All posts by TadhgC

IEC News, Service Alert

Covid-19 Notice

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Independent Express Cargo 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, TPN is also 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 any of the following:

  • John Donnelly CS Manager 086 8032266
  • Hugh Burns Sales manager 087 2314347
  • Seamus Mc Gowan MD 087 6468506
  • Customer services Landline 01 8219999

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

IEC News

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.”

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/all-hell-would-break-loose-warehouse-trade-storing-up-brexit-problems-1.3983173

IEC News

New Tractor Unit For Independent Express

The new Renault’s inaugural visit to the TPN Hub in Dublin
Harry Nash, MD of Renault Trucks Ireland, delivering the new unit to IEC Chairman, Owen Cooke.

Renault Trucks Ireland delivered a new tractor unit to Independent Express last month as the first part of a fleet upgrade. Independent are investing €500k this year in new vehicles for the fleet.

The investment shows our commitment to growing and improving the business despite what could be a challenging year for Irish transport. Depending on how Brexit develops, there may be significant disruption for our customers’ regular routes and supply lines.

IEC News

Former Independent Express driver earns commercial pilot’s licence

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At the controls.
At the controls.

A former Independent Express driver has just earned his commercial pilot’s licence.  Barry Mullen worked for Independent Express Cargo for 10 years as a driver in the Dublin area, and was one of the top drivers there.  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 for 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.

The passenger cabin.
The passenger cabin.

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.

Barry at the controls.
Barry at the controls.

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”.  He never said that about delivering pallets but who could blame him for that!

The type of plane Barry is currently flying.
The type of plane Barry is currently flying.

 

Uncategorized

Six months on, people still confounded by Eircode system

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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.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/consumer/six-months-on-people-still-confounded-by-eircode-system-1.2476492

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.”

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New IRHA President

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Following a very successful annual conference and AGM over the weekend (8th – 9th May 2015) in the Slieve Russell Hotel, Cavan, the National Council of the IRHA elected Ms Verona Murphy of Drumur Transport, Wexford as the new President of the Association for the coming two year term. Verona is only the second female President of the Association in its 42 year history and reflects the very significant role played by the very many ladies operating within the sector.

We wish her the very best for her term.