The Pallet Network will be closing at 13:00 Thursday 24th December
and reopening at 06:00 Monday 4th January.
(Collections on 22nd December would be the last chance for delivery before Christmas within Ireland & Northern Ireland.)
Covid-19 Notice
The Pallet Network is currently open and intends to stay open in the current Covid-19 crisis despite the substantial drop in freight volumes. Transport companies are deemed frontline in the fight against Covid-19, and we are no exception. We have many staff who are operating from home, and our phones and emails are being covered as normal.
Our 24-strong, pallet network, is operating in all locations.
We may experience a slower service to some parts of the country during this period, but the plan and intention is to continue to offer nationwide delivery and collection. Working with our sister network, TPN UK, we are also continuing to offer our standard UK import export service.
If you have any queries please contact your local TPN depot.
Thank you for your support and cooperation, and we hope that you will all stay safe and healthy in this very difficult and uncertain time.
Yours sincerely,
Seamus Mc Gowan
MD
Irish businesses on Brexit preparation in The Irish Times
TPN Chairman, Owen Cooke, was interviewed recently by Simon Carswell for The Irish Times about Brexit preparation. Those interviewed for the piece include the Irish Exporters Association, the Irish International Freight Association, and ISME (Irish Small & Medium Enterprises Association). All have expressed alarm at the lack of appropriate warehousing capacity available with a no-deal Brexit seeming more and more likely by the day.
“There is a very, very little capacity anywhere in the supply chain and October is the peak in general terms in all sectors so if there was a crash-out then, all hell would break loose.”
Fleet Upgrade For TPN member Independent Express
As the first part of a €500k fleet upgrade, Renault Trucks Ireland delivered a new tractor unit to Independent Express last month.
The investment shows our Dublin member’s commitment to growing and improving despite the current business climate. 2019 may prove to be a challenging year for Irish transport, due to Brexit and the potential disruption for our customers’ regular routes and supply lines.
Former TPN driver earns commercial pilot’s licence
Barry Mullen worked for TPN for 10 years as a driver in the Dublin area, and was one of the top drivers there. The customers loved him. We were well aware that he spent all his free cash on learning to fly.
When Barry sold his camper van to raise money to get a commercial licence, we didn’t take much notice. We believed flying was a hobby, and Barry would continue to drive for us well into the future.
We could well understand why he loved flying, but when he came us to ask for a loan of €20,000 to cover his study, exams, and finals as a commercial pilot our first reaction was – why would we do this to lose our best driver? On reflection, we thought that if this guy in his mid-forties has the ambition and determination to follow his dream and go for this, that we should help him and not get in his way.
So we gave him the money and were not sure that we would ever get it back. But Barry made all repayment stages on their due dates. When he finally left to go into full-time training, the repayments kept coming.
We heard nothing for a year until last week, when Barry walked into our office in his flight suit – now a fully accredited pilot with Stobart Air, based in Cork and chartered to Aer Lingus.
Barry’s love of flying has not diminished now that it’s his job. As he commented, “I still can’t believe they pay me to do this”. We’re not sure he ever said that about delivering pallets but who can blame him for that!
Service Alert – Storm Emma
Due to the ongoing weather event in Ireland, The Pallet Network’s operation will now be closed from noon today until Saturday. More updates to follow.
Service Alert – Beast from the East & Storm Emma
Due to the status red, yellow, and orange weather alerts issued by Met Eireann for the island of Ireland, TPN’s collections and deliveries will be adversely affected.
Information specific to your area will be available from your local depot. Service will return to normal as the weather improves.
Service Alert – Hurricane Ophelia
ATTENTION : Due to the adverse weather conditions brought on by Hurricane Ophelia, and the number of businesses closing as a result, TPN Ireland will be closing at 4pm today (16th October) and reopening at 5am tomorrow (17th October).
Moylagh through to Junior Football Championship County Final
Hearty congratulations to the Moylagh team who have made it to their first junior championship football final in eighteen years. They face Meath Hill at Páirc Tailteann, Navan, on October 8th 2017. Throw in is at 14:15.
An Maolach Abú!
Six months on, people still confounded by Eircode system
This is a recent article from The Irish Times, printed on Dec 24th 2015, about the mindblowingly useless Eircode postcode implemented in Ireland during the summer of 2015.
The pattern has become all too familiar. An Irish government rolls out a system which has been very poorly designed despite having gone through an incredibly expensive consultation process. The concerns of Irish people and Irish businesses who would most benefit from a well-designed system have been ignored. When are we going to learn from our regular national failings?
Two quotes in the piece from Verona Murphy and Neil McDonnell sum up the feeling in the transport industry :
Neil McDonnell, general manager of the Freight Transport Association of Ireland, whose members include the global delivery firms DHL and FedEx, says that as far as he knows, none of the association’s members is using the code. “The nature of a postcode as a random code is the significant problem. It is essentially a social security number for a property,” says McDonnell. “The code itself is a meaningless construct.”
Describing it as “worthless”, Irish Road Haulage Association’s president Verona Murphy says it was designed “as a system that only An Post could use” and it is “useless” for anyone else. “There was no input from those whom it’s supposed to service.”