Despite the arguments noted yesterday from Eoin O’Dell, the Irish Times reports that President Mary McAleese has signed the Defamation Bill 2006 and the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009 into law. Time for that blasphemous statement, Michael! Adds Eoin has been waiting patiently.. Pete Baker
As noted last week, the Irish Council of State is to meet this evening to consult on both the Defamation Bill and the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill. In today’s Irish Times Eoin O’Dell, a fellow and senior lecturer in law, Trinity College Dublin, and blogger, offers a legal opinion on the blasphemous libel provisions. Nevertheless, although the Constitution requires some crime of blasphemy, it does not necessarily follow that it requires these provisions. As the Supreme Court emphasised in the …
Whatever is going on inside Sinn Fein it cannot be pleasant. Particularly in the Republic. If Mark Coughlan at Irish Election is right, it looks like the bulwarks of Sinn Fein in the south west, Martin and Toireasa Ferris, may be about to pull the plug on their time in politics… If it were to happen, then it will not be a huge surprise, particularly since Ms Ferris made it clear that her near miss in the Euros was something …
The Irish Times catches up with the news of Dublin Cllr Louise Minihan’s resignation from Sinn Féin – and Monaghan Sinn Féin Cllr Matt Carthy says that she should honour a pre-election pledge which “states that if we leave Sinn Féin for whatever reason we will give our seats back to the party.” Meanwhile, via Newshound, in Village magazine, taking Gerry Adams’ World Tour for Irish Unity as a starting point, Ed Moloney argues that the signs are of a …
Nice choice of an almost deserted Smithfield (Dublin) for a launch video for the Darklight Democracy competition: Make a short film, one inspired by the notion of Democracy & Dialogue. Go on… It doesn’t matter if you record it on your mobile phone, a state of the art digital video camera, or create your own DIY animation – the idea’s the thing. Make it a comedy, a tragedy, a documentary, an animation – whatever takes your fancy. It’s about self-expression. …
The Irish News has some more on the resignation of Strabane Councillor Gerard Foley from Sinn Féin, noted previously. Meanwhile, in Dublin, another Sinn Féin Councillor, Louise Minihan, has resigned from the party. Via Politics.ie, an Indymedia report has the quotes. Explaining why she has left Sinn Féin Councillor [Louise] Minihan said, “I joined Sinn Féin in 1998, when I was sixteen years of age. At that time I believed that party to be committed to its stated objectives of …
RTÉ reports that Irish President Mary McAleese is to convene a meeting of the Council of State to consult on the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009, which recently passed through the Seanad, before deciding whether to refer the Bill to the Supreme Court for a decision on whether the Bill or any provision is ‘repugnant’ to the Constitution. RTÉ mentions it in passing, but according to iol’s report, the satirical Defamation Bill is also to be considered. And the presidential …
Irish Election has a number of posts on the detail of the McCarthy report, aka An Bord Snip. Full report here. [pdf file] Appendices [pdf file]. And RTE’s summary. Taoiseach Brian Cowen says the Irish government will consider the report. Meanwhile, a blog-sitting Martina Purdy spots a North/South dimension. There’s a proposal to save 12 million Euros from the Tourism Marketing Fund which is administered by the cross-border body, Tourism Ireland. It seems this is a matter for the finance …
Brian’s comments notwithstanding, the appropriate response to the latest leg of the Gerry Adams World Tour is one of laughter [Of our children? – Ed] The alternative is to despair. Adams’ newly professed open-mindedness betrays the absence of any viable strategy towards achieving his aspirations, whilst calling on action from the British and Irish governments indicates a dependency on the kind of top-down Process™ which may have delivered Sinn Féin’s support for the police, along with the DUP’s renewed participation …
The BBC report focuses on a small element of the statement on Northern Ireland by Taoiseach Brian Cowen to Seanad Éireann, as does the iol report, but the full text is wider in scope. The continued existence of sectarianism, of peace walls and of deep communal divisions in parts of the North is an affront to democracy and to a civilised society. It defies belief that this is continuing in the year 2009. It must be energetically tackled and confronted …
Invited or not, in yesterday’s Irish News Patrick Murphy had some thoughts relevant to the conversation Sinn Féin’s Toiréasa Ferris professed to want. Starting with the International Representative for west Belfast’s whistle-stop World Tour. From the Irish News article Some see this not so much as politics, more as show business. (You’ve seen the stage show, now buy the CDs: Sinn Fein at Carnegie Hall, Sinn Fein Sings the National Anthem, Your Favourite Christmas Hits with Sinn Fein, Sinn Fein …
Over at the Cedar Lounge Revolution, Garibaldy has been examining a recent article in An Phoblacht by unsuccessful EU candidate, Sinn Féin’s Toiréasa Ferris. From An Phoblacht. Remember the passion, the self-confidence, the enthusiasm there was in Sinn Féin at the time many of us joined? We need to get back that self-belief. We need to set a clear direction for the party in the 26 Counties so we know exactly what we are fighting for. We cannot continue to …
The amendment on defamation of religion, aka blasphemous libel, passed its Seanad vote yesterday along with the rest of the Irish Government’s satirical Defamation Bill. But only on the second attempt after a walk-through vote was called on a Fine Gael amendment, which would have deleted the offence of blasphemy from the Bill, giving government whips time to herd two wandering Senators into line. Atheist Ireland’s Michael Nugent, in the Irish Times, is launching a “campaign to repeal the blasphemy …
An odd iol report records Northern Ireland deputy First Minister Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, MP, MLA, repeating what he was told at the North-South Ministerial Council meeting on Monday. There’s an associated Sinn Féin press statement. And this from the iol report Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said his party had called the meeting with Mr Cowen to help keep a focus on political developments in the North during the economic crisis. But he insisted they weren’t overly worried the …
This is a longish clip from Leader’s Questions in the Dail this morning, but it’s worth listening the whole way through. For weeks Kenny and Gilmore have been trying to wheedle out the Taoiseach a date for the emergence of two major reports: a detailed outline of the Government’s new ‘toxic bank’, aka the National Assets Management Agency (NAMA), and the McCarthy Committee report, aka ‘An Bord Snip Nua’; which was due to report by the end of last month …
Leader’s Questions in the Dail We’ll start with leaders questions at 10.30 and then stick around for a while. I’m inclined to let it run today, since the 28th Amendment to the Constitution Bill (Lisbon) is due to follow on at 11.30… (the full schedule will appear here at 10.30). RTE live feed lasts all morning… PMQs will have its own live blog from 11.45 onwards… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts …
The impact on the property market of the apparently to be co-ordinated disposal of assets by NAMA will be of particular concern to investors in the illegally operating Presbyterian Mutual Society. According to the Belfast Telegraph report, disposing of PMS assets at current market values would result in a loss of £50million. Meanwhile the Irish Times reports that Northern Ireland First Minister, the DUP’s Peter Robinson, is to meet “Prime Minister Gordon Brown today for talks in London about the …
I was so busy at Picamp London yesterday I had no time to blog anything. It was pretty much bumper to bumper all day. There was lot’s of good stuff, but one of my favourite moments was an impassioned presentation from Jenni Russell from the Guardian. She highlighted an invidious dumbing down of the parliament by party whips. In particular she picked out a moment, largely uncommented upon at the time, when Labour’s chief whip, NIck Brown announced that no …
Apparently the North-South Ministerial Council meets today with Taoiseach Brian Cowen and the Northern Ireland First and deputy First Ministers in attendance and economic issues on the agenda. According to Irish Times report Mr Cowen said that the meeting would be an opportunity to review the excellent progress already made. “It will enable us to focus ever more keenly on the future benefits to be attained by working together on a cross-Border basis.” It’s not clear whether [Irish] chicken will …
Three County Armagh brothers, who had £8.2million worth of assets seized in 2007, have agreed to surrender property and other assets worth £5.7million to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca). From the BBC report. Soca said that the men had made millions from years of cross-border fuel smuggling. The assets they handed over include 12 homes in Belfast and south Armagh, three offices and building land both in NI and in the Republic of Ireland. Monies totalling more than £870,000 …
