25 thoughts on “De Monday Papers”

    1. Shayna

      Hey @some old queen Yes, I get the irony. Irony , however much as I like, does not help a devolved institution, it’s not really about cupla focáil. It’s kinda everything, really.
      The “Everything” isn’t really going to go away.

  2. Shayna

    Somehow, I do get the feeling that whole Brexit thing isn’t going terribly well. It appears that no-one really fully looked into the implications of The UK leaving. It was a UKIP pressured referendum that a weak Tory Government allowed. Without wanting to appear otherwise than a neutral type, Cameron really did feck it up. Pigs heads and what have you aside, he’s kinda the culprit.
    Stormont hasn’t sat since the Election, way back then, no cupla focáil is still the crocodile that will bite Arlene Foster. Time moves forward for most of us, it seems the clock ticks backwards for the DUP.
    I wouldn’t be overly sure if any of the BS readers remember the images of nationalist internment types, during the 70s, beaten and tortured, purely because they fell into a British Intelligence profile. The images of the beaten, tortured, horribly maimed young men were a feature on ‘The Sunday World’.
    I don’t know how ‘The Sunday World’ got the pictures, but every week, it was a different face, clearly, brutally beaten, an emaciated body. Anyhoo, I saw my neighbour, Seamus in one of the features, his face was in tatters.
    In 1983, Seamus was one of the 43 that escaped “Long Kesh”, all but a handful were captured, Gerry Kelly (Sinn Féin) was captured soon after. Seamus was never captured, he spent 20 years, “on the run”. After the “Good Friday Agreement”, he presented himself to the authorities. He’s free!
    It turns out that he spent most of his time in Kinsale, W.Cork. He’s gone a tad Cork on us with his accent .
    The reason I mention Seamus?
    Seamus is only a few years older than myself, and I wonder about my life versus Seamus.
    Also, I’m not sure why Frilly Keane never met Seamus?
    The Monday Papers aren’t anything that one wouldn’t entirely expect.

          1. Frilly Keane

            ah pet
            you’re not very good at this

            c’mere, shush now; but It was Shayna that dragged me inta the harbouring of Seamus

          4. Go A Way

            Shure you never admit to anything it took you three months to acknowledge that memes rape threats to spaghetti hoop were disgraceful, his attacks on Bertie weren’t enough for ye

            Away with ye now and lie down

          5. Frilly Keane

            Ya know what Broadsheet
            The next time ye’re wagging fingers at the naughty trolls
            And cutting comments on demand
            Or to suit the weather

            Remember this one

    2. Frilly Keane

      Ya wonder wha’
      Exactly

      I did me Inter in ’83
      So like
      Knocking around with Blanket Men wasn’t as common as you’d think. (That came 10 yrs later )
      Lads being about and local Garda keeping every active family advised of Branch sticking their noses in, yeah
      Lads being moved from gaff to gaff, yeah
      Lads being ferried over an’back between Passage East n’Rushbrook/ Cobh, yeah

      Names were never used anyway

        1. Frilly Keane

          Held over alright in Feb’83
          In Bangor would ya believe
          2 nights only
          and they were the days we didn’t carry ID or Passports or phones.

          They were all fairly daycent tbh
          wasn’t in a cell or an’ting, more like a foster home facility

          but there were other reasons behind that tho

          I went along with it, didn’t cause any fuss like
          sur I was getting a few days off school like

          and they bought me new clothes

  3. Go A Way

    Where’s that Charger gobspoo this morning? Oh how I laughed yesterday when I heard a British commentator on BBC announce to Mr Farage that the Brexit Leave campaign to “take back control” has resulted in handing it to “the Irish”.

    1. Charger Salmons

      Even when I’m asleep I’m trolling you.

      ” Back of the net ! ” ( said in an Alan Partridge voice. )

  4. Ban the Poo. Ooh-er!

    Interesting story in the Times. I get why the council should be renovating the apartments and maybe putting in central heating in this day and age, but why can’t the tenants have some pride and maintain the public areas themselves?

