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With less than 20 days to go before the Waterford side of the M9 opens, the project itself is to be completed OVER 1 YEAR LATE. This has to be emphasised because you can be guaranteed that some County Councillor or TD will utter the words “The project was delivered on-time” … well it wasn’t. If you travel from Kilkenny to Waterford you will see signs at Ballyhale and Lukeswell saying “Opening Spring 2009″ ; well that date has passed and still the road is not open.

The road is apparently finished except that a “safety audit” has to be completed, which may involve a TD, a scissors, a camera and a ribbon, no-one is quite sure. I just think they should  “Open the Feckin’ Road !!”

So don’t be fooled – if somebody says the M9 Waterford section was opened ontime – this is a lie.

There is growing anticipation now for the imminent opening of the new M9 Motorway from Waterford to Dublin. This section is to open soon, with dates of March 8th, march 12th, March 17th and March 21st as the possible opening dates of this new motorway which should decrease journey times between Dublin and Waterford. The Kilkenny People has quoted March 8th but apparently no official date has been set! Motorway now extends as far as Carlow and this new section will be of major benefit to people in Waterford wanting to shop in Kilkenny or people in Kilkenny wanting to visit Tramore.

After 3 years of development the motorway will see towns like Mullinavat (also known as Mullinavegas) and Ballyhale bypassed. I’m looking forward to not having to sit behind slow moving trucks and tractors on a stretch of road which has a surface which is becoming worse each and every day.

I just hope that the new section is not subject to the stupid political mess which almost delayed the Carlow to Kilcullen opening – If it does, then I am sure that boards.ie will see another people power move which saw politicians berated by the angry motoring public.

At about 6pm today, a meteorite exploded over Ireland and was spotted from Cork to Donegal.

At 6pm on Wednesday 3rd Feb, emergency services all over the country received calls from people who said that there was an explosion in the skies over Ireland and that fiery debris was spotted falling from the skies. Smoke and heat trails were left in the skies for 10-20 minutes after the even as the ionised air was affected by the intense heat of the meteorite. Some people though planes had crashed and that the debris flying through the sky was aircraft engines.

People playing golf in Kerry reported it and at the same time people driving in Tullamore could see the same fire in the sky as the meteorite which would have been about 4 to 7 feet in size hit the atmosphere at hundreds of miles an hour. It would have broken into a few major bits as it fell to earth.

If anyone saw this they can place a “Fireball Report” on the Astronomy Ireland website, www.astronomy.ie and the search is now on for the pieces which fell to earth. Pieces of meteorite can sell for more than the price of gold. If you have pictures of the meteorite or video of the meteorite there are many media agencies, including RTE who are looking for spottings of the meteorite.

I have placed some YouTube Video of the actual Meteor which exploded in the skies below.

Unfortunately, I was driving south at the time and didn’t see a thing!!