As I see it, this constitutes most of the meat in the sandwich: The agreements we have reached today, to treble resources available to the IMF to $750 billion, to support a new SDR allocation of $250 billion, to support at least $100 billion of additional lending by the MDBs, to ensure $250 billion of support for trade finance, and to use the additional resources from agreed IMF gold sales for concessional finance for the poorest countries, constitute an additional …
The Common Travel Area may have a future after all. The BBC are reporting that the House of Lords “voted by 193 to 107 to remove a clause from the Home Office’s Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill” which “would have introduced the right to impose controls over those travelling between the two jurisdictions.” Presumably that would be Clause 46 noted previously. [Update It appears that the debate was on an ammendment referring to Clause 48. Adds Ahh.. It looks like …
I don’t think we covered the original kerfuffle when, last Thursday, the DUP’s Alastair Ross, a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Regional Developmnent Committee, “issued a press statement condemning the conduct of the chairman Fred Cobain [UUP]”. Apparently the conduct in question was the committee’s two-day trip to Dublin, which included a presentation to the Dáil’s transport committee. But the aftermath of the subsequent apology is certainly worth noting, as reported by Martina Purdy Although Mr Ross was absent …
No, nothing to do with portraitgate. An iol report refers to an Irish government budget deficit of €16billion. But perhaps that doesn’t take into account some recent Irish economic news.. or, maybe, that’s just part of Charlie McCreevy’s great British conspiracy.. ANYway.. RTÉ reports warning sounds from several Ministers. Mr Cowen added that the model of taxation would have to be adapted to suit the new circumstances. Speaking before today’s meeting, Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe said the budget is …
Not much detail on this yet but two men and a woman, all described as being in their 30s, have been arrested in Dublin by police investigating republican paramilitary activity and are being held under Section 30 of the Republic of Ireland’s Offences Against the State Act. The BBC report notes that, “Police said that suspect devices have been found and have asked for support from an Irish army bomb disposal team. But the more up to date RTÉ report …
One of the many questionable items in the non-existent accounting of the former Taoiseach, and former blank cheque signer for Charles Haughey, Bertie Ahern was his February 2008 revelation of a 1993 ‘loan’ of €30,000 from the “B/T account” – supposedly a contingency fund for St Luke’s – to his then partner, Celia Larkin, “to help her aged aunts buy their rented home in March 1993 after they were threatened with eviction.” Which she did, in her name. The Mahon …
According to Gav, these are the figures in tomorrow’s Red C poll for the Sunday Business Post Red tomorrow: FG 31 (+1); FF 28 (+5); Lab 17 (-5); SF 7 (-4); Green 7 (+1); Others 10 (+2). Suggests the last IT and RedC polls caught a moment of Lab upswing and FF’s nadir. It’s still way above Labour trends for the last ten years. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the …
Labour Conference Live Irish Labour are in Mullingar this morning for their conference… Leader’s address is tonight at 8.30pm for RTE schedules… I’ll try to live blog the Economy session between 12 and 1pm… The whole schedule is here… You can pick up the UStream Channel here.. Yay the embed code works! (these people have done this before!!) Oh, and Suzy is at home on the ‘official’ live blog… Live Videos by Ustream Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. …
Previous post on the trial here. Archived post on the Northern Bank robbery here. The BBC reports the verdict. The RTÉ report adds – “Following four hours and 40 minutes of deliberation, the jury of seven men and five women found Cunningham guilty on all 10 counts by majority verdicts.” As the iol report notes Ted Cunningham, from Farran, Co Cork, in the Irish Republic, was found to have handled more than £3m (€3.3m) in stolen bank notes in the …
The Euro Tribune want to know of the police action regarding portraitgate; #Cowangate; #picturegate: “Inciting whom to what, I wonder?” Eoin of Cearta.ie has been looking at why, and it would seem the legal cupboard is almost bare… Is it illegal to paint nude caricatures of the Taoiseach, or is this protected by the constitutional right to freedom of expression? I just don’t see how it can amount to incitement to hatred against a group of persons [update: or to …
