Republic – Page 34 – Slugger O'Toole

“a request for a PECS check involves checks against criminal records…”

Pete Baker on December 23, 2009, 7:49 pm

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Claims that the police and/or social services face “serious questions” over the employment of Liam Adams as a youth worker in Dundalk and west Belfast after receiving “RUC or PSNI clearance to work in those facilities” are at best mis-informed. Leaving aside an Irish News report quoting a “police source” denying Liam Adams was ever vetted by them, Clonard Youth Centre – where Liam Adams worked between 1998 and 2003 – have been pointing to a Pre Employment Consultancy Service …

Would the last under 36 year old please switch off the lights as you leave Ireland?

Mick Fealty on December 22, 2009, 4:39 pm

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The Debt Of The Nation View more documents from Amárach Research. Last March Amarach consulting did this great piece of work on household debt in the Republic. But there is something buried in the figures on household debt that perhaps fingers something lost in the translation. And why, perhaps, Brian Lenihan and Brendan Keenan (who was very upbeat given Ireland’s forced austerity in yesterday’s Indo) are fundamentally missing who is on the pointy end of the current massive deflation. (H/T …

Irish blogosphere too dominated by the voices of angry ‘adolescents’ to be taken seriously…

Mick Fealty on December 21, 2009, 2:00 pm

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Sunday Times journo John Burns has bad news for the Irish blogosphere… …the blogosphere has been left free for “amateur” commentators and journalists. While some are entertaining, not one continually demands our attention. No Irish blog is important enough to read every day. Until that changes, you’ll be getting your news and comment on paper. I hate to say it, but he has a point…Still, although I broadly agree with Suzy… …a joint venture between those paid and unpaid may …

“The only way this can happen now is through the courts.”

Pete Baker on December 18, 2009, 10:26 pm

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Today’s Irish News carries the front-page story of Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams’ statement last night on the issuing of an arrest warrant for his younger brother Liam, who is in his 50s, in relation to serious allegations of child sex abuse. According to the Irish News report, Liam Adams had failed to appear at a pre-arranged preliminary inquiry at a Belfast court. Other reports, including the BBC, state that the arrest warrant was issued last year. Liam Adams’ house …

Supporting the rapist and scapegoating the victim…

Mick Fealty on December 18, 2009, 5:53 pm

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Mark Coughlan (one of the sharpest writers in the Irish blogosphere) has this extraordinary precedent to the story from Listowel yesterday only this time rather just express sympathy with the perpetrator local people actually appeared to turn on a rape victim from five years ago in the nearby village of Duagh. Mark takes up the story: …a man named Liam Sheehy raped a local woman in her car. She was giving him a lift home from the town when he …

“community development is a matter for the devolved administration and not the NIO”

Pete Baker on December 18, 2009, 1:02 am

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BBC NI’s Vincent Kearney reports that Martin McAleese, husband of Irish President Mary McAleese, “approached the British and Irish Governments and the NI Executive for millions of pounds of funding for UDA controlled areas. It is understood decommissioning stalled because of a perceived failure to deliver the money promised.” Mr McAleese has a well known relationship with senior UDA figures. He is understood to have held a series of meetings with Jackie McDonald and other UDA leaders to discuss their …

“these are grossly insolvent companies”

Pete Baker on December 16, 2009, 12:28 am

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Afer their lengthy, and successful, legal action against Liam Carroll’s Zoe Group, the Dutch-based ACC Bank has begun a Supreme Court challenge to a High Court approved ten year survival plan for the Fleming Construction Group. From the RTÉ report ACC bank has begun a Supreme Court challenge to a ten year survival plan for the Fleming Construction Group. The bank is owed €21.5 million by one of the companies in the group which has overall debts of one billion …

Words that have previously been banned in Dail Eireann…

Mick Fealty on December 12, 2009, 4:24 am

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Examples of words that have been previously designated as unparliamentary language: – Communist – Corner boy – Gurrier But not necessarily those terrible words Mr Gogarty spoke earlier this evening…. Anyone know any more… And is this really unparliamentary language… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty

Gilmore: Fianna Fail the new Celtic Tories…

Mick Fealty on December 11, 2009, 5:06 pm

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Hmmm… I see where he’s coming from… “Twice in a generation, Fianna Fáil has brought this country to ruin. It is never the wealthy or the greedy who are forced to carry the can. For Fianna Fáil now to describe itself as a republican party is almost grotesque.” But you can see the stick the more socialist Brown is getting from the markets over his PBR: “The PBR seeks to create a fiscal fiction that the deficit can be resolved …

“It may very possibly be that Ireland is in the worst of both worlds..”

