Yearly Archives: 2014

Tánaiste Joan Burton being heckled after she launched a Developing Breakfast Clubs report at St. Eithne’s Girls National School, Edenmore, Raheny, Dublin this morning.

Screen Shot 2014-09-22 at 09.15.13

Nama CEO Brendan McDonagh

Dublin house prices are still not high enough to attract new builders, [Nama CEO Brendan McDonagh] said, even though July figures from the Central Statistics Office showed a 23pc rise in prices across the county.

…

“People talk about why isn’t there houses being built in Dublin… The reality is, the reason they are not being built is because there really isn’t enough profit for the private investor to invest his capital into it. If prices drop, he mightn’t get his money back. So I think prices will continue to correct.

…

The chief executive of the bad debt agency added that price rises have meant some properties earmarked for social housing have instead been sold.

Nama made 5,500 units under its control available to the Department of the Environment and Housing Agency, so that they could be used for social housing purposes, in an attempt to address the massive shortage of available properties for people on the housing register.

But just 2,000 of these were accepted, in part because price rises have taken many apartments out of negative equity, allowing debtors to sell them.

House price rises needed to ease homes shortage: Nama chief (Sarah McCabe, Sunday Independent)

Meanwhile, also in the Sunday Independent…

Screen Shot 2014-09-22 at 09.20.24Screen Shot 2014-09-22 at 09.20.42

 

Well healed, eh?

 

Illustrated-Guide-to-Dogs-of-the-World-7Screen Shot 2014-09-19 at 00.38.59Illustrated-Guide-to-Dogs-of-the-World-1 5Illustrated-Guide-to-Dogs-of-the-World-9 Illustrated-Guide-to-Dogs-of-the-World-10 Illustrated-Guide-to-Dogs-of-the-World
From LA-based artist and animator Lili Chin’s Dogs Of The World series – a project started in 2008 to help fund the Boston Buddies dog charity. for whom she’s already raised over $13,000 with 800 portraits.

View the rest here.

designtaxi

stay

ethos

 

From yesterday’s Sunday Times, Justine McCarthy wrote about the Children’s Ombudsman’s report on alleged physical and sexual abuse at a Co. Kilkenny primary school.

In March 2011, the administration office for the [Stay Safe] programme told the ombudsman’s office it had not provided training at the school since 1993.

The school’s child-abuse prevention policy, which was reviewed in March 2002 and applied at the time of the alleged abuse states: “The Stay Safe programme has been approved by the board of management as a teacher’s aid to be used in accordance with the Catholic ethos which demands that the law of God and of the church, and not the child’s feelings, be the guiding principle.”

In 2006, the year the abuse allegations began, a questionnaire was sent to all schools to determine how Stay Safe was being implemented. Had there been any difficulties in implementing it? The school replied “yes”, saying it had “examined it and use only what staff, parents and board deem suitable to [their] ethos“.

There you go now.

Complete Failure (Justine McCarthy, Sunday Times) [behind paywall]