Yearly Archives: 2013

Vat2

 

 

Fair play though, in fairness.

Emmys.com

Previously: Staying In Tonight?

“An Old, Old Problem”

90313813 9031381690313814  90313833 90313827(Members of the Reform Alliance –  Terence Flanagan, Billy Timmins, Lucinda Creighton, Peter Mathews, Denis Naughten, Fidelma Healy-Eames and Paul Bradford – on Saturday morning at Buswells Hotel, Dublin)

What do they want?

Your dole.

And stuff.

[Lucinda Creighton] ‘We have probably the most generous welfare system in Europe,’ which is discouraging people from seeking work, and creating

‘Of course, the welfare system is very necessary and we are all in favour of helping the needy and the vulnerable, but all reports have pointed to the distortion of our system’ she says, adding that is it ‘crazy and unfair that people can be better off on welfare than working, or that they can be restricted from working further hours, because they would lose some benefits’

As for Minister Burton’s defence of the welfare system as an ‘economic stimulus’, Creighton said that this totally misunderstands what a stimulus is. ‘You create growth by creating jobs and building companies. Welfare is sustained from taxes and we are heaping people with ever greater taxes. We have to do more to support those who are creating jobs, like SMEs and not indulge those who are content to keep people on the dole’

As for public sector salaries, Creighton believes that all increments should be frozen, across the board. ‘Anything else is acting as if the crisis hasn’t happened.’ To backslide on fixing our finances would be a major mistake and we should hold to the 3.1bn figure. She points to Latvia which entered a much harsher IMF programme a year before Ireland did but which has now come out of it, because they took all the harsh IMF medicine up-front.

 

Harsh.

Gap there for party to get 15 per cent ‘squeezed middle’ vote: Creighton (John Drennan and Eamon Delaney, Sunday Independent)

(Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)

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The more serious issue is that Kenny’s decision to duck out of yet another debate suggests weakness on his part. Unless it takes place in a forum where he is in control, the Fine Gael leader consistently declines invitations to talk about the most serious issues affecting the country. The taoiseach’s latest vow of silence is particularly unforgivable given that Seanad abolition is his own big idea; proof, apparently, that he is bold and imaginative.

The real problem, of course, is that Kenny’s handlers do not trust him to perform well on live television and he probably doesn’t trust himself either. His previous performances have been wooden, clichéd, scripted, and vulnerable to the unexpected. His collapse when debating Bertie Ahern in the 2007 general election debate, in circumstances where he should have won easily, left scars that still haven’t healed.

 

Matt Cooper writing in yesterday’s Sunday Times (behind paywall)

 

(Eamonn Farrell/Photocall Ireland)

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90313806903138079031379390313789Inside the Jessbrook Equastrian Centre, Mucklon, Co Kildare, bought by John Gilligan for his wife Geraldine, now on sale by the Criminal Assets Bureau after a 16-year legal battle with Mrs Gilligan.

Eamon writes:

This will be sold at a deflated price. Would it not be a better idea for the State to retain the facility and turn it into an international quality state of the art, all purpose leisure and educational sporting facility, dedicated to murdered journalist Veronica Guerin?

 

Jessbrook: Inside what was once John Gilligan’s €5m equestrian centre (Tom Brady, Independent.ie)

(Eamonn Farrell/Photocall Ireland)

edge2

From yesterday’s Sunday Times magazine.

The Edge on the roof of the Clarence Hotel with his cousin, Ciara Evans.

Appropriate flag is appropriate.

Previously: The Letter That Prompted A Postcard From The Edge

Have You Come Here For Forgiveness?

Pic: Eve North