The BBC report sums this story up in the opening paragraph Brandywell Properties have had their funding application to redevelop Derry City’s stadium turned down from the Department of Sport in the Republic. The application was turned because it was located outside the state and therefore deemed “ineligible”. [Well, it’s not in Ireland is it? – Ed] Partitionist! *ahem* Pete Baker
Nothing much to add to Ms Lord’s majestic (Ah now, he doesn’t use words like that every day you know! – ed) treatment of the #picturegate #cowengate #portraitgate scandal… Except that now over on creative Ireland it is time for the revenge of the Photoshoppers… Of course it wasn’t An Taoiseach who was complaining, just one of his pesky servants… Ah but who, then, is behind this incredibly aggressive police investigation? Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has …
At Irish Election, Cian probably has the measure of picturegate Cowengate portraitgate.. Portraits which, according to an Irish Times report, made their appearance almost three weeks ago.. Meanwhile Suzy poses a key question – “I wonder how morale in the newsroom is?” And, as ever, Miriam Lord is majestic in the Irish Times. How dare some idiot with a paintbrush sully the dignity of the office of An Taoiseach. Who does he think he is – Bertie? Does he really …
I;ve not got to the end of this yet, but it is worth grabbing off the BBC iPlayer before it disappears… Land deals, insider dealing and lost souls… the Celtic Tiger on the rocks… A gripping Afternoon Play from BBC NI… 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
With the Irish Gross Domestic Product falling sharply both the Irish Times and RTÉ report on Taoiseach Brian Cowen’s confirmation that the Irish government may borrow more than originally planned. But the target of limiting borrowing to 9.5% of GDP, or about €17.5 billion, already looks out of date. The EC Commission, which has approved plans to return the deficit to within 3% of GDP by 2013, and that’s still “the important point” according to Brian Cowen, predicts an 11% …
According to RTE, the ICTU have deferred Monday’s national protest day & strike. The Unions have suffered some set backs recently with IMPACT voting narrowly to reject strike action, and the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants voting decidedly against it. More on the RTE report below the fold. The Indo, which has been running something of a campaign for public spending cuts, reports that the Unions won’t win any concessions but Brian Cowen’s intervention allowed them to save …
So sorry I did not get to see the offending item (blogged by Kensei) on RTE last night… For Dublin North Fianna Fail TD Michael Kennedy it was the last straw: “Regardless of who the incumbent is, the position of An Taoiseach deserves respect, especially from our national public service broadcaster.” “For an item like this to be given so much air time beggars belief and raises serious questions about the agenda at play in the RTE newsroom. It was …
There is so much bad cultural blood between Unionism and nationalism, it’s good to see a few areas of common good will emerge at the weekend, or indeed across this whole six nations rugby championship, when the Irish rugby team won the grand slam for the first time since 1948. Politically, of course, the Irish team is a chimera. It isn’t quite what it says on the tin. But it says enough to most of us to command our undivided …
As the iol report notes [Irish] Finance Minister Brian Lenihan will summon Irish Nationwide boss Michael Fingleton into his offices this week amid Green Party calls for the banker to resign following revelations of a €1m bonus payment. See also Irish Times reports. But there are often unintended consequences to legislating issuing populist guidelines in haste – as RTÉ reports A replacement chief executive for Irish Nationwide Building Society, who had agreed to succeed Michael Fingleton, has told the board …
I missed Brian Cowen’s Paddy’s Day autocue fluff… Stephen Collins doesn’t mention in his slightly breathless account of the Taoiseach’s biggest ‘foreign policy’ spake of the year, but Rabbi Jonathan Sach’s was particularly struck at how both men met with the changed circumstances with lightness and humour in his Thought for the Day slot on the BBC’s Thought for the Day slot yesterday morning… Whatever his political opponents think about his party’s flawed efforts to rescue the country’s flagging fortunes, …
