MORE to folly.
Yearly Archives: 2016
This afternoon.
Camden Town, London.
Damn you, blood-soaked anglophile matryoshka doll.
Thanks Cha
A report by Paul Sweeney, of TASC, in December
Paul Sweeney writes:
The leak in [yesterday’s] Irish Times that the Taoiseach has written to Mr Juncker, President of the EU Commisson, on the need for greater investment in Ireland is welcome, but appears somewhat disingeneous.
His letter appears to quote the report published by TASC last December which ponted out that Ireland’s level of investment was at its lowest level ever and was the lowest in the Union.
Mr Kenny said investment in infrastructure in Ireland was at its “lowest level for many years, and also represents the lowest level of any member state at present” – the two points emphasised by TASC.
That Mr Kenny has now recognised this is welcome, but it was his government which set out the investment plan last autumn which proposed to cut investment even lower than the lowest level ever, from 1.8% of GDP in 2013 to 1.7% in 2016.
…So has Mr Kenny finally woken up to the need for greater direct public investment? For example, is he seeking permission from Europe to directly invest some of the banks’ proceeds in Ireland, instead of making the error of using them to accellerate repayment of the national debt?
It seems not. He appears to be looking for new ways of avoiding direct public investment and to increase private investment in public infrastructure. It seems he wants leeway to have more Public Private Partnerships, even though they cost more in the long run and take much longer to execute, than direct public funding.
“Mr Kenny said he felt sufficiently concerned about how Eurostat was classifying public-private partnerships – widely used to fund infrastructural projects – that he felt the need to ‘raise the matter at the highest political level’”, according to the Irish Times.
But he also said, “We are also acutely conscious of the constraints and obligations of the fiscal rules, and the need to broaden sources of investment as widely as possible within those constraints and obligations.”
Clearly using some of the bank proceeds for investment is not even being discussed. The flavour still is “broader sources of finance.”
Taoiseach appears to seek Increased Public Investment, as does OECD (TASC)
Kenny concerned by hazard posed from EU investment rules (Irish Times, June 13, 2016)
H/T: Rory Hearne
https://vimeo.com/169187915
The already trippy 2001: A Space Odyssey interpreted as a Picasso painting by Bhautik Joshi, using Google’s pareidolic neural network Deep Dream.
He’s also done Vincent Van Gogh’s Blade Runner and this nightmarish Donald Trumpery
Terry Dignan’s car insurance has risen from €470 to €886 in just four years. Let me advise Mr Dignan that this is not despite his being 13 years with the same insurer, but because of it.
From first-hand experience of writing premium calculation software for the motor and home insurance industry, I can assure him and all your readers that there’s an in-built “inertia penalty” for such customers.
As a general rule of thumb, if at renewal time a private motorist is obtaining fewer than five quotes – including at least one via a broker – then he or she is almost certainly throwing away money.
Coincidentally, I too have been driving for 25 years with no claims. The difference is that I’ve never used the same underwriter for more than three years in a row.
Mr Dignan is, of course, still right that the Government should take a close look at the industry.
R Scanlan,
Leopardstown,
Dublin 18.
FIGHT!
The cost of motor insurance (The Irish Times letters page)
Previously: ‘There Is A Cartel Of Insurance Underwriters’
Taoiseach tells #Dáil he will bring a memo to cabinet next week, to initiate Citizens’ Assembly to deal with abortion issue
— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) June 14, 2016
Taoiseach says if a referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment on aboriton, was held in October, it would not be passed in his view
— Mary Regan (@MaryERegan) June 14, 2016
Previously: Not Going Away
Pic: Oireachtas.ie
Stop That
at
‘sup?
This afternoon.
Rubber-limbed Elaine McCague, of Loosysmokes,, actor Stephen Rea and fiddler Martin Hayes at the launch of the programme for the 2016 Kilkenny Arts Festival [August 5-14} comprising “ten days of artistic adventures in Ireland’s medieval city”.
As a centrepiece of the festival, Stephen will read Seamus Heaney’s translation of Virgil’s Aeneid Book VI, with live soundscape by cellist Neil Martin, and also recite extracts from the poem in Dunmore Cave.
Virgil on the ridiculous.
Eh?
Suit yourselves.
Leon Farrell/Rollingnews
Smileage
at
From top: Leinster House car park; travel costing guidlnes
Further to Frank O Rourke TD and his ‘mileage of shame‘
Expenses sleuth Ken Foxe writes
Twelve TDs are each being paid over €25,000 in travel expenses per year despite living within a 60 kilometre radius of their place of work…
the TDs are paid a tax-free sum of €25,295 each to cover the cost of their travel and accommodation.
That allowance is calculated on the basis of 150 overnights paid at civil service rates according to a statement from the Department of Public Expenditure (which makes up around 60% of the annual payment).
The only ones who don’t get the accommodation element included are the Dublin TDs.
The rest of the €25k-a-year allowance is based on travel to and from work, and whatever additional travel they undertake in their constituency or nationally as TDs.
In the latest publication of Dáil expenses for April, they are all listed as being in receipt of €3,803.75, which includes their monthly travel and accommodation of €2,107 and a separate payment to cover the costs of public representation.
Previously: The Mileage Of Shame
This afternoon.
Dublin 7.
Simon Geraghty writes:
Flash flooding in Cabra. Fluichin’ ell!
No need for the language.
Meanwhile, in Athlone…
Yikes.
Thanks Ronan Emmett
Darth Blender creates the inevitable Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – Deadpool mashup you’ve been waiting for since Deadpool did that thing with the end credits.