    Pensioners living in damp bedsits lose hope
    Council and Alone pledges to tackle cold and damp in Jamestown Court amount to nothing

    about 7 hours ago Updated: about an hour ago
    Kitty Holland

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    A group of more than 30 pensioners, living in dilapidated council-owned bedsits in Dublin, say they have lost hope of ever having decent homes.
    They say they have been promised, for almost a decade, that the one-bedroom and studio flats at Jamestown Court in Bluebell would be modernised and refurbished. They remain, however, damp, cold and dark.
    The three, two-storey blocks, one of which lies empty and boarded-up, are in disrepair, with paint peeling badly from outdoor railings and ceilings. Grass and hedges are overgrown. A small communal laundry room is cold and damp, with paint falling from walls and ceiling. A small bathroom within the laundry room is so filthy, the toilet seat broken, as to be unusable.
    Plans by Dublin City Council to refurbish the flats since 2007 were cancelled during the recession. Since the recovery, the older people’s housing charity Alone has agreed to take over Jamestown Court, and regenerate the flats. These plans too have hit obstacles, particularly due to a lack of legal clarity over the title to the land.
    John Duncan’s bedsit – a small living-cum-bedroom, with a tiny kitchen and shower room – is reminiscent of an early 20th-century tenement. A single bed sits against one wall, a small table and two chairs beside it, with a two-seat couch and armchair on the other side. It has little natural light, paintwork is stained and dark, and it is cold.
    “The draught coming in in the winter is awful,” the 64-year-old says. “I hang this blanket to cover the front door. Feel it.” The blanket is cold and damp.
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    His cramped shower room “was very bad”. Two months ago he washed and painted the walls but dark green mould is reappearing on the walls and ceiling. “It was black with mould. There were mushrooms growing.”

    He has lived here for nine years, paying €30 a week in rent out of his disability pension of €208.
    His voice wheezy at times, he says he has been on a number of antibiotic courses for chest infections. He gets out for a walk most days, though spends most of his time sitting at the small kitchen table.
    “I would like a better place. I try not to think about it,” he says. “I’m nine years waiting to get a better place.”
    Oppressively cold
    His neighbour, Noel McDonald (67), who retired from the army after a tour of Lebanon nine years ago, has never had central heating. His slightly larger one-bedroom flat is brighter than John’s and filled with posters, photographs and Elvis memorabilia. On an early December morning, however, it is oppressively cold.
    “I have that,” he says pointing to a small blow-heater, “and I turn on the oven with the doors open for 20 minutes in the morning. Sometimes I have to sleep with my clothes on it gets so cold.”
    A previous tenant left an unpaid gas bill of more than €1,000. To have the gas reconnected, which would entail some repair work, would cost him “about €500. So I’m snookered,” he says. He pays €57 a week rent.
    “It embarrasses me when I bring my grandchildren back. They come to stay with their dad. The girls sleep in my bed. I have to put four hot-water bottles in for them. I’d like the council to do the place up.”
    Tommy Coombes, co-ordinator of Bluebell Community Development Project, an advocate for the tenants, says they feel “brushed off and ignored” by both Alone and the council. “They have lost hope. We’re not talking about people wanting favours here. This is about people’s human right to live in dignity.”
    A spokeswoman for Dublin City Council said transfer of the land had been “delayed” due to the title problem but “good progress” had been made and the council was “confident Alone will get on site and carry out this important development” in early 2018.
    Pat Doherty, head of housing and development with Alone, gave a commitment the redevelopment would begin in coming months. Asked about these reassurances Mr McDonald shrugs. “I don’t believe anything they say any more.”

  5. Ban the Poo. Ooh-er!

    Another fascinating story here

    fair play to IT again for covering this but what about eh Leos’ socks? Leo’s socks anyone? Socks?

