Yearly Archives: 2014

PArlon[Tom Parlon of the Construction Industry Federation]

The head of the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) says house prices need to increase in order for the building of residential properties to become more cost effective.

Tom Parlon says it’s currently not viable to build a house for the price they are selling at.

The comments come following the release of figures today which show that the number of planning applications and new builds are down on 2013 levels.

House prices ‘need to increase’, says CIF head (Breaking News)

Previously: The Minsky Cycle And You

DublniBus

Gary Ó’Nualláin tweetz:

€3.05 single fare for this? Dublin Bus really is a disgrace. This is what happens when you allow one company a monopoly.

UPDATE: Photograph was posted on Spotted On Dublin Bus Facebook page yesterday.

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Aldi’s Australian t-shirt range.

Mark Geary writes:

Australia Day is on January 26th each year, the date in 1788, when the ‘First Fleet”” arrived in Sydney. Aldi has been forced to pull a T-shirt which says Australia was “established” in 1788…

Aldi pulls ‘Australia Est. 1788’ shirts (The Age)

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[Pat Cox, Chairman of Limerick City of Culture with former CEO Patricia Ryan]

Fintan O’Toole writes:

The City of Culture process has been casually insulting to artists. The 10-person board has just one professional artist – and, incidentally, just one woman – on it.
I can think offhand of a long list of really interesting artists who are either from Limerick or have worked in the city – Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, Mary Nunan, Mel Mercier, Michael Curtin, Clairr O’Connor, Gerard Stembridge, Darren Shan, Gabriel Rosenstock, John Liddy, Marian Keyes, Mary Coll, Amanda Coogan and many more. If some time had been spent talking to them, they might have pointed out that they do not wish to be called (as the official City of Culture “vision” calls artists) “cultural providers” who “export Limerick Cultural Product” as if it were bacon.
“…we now have a perfect warning of what happens when politicians and bureaucrats try to use the arts without respecting them. Irish artists are much better at doing their jobs than Irish politicians and administrators are at doing theirs. If they spent more time with books, music and performances, politicians might learn something about rigorous thinking.”

The idea that art and culture are about rebranding is an insult to artists (Fintan O’Toole, irish Times)

Previously: Cultured Question

(RTE)

90278424[Mary McAleese at the launch of Quo Vadis,  in 2012]

“I don’t like my Church’s attitude to gay people. I don’t like ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’. If you are the so-called sinner, who likes to be called that? We also know that within the priesthood a very large number of priests are gay.”

[ Speaking during a lecture at the Royal Society of Edinburgh] Mrs McAleese said she studied suicide among young Irish males, many of them gay Catholics who grew up being told their sexuality was “intrinsically disordered” and “evil”.

When she took this research to the new papal nuncio in Dublin she was surprised by his response.

She said she was asked: “What do you want me to do? Do you want us to turn our back on tradition?” Her answer was: “Yes, if it’s wrong.”

“Things written by [former Pope] Benedict, for example, were completely contradictory to modern science and to modern understanding, and to the understanding of most Catholics nowadays in relation to homosexuality.”

“Nowadays, it is not something that is perceived as something that is intrinsically disordered. Homosexual conduct is not seen as evil.”

Mrs McAleese drew a ­comparison with the Church’s attitude to Jews. It took almost two millennia formally to revise the “Christ-killer” slander which had been repeated down the decades.

FIGHT!

Shamed Cardinal urged to tell life story by former Irish leader (Glasgow Herald)

Former president Mary McAleese criticises church’s stance on gays (Mark Hennessy and Patsy McGarry Irish Times)

(Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland)