Monthly Archives: April 2012

You May recall Fine Gael councillor Therese Ridge (above) from the Mahon Tribunal.

Therese, while on Dublin City Council, received £1,000-plus from Frank Dunlop, who was lobbying for the Quarryvale development.

Her support was crucial.

From the Irish Independent, November 2007:

Mr Dunlop explained to the planning probe how he had got “Mother Theresa”, aka FG Cllr Therese Ridge, to sit beside Cllr Peter Brady when the vote was called. Mr Brady’s vote was essential and Ms Ridge, he said, undertook to look after Mr Brady.

Mr Dunlop who was in the public gallery heard her say: “for, Peter, for” when the time came for him to cast his vote. The votes were taken alphabetically and Mr Brady was one of the first to be called.

Mr Dunlop, in his private interviews with the tribunal, revealed that Mr Brady would do absolutely anything Therese Ridge said.

So you may have been surprised to read a small item about Therese (now on South Dublin County Council) in Saturday’s Irish Times.

A Fine Gael councillor named as having received “improper” payments from lobbyist Frank Dunlop in the Mahon tribunal report has been appointed to the executive of the Local Authorities Members’ Association, the representative body for councillors.

In its recent newsletter, the association announced Therese Ridge would replace Fine Gael’s Cait Keane as the representative for South Dublin County Council.

 

Ain’t life grand?

Councillor Who tribunal Said Received ‘Improper’ Payments Gets Appointment (Fiona Gartland, irish Times)

Voters told where to sit ‘in case one needed a dig’ (Lorna Reid, irish Independent, November 1, 2007)

The threat to the freedom of the internet comes, [Google founder Sergey Brin] claims, from a combination of governments increasingly trying to control access and communication by their citizens, the entertainment industry’s attempts to crack down on piracy, and the rise of “restrictive” walled gardens such as Facebook and Apple, which tightly control what software can be released on their platforms.

 

Web Freedom Faces Greatest Threat Ever, Warns Google’s Sergey Brin (Guardian)

‘Miranda Wrights’ responds:

Hey Broadsheet, come on, some balance with Google stuff. Raise the tech bar. This isn’t the Irish Times or the Sunday Business Post tech coverage PR recycling drivel. Let’s see some balance beyond the happy clappy PR sucked up by the Google Adwords invoice processors in Ringsend. These guys want to disrupt everything except themselves. Try this from today’s FT (behind paywall):

“Google pioneered the technology industry dismal trend of stripping shareholders of voting rights with its initial public offering in 2004. Now the “don’t be evil” company has added a depressing twist with its plan to add a class of non-voting shares to prevent its founders from being held accountable.

Silicon Valley companies like to boast how they change the world for the better by challenging incumbents in various industries. When it comes to being challenged themselves on how they run their businesses, however, they prefer to be entrenched.

Google set up a special committee of board members which took 15 months to agree the proposal, having “retained its own financial and legal advisers”. Unsurprisingly, at the end of this rigorous process, the independent directors did what the founders wanted.”