Pete Baker on December 10, 2009, 10:05 pm

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Crooked Timber’s Henry Farrell with a quick overview of the Irish budget announced yesterday. As a small open economy, Ireland would probably have devalued to help cushion the shock, if it had not been an EMU member with no effective control over its currency. Given EMU membership, devaluation (and exit from the system) would probably have been a very bad idea. Ireland is hoping to make the best of a bad job, adding levies, increasing taxes and making swingeing cuts …

Mapping the Irish budget on Debategraph…

Mick Fealty on December 10, 2009, 1:30 am

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The live blog continues until late this evening… But I thought setting up a Debategraph might a particularly useful way of unpacking a complex budget… I’ve got things started here by stealking from the main themes in the Minister’s speech, but to really map the tensions and complications we need to get a few more people involved… You need to register at debate graph and then you can start shaping the contours of arguments around the budget: Mick FealtyMick is …

“ultimately this must be a matter for them”

Pete Baker on December 9, 2009, 4:16 am

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Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Shaun Woodward, MP, after meeting with Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin in Dublin, tries again to defuse the perplexing rhetoric around the issue of the devolution of policing and justice powers. From the BBC report Mr Woodward and Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin discussed the current hiatus in Stormont politics in Dublin. They played down the possibility of a St Andrews-style “hothouse” talks session to try to resolve the outstanding issues and said they hoped …

“I will study closely what happens before I make any decision”

Pete Baker on December 8, 2009, 8:35 pm

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Mick’s post on the Irish government budget announcement at 3.45pm tomorrow reminded me of something Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said at the start of November Speaking about his plans to react appropriately to Britain’s upcoming budget, he said: “We didn’t know last year that the British were bringing down their vat rate, but at least this year the British budget is first, so I will study closely what happens before I make any decision.” The UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, …

“typical of the slithery sleeveenism that still infects Irish politics.”

Pete Baker on December 8, 2009, 6:32 pm

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The report of Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin’s meeting with the Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, ends on this note Responding to Mr Martin’s expression of “deep disappointment” at the lack of a response by the pope to the Dublin diocesan report, Holy See sources said until the Holy See received a formal complaint from the Government via its diplomatic mission in Rome, a Vatican response would be “inappropriate”. Meanwhile, in the Irish Times, Fintan O’Toole …

Budget: Oireachtas still carries the burden of 1930s Catholic social teaching…

Mick Fealty on December 8, 2009, 5:35 pm

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Elaine Byrne has some useful thoughts on the legislative context for tomorrow’s budget in Dublin. She is not impressed, and goes back to Charlie McCreevy’s completely nuts proposal to decentralise 10,000 civil service jobs in contravention of the government’s own spatial strategy as an example of how useless the Oireachtas has been at holding a government to account for it’s own dysfunctional populism: “The cost to the exchequer of this politically motivated and grievously flawed decentralisation policy is estimated to …

South inches toward gay marriage – what about full secularisation?

Jason Walsh on December 8, 2009, 4:48 pm

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Watching Pat Kenny last night on RTÉ One while reading my Twitter feed I was struck by something: my own Northern smugness. As an adopted Southerner (long story, very dull) I naturally assumed that the great advances the South has seen in recent decades meant that people here were, more or less, as secularised as they are in the North. It would appear not. Many comments appeared on my screen that mirrored those made by Kenny’s audience: people were shocked …

Time for the government to block its ears to the Union sirens?

Mick Fealty on December 7, 2009, 3:23 pm

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It’s hard to work out what’s happening to the Unions these days. When I first started work thirty years ago, there were two unions in the NIE: the bolshie one that by reputation was quick to call people out on strike, and the one that always agreed with the bosses but were good at fighting individual cases. Since leaving for college as a mature student I’ve not worked in a unionised sector since. In ideal terms they should be looking …

“I know that sometimes the rhetoric can be perplexing..”

Pete Baker on December 2, 2009, 10:43 pm

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The NIO has helpfully provided Northern Ireland Secretary of State Shaun Woodward’s address to an audience at Harvard University’s School of Government. “It is about a partnership. It is about creating a climate of stability and the will to succeed and politics is succeeding. “Our partnership with the Irish Government has never been stronger. At Downing Street this week, the two Prime Ministers reviewed the enormous progress made by the Executive. “The road to completing Devolution, despite the occasional loud …

Bishop Martin turns on the Bishop of Limerick…

Mick Fealty on December 2, 2009, 1:37 pm

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It sounds to me as though Diarmuid Martin was gunning for the Bishop of Limerick on Prime Time last night. Those mentioned in the report must come out and publicly say: “I made mistakes and I go or I didn’t make mistakes. It is not enough for people in another diocese to decide”. But as Will Crawley points out, the Catholic church nationally is singularly lacking in the authority to demand the resignation of a Bishop. That power lies only …

Destiny awaits

Jason Walsh on December 2, 2009, 2:05 am

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Fianna Fáil’s smoking dope but not inhaling, sorry, I mean gaining an MLA but not really, has been at the back of my mind all day. In fact, it would have been at the front of my mind were it not for the fact that I had to write something on the Murphy Report. I don’t think the move is insignificant. As I have written elsewhere, one might argue (and I do) that the move Northward post-settlement shows that Northern …