Irish Language Commissioner Seán Ó Cuirreáin (above) has announced that he is resigning from his position, citing concerns about the lack of progress in ensuring that Irish speakers can deal with the State in Irish.
He said his decision was a result of the State’s lack of commitment to the protection of Irish speakers’ rights.
Troid!
(RTE)
A blast of Co Kerry-based post-rock.
Oscar B writes:
A great bunch of lads from Tralee , know how to put on a show…
Also: A young Nidge-a-like on bass anyone?
Once or twice a year, but almost never with the clear sky backdrop pictured here (last Friday), a temperature inversion phenomenon appears to fill Arizona’s Grand Canyon to the brim with fog – cool air trapped at the bottom of the canyon, held in place by a layer of warm air above, creating low level clouds.
(Video: Paul Lettieri. Pix: Erin Whittaker, Ben Mayberry)
{Monday’s Irish Times]
Philip O’Connor writes:
The latest Irish Times piece backing up Joan Burton and her soft-focus attempt to come across as some sort of benign Irish Thatcher as she cracks down on “welfare tourism” is breathless in its promise, giving us a statistic that “one case has been detected every four days.”
It then goes on to produce Burton’s most fantastic, and transparently made-up, claim.
Welfare inspectors at ports and airports discovered 122 cases in the past 18 months, saving the State €1.35m as a result, Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton said.
Firstly, “discovering” one case every four days is entirely irrelevant, as you’ll soon find out. And the €1.35 million in savings is based on “estimates (of) future payments the welfare recipients would have received if they were not detected,” according to the Department.
That is to say – in Anglo parlance – that the Department “pulled the figure out of their arse.” They stuck their finger in the air and put 122 cases together, and came up with €1.35 million out of nowhere.
By this point most readers would have headed on over to theJournal.ie to engage in a flurry of comments about ne’er-do-wells too lazy to work.
A shame, because if they read further they’d discover that the 122 cases led to a whopping FIVE prosecutions.
And the concrete, non-pulled-out-of-the-arse figure for money recovered by the state? €54,000, or an average of around €11,000, give or take a claimable ministerial expense.
That can hardly be a sum Burton considers huge, given that she pays her “special adviser” €35,796 (or the tangible equivalent of three fraudulent social welfare claims) as a top-up to the €92,000 they are supposedly restricted to.
There is a widespread belief, fostered by successive governments, that Ireland’s real enemies are the handful of crooks (and the fact that there have been only five prosecutions shows it’s truly a handful) that check in, sign on and fly out. Those doing the real damage are those who fly into Ireland with a laptop bag, not a holdall.
Windy Arbour, Dundrum, Co Dublin this evening
Thanks Robbie Loughlin
(Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland)
Day 2 of our deadly-ish Deadly Christmas Jumper giveaway worth €40.
Deadly Christmas Jumpers are based at 16 Nassau Street, Dublin and produce a wide and varied range of humorous and ironic traditional Xmas knitwear.
To win today’s sweater (above), please complete this sentence
Give me the deadly Christmas jumper as my gift giving ratio this year will be_____[example 3:2]
Lines close at 5.15pm 5.45pm
Thanks Gemma
Winner update:
Condor: Give me the deadly Christmas jumper as my gift giving ratio this year will be 3:16 for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son a pair of socks.
Thanks all.
Another jumper giveaway tomorrow at 4pm.
Sandymount, Clontarf, Dublin this evening.
Via Ruairi McKiernan
A mere sample from the trove of truncated treasure that is Book-A-Minute Classics.
Go there now. You may be some time.
DON’T WORRY EVERYONE: I’ve improved that Nigella picture for you pic.twitter.com/HJrB2YqCO6
— Stuart Heritage (@stuheritage) December 4, 2013
Really?
No really?
Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan responding today to The Smithwick Tribunal findings of Garda collusion with the IRA in the death of two RUC officers in 1989.
Really?
Update:
Been listening to the Garda Commissioner all day 'accept fully' the findings of #Smithwick and then reject it piece by piece
— Chris Donoghue (@chrisrdonoghue) December 4, 2013
Earlier: “There Was No Way They Were Going To Get Back”