garda said.

“The scene has been preserved for examination by Garda forensic collision investigators. Local traffic diversions are currently in place.”

Gardaí at the scene of the crash at Lower Road, Strawberry Beds, Lucan, Co Dublin. Photograph: Colin Keegan/Collins Photos

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Hansard’s management issued a statement on Wednesday confirming his death.

“With broken hearts we announce the passing of Glen Hansard who passed away, in the early hours of this morning, following a road traffic accident in Dublin.

“Glen’s family is deeply shocked and heartbroken by this tragic loss and respectfully requests privacy at this extremely difficult time,” the statement said.

“The family is grateful for the support they have received and wishes to thank the emergency services who attended the scene.

“As this matter remains the subject of an active Garda investigation, no further comment will be made at this time.”

The musician and actor, a married father of one, split his time between his home in Kildare and Helsinki, where his wife, poet Maire Saaritsa, is from. The couple have a son.

Hansard played Outspan Foster in The Commitments, the 1991 Alan Parker film based on Roddy Doyle’s first novel, while pursuing a career in music, at first with The Frames, then as part of the duo Swell Season, and also as a solo artist.

He won an Oscar in 2008 for the song Falling Slowly, which he wrote with Markéta Irglová, his Swell Season partner. It featured in the movie Once.

Markéta Irglová and Glen Hansard of Swell Season perform during the 2025 Newport Folk Festival in Newport, Rhode Island. Photograph: Douglas Mason/Getty Images

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Hansard was from Ballymun, north Dublin and began performing with The Frames in his teenage years in the 1980s.

“Well, I grew up in Ballymun,” he told The Irish Times in an interview earlier this year. “I don’t make a big song and dance about it, but I grew up witnessing hardship among friends, family.

“Ballymun gets a bad rap, but it was an incredible community. There was a great sense of meitheal. My mother didn’t have any money, but she had a great sense of community.”

Continue Reading here - https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/07/29/motorcyclist-dies-in-crash-in-dublins-strawberry-beds/

We're hurtling towards silly season, so let's just have some FF fun. This is the Gist.

Our comrades in the 5 Ulm are on trial after attempting to stop the genocide, Irish Daniel Tatlow among them. Sign here to urge the Irish government to send independent monitors to the trial.

There are many YouTube videos on Cork, but how many of them focus on the walk around the perimeter of the city centre ISLAND? Enjoy the video! I had just jumped off a ferry and it left me in Cork for a full day before my flight home. While researching what to do on a Sunday, I discovered this relatively unknown geographical fact...

Uploaded to YouTube by SteveMarsh.

€10,000 fine is ridiculous. Fucking scumbags should be made do some community service involving nature and clean up as well as a larger fine.

The woman who works for an estate agent directed the man to clean the house A man and woman responsible for blasting 57 House Martin nests from a house which was due for sale have been ordered to donate €10,000 to charity.

Hazel Lindsay of Knock Road, Roscrea, Co Tipperary and Gerard Bracken (63) of 28 Rockview Drive, Portlaoise both pleaded guilty to causing injury to protected birds and also to the wilful destruction of wild bird nests at Cullenagh in Laois in July of 2025.

Conservation Ranger at the National Parks and Wildlife Service(NPWS), Kieran Buckley said the NPWS received a complaint on July 25 stating that House Martin nests had been destroyed at a house in Cullenagh.

He said photographs of the scene were taken which showed the nests belonged to House Martins which he explained were an Amber listed species, meaning they are of conservation concern as their numbers are dropping.

Mr Buckley said eggs were smashed and there were pictures of dead House Martin chicks. He said “one little chick” survived and was rescued. He said a number of nests were destroyed and they had been “blasted off a wall”.

Judge Andrew Cody asked him what he meant by blasted and Mr Buckley explained that they had been power-washed off a wall of the property.

The court was told the house had been rented out and was on the books of an estate agency.

Ms Lindsay worked for the estate agent and had directed the works in order to prepare the house for sale for the owner who lived abroad, the sitting of Portlaoise District Court was told. Mr Bracken was directed to power-wash the property. The woman who made the complaint to the NPWS was living with her children.

Mr Buckley said “her children were very distressed by what they saw”. He said House Martins have approximately four chicks in every brood and are known to repeat nest. He estimated that in this incident 205 birds were killed.

He said the tenant emailed the estate agent, Clement Herron Real Estate on July 16 to complain about the power-washing. They responded to the email on the same day and said they took the matter very seriously and all works carried out would be done in full compliance with the wildlife protection laws, said Mr Buckley.

He told Judge Andrew Cody that despite the email, Mr Bracken returned to the house the following day and “destroyed more nests on the back wall” of the property.

Mr Buckley interviewed Mr Bracken who took responsibility for his actions and he stated that he had been instructed to carry out the work and remove the nests. “He went out to the same house, he tells me, four times,” said Mr Buckley.

He then spoke to Ms Lindsay. “She made a full admission and she told me that she got Mr Bracken to clean the house,” he said.

The woman told Mr Buckley that she had been under pressure to sell the house. “Ms Lindsay admitted that she had seen House Martins flying into the nest on the 10th and 11th of June,” he said.

He estimated that 57 nests were destroyed and each would have had four fledged young.

“This is an Amber listed species which means it is in trouble,” he said.

“I have been doing this for 20 years and I have never come across anything like this or even close to it in terms of wilful destruction,” said Mr Buckley.

He said when he asked Ms Lindsay about it and “her only remark was, ‘I am going to lose my licence’,” he said.

Solicitor Josephine Fitzpatrick said Mr Buckley had fairly outlined the case. She said Ms Lindsay wasn’t aware that Mr Bracken had planned to return to the property after the email and he wasn’t aware of the email. She admitted that this was no excuse. “They unreservedly apologise,” she said.

Ms Fitzpatrick said the owners of the house had wanted it sold. She said Clement Herron Real Estate are taking the matter “very seriously” and had “introduced a policy document to ensure this never happens again”.

She produced a letter of apology from Ms Lindsay and a reference on behalf of Mr Bracken. She said they had cooperated fully, pleaded on the first occasion and Ms Lindsay had brought €3,500 to court while Mr Bracken had brought €750. She suggested the money might go towards wildlife rehabilitation. They have certainly put their best foot forward today,” said Ms Fitzpatrick.

Judge Cody asked how much the house had been sold for. Ms Fitzpatrick said it was in the region of €500,000. He then asked how much Mr Bracken had been paid to power-wash the property and he was told €400.

Ms Fitzpatrick said Mr Bracken was on disability which allowed him to work for only a number of hours a week. She said he greatly assisted in the investigation.

Judge Cody asked Mr Buckley for his opinion. Mr Buckley described the incident as "appalling" and he suggested any money be donated to Wildlife Rehabilitation Ireland.

Judge Cody agreed that the matter was appalling and he noted that it was done for financial gain.

“What was done here was for profit…clear them all out of the way because they are pooping all over the patio,” he said.

He adjourned the matter back to Portlaoise District Court on September 18 and said Ms Lindsay should bring €8,000 and Mr Bracken should bring €2,000. Judge Cody said he would apply the probation act subject to the payment of the money.

Mr Buckley said the NPWS receives a lot of calls about nests being destroyed. He described it as “sort of death by a thousand cuts” for the “already endangered” species.