    (to be fair Charger makes a lot of valid points while not indulging in racist troping)

    Ireland actively facilitates firms in avoiding tax, report finds
    Debt and Development Coalition says State imposes tax losses on developing nations

    about 3 hours ago
    Dominic Coyle
    Oxfam campaigners outside the Department of Finance earlier in 2017 to call on the Government to implement transparency where large companies make profit and pay tax. Photograph: Cyril Byrne
    Oxfam campaigners outside the Department of Finance earlier in 2017 to call on the Government to implement transparency where large companies make profit and pay tax. Photograph: Cyril Byrne

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    Ireland is among the most active countries in facilitating corporations moving profits to low- or zero-tax destinations, according to a new report from Debt and Development Coalition Ireland.
    The State is also responsible for imposing the largest losses in corporation tax on developing countries with which it has double taxation treaties, according to the report entitled Tax Games: the Race to the Bottom – Europe’s Role in Supporting an Unjust Global Tax System 2017.
    The report, published on Monday, was co-ordinated by the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad), a group of 46 non-governmental organisations across 19 European countries. The Irish material was provided by the Debt and Development Coalition.
    Using a traffic-light system to rate 18 EU member states as well as the EU Parliament and the European Commission, Ireland is one of just two states to show as red in all five categories – transparency on beneficial ownership; support for country-by-country reporting; tax treaties; harmful tax practices; and global solutions. The Netherlands was the other.
    The report says EU governments and institutions are engaged in a “race to the bottom” on corporate taxation, “including through lowering corporate tax rates and using harmful tax practices that facilitate corporate tax avoidance”.
    Noting the relatively greater importance of corporation tax revenues for developing countries, it is particularly critical of restrictive tax treaties that aggressively lower corporate tax rates in developing countries.
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    Of all the countries covered, the Irish tax treaties with developing countries introduce the highest average reductions on the tax rates of their developing country treaty partners, at about 4.75 percentage points, the report says.
    Double-taxation agreements
    Three recent Irish double-taxation agreements – with Zambia, Pakistan and Ethiopia – are cited in this regard. The report notes that the first two have been signed since a 2013 “spillover analysis” designed to measure the impact of such agreements on developing countries.

    Earlier this year, the report notes, Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Katherine Zappone told a Government-organised summit on fairness, responsibility and leadership on corporate tax: “We need to acknowledge the negative influence our former tax policies have had on developing countries and move forward expecting more from ourselves.”
    Ireland also fares particularly badly where the report looks at countries that act as “sinks” – generally small jurisdictions with a low- or zero-corporate tax rate, where multinational corporations store capital – and “conduits”, which facilitate the movement of capital from countries where companies actual do business to “sinks” without paying much, if any, tax.
    It cites research carried out earlier this year on uncovering offshore financial centres, which named Luxembourg as the top-ranked sink state, followed by Hong Kong, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda and Cyprus.
    Ireland was ranked as the fourth most prominent conduit country – behind the Netherlands, the UK and Switzerland, and ahead of Singapore. The report says conduits tend to specialise in relations with particular geographies. In Ireland’s case, it is seen as specialising as a link between American and Japanese corporations and Luxembourg.
    Harmful practices
    The report assesses countries’ performance on “global solutions” on the basis of whether they support the creation of an UN intergovernmental tax body. Harmful tax practices include the use of special purpose entities, patent boxes, advance tax agreements with companies, letterbox companies and conduit activity.
    The Eurodad report is published on the day European finance ministers are expected to publish the EU’s list of global tax havens. The EU study examines only states outside the EU.
    It also follows reports from Christian Aid and Oxfam that were similarly critical of Ireland’s behaviour on corporation tax, and comments from Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz that Ireland’s tax deals with the likes of Apple help fuel global inequality
    The study makes 15 recommendations, including the ending of certain tax practices, renegotiation of tax treaties with developing countries on fairer terms and greater transparency.

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