Yearly Archives: 2016

Staying In Tomorrow Night?

Admin at 1:15 pm March 10, 2016

From top: Hozier and recently retired RTÉ reporter Valerie Cox

Gareth Naughton writes:

Hozier will be in studio to chat about his global success, what the last two years have been like and what’s next as he prepares for that difficult second album. And we’ll have his biggest fans in studio to get answers to the questions they’ve always been dying to ask.

In the week that specialists at Tallaght Hospital identified injuries in teenage players normally associated with violent trauma, The Late Late Show will be hearing from rugby pundit George Hook on his own concerns about the effect of rugby becoming an increasingly higher impact game.

As he finds himself embroiled in controversy around his views on concussion in the game and Ireland out-half Johnny Sexton, Hook will be giving his very frank views on how extensive the problem really is and telling viewers why he believes the rugby authorities are sticking their heads in the sand rather than confronting it.

As much-loved veteran radio reporter Valerie Cox retires, she joins Ryan to talk about her stellar career and how a recent visit to the Greek island of Kos to cover the refugee crisis for a television documentary shook her to her core and convinced her that Ireland is shirking its responsibilities.

We’ll be hearing from Simon Weston who became an iconic symbol of the terrible impact of war when he suffered severe burns to his face after his ship was bombed during the Falklands War. Funnyman Reginald D Hunter will talk about making it big as a US stand-up on this side of the Atlantic.

FIGHT!

Meanwhile, Outside The Dáil

Admin at 1:15 pm March 10, 2016

Kildare Street, Dublin 2

Kerry TDs Michael Healy Rae and Danny Healy Rae arrive with entourage at Leinster House.

Eamonn Farrell/Rollingnews

Separately…

Samantha Libreri tweetz:

Around 500 people are taking part in a water protest outside the Dáil and Kildare Street is closed to traffic.

Rollingnews

First Day At School

Admin at 1:00 pm March 10, 2016

From top: Leinster House this morning Dan Boyle

The opening of a new Dáil today contains the possibility of real change.

Dan Boyle writes:

Unlike the Mother of Parliaments, from which we have inherited many unnecessary and often silly procedures, the opening of our parliament lacks the pompous pageantry in which Westminster seems to revel.

The opening of a new Dáil is more like an All Ireland final day. Crowds of supporters there to support their team. Knowing glances and nods being cast in the direction of those famous players from previous championship finals. Those most known for their fouling seeming to be granted a perverse level of respect.

On my first day my Mother found herself in the visitors’ gallery sat next to Gerry Adams. Then he was still member of parliament and assembly member for West Belfast.

He began the dialogue. “You have someone here belonging to you Ma’am?,” he burred as if he were an Irish Clint Eastwood. She replied with appropriate maternal pride that it was I, Dan Boyle of the Green Party. The conversation, having been polite, friendly even, didn’t continue beyond that exchange.Retrospectively I would have liked The Ma to have reached the question “What was it like in the IRA, Gerry?,” .

The business of the first day of The Dáil is a number of set pieces interspersed with long periods of nothing happening. The election of the Ceann Comhairle, followed by the election of Taoiseach, is followed by the Taoiseach presenting his (it has always been his) government to the house.

There has rarely been any uncertainty in relation to any of this. The changes that could have been made have been studiously avoided. The opening of this new Dáil contains that doubt, a doubt that probably hasn’t existed since 1948. This uncertainty may mean that real change can at last happen.

Let’s hope so. It would be nice to see all TDs being truly equal. A Ceann Comhairle who insists that members of the Executive give answers to questions asked not mere responses.

A parliament where legislation drafted is informed by the contributions of each member who speaks in debates, and who when offering amendment to the legislation will only be impeded by the quality of the argument they make.

Committees would see research and pertinent questioning being rewarded, with grandstanding being derided as the loudest sound from the emptiest vessel exercise it is. We may even see senior civil servants emerge from the shadows to have accountability applied to them for their role in the decision making process.

Public appointments would be made through reformed committees, where applied experience rather than implied patronage would see the right, or at least more properly accountable, people being appointed.

In 2002, on our first day, Eamon Ryan and I shared the last four minutes of speaking time. My garbled two minutes were an attempt at revisiting The Gettysburg Address. I made the reference to government of the people, by the people, for the people.

We may be closer to that goal than we ever have been in our history. Then again we may not.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

Top pic via Samantha Libreri

Unbefitting The Office Of President

Admin at 12:50 pm March 10, 2016

Unpresidential hopefuls by illustrator Chris Piascik.

More of this work here.

quipsologies

Trade Off

Niall Murphy at 12:44 pm March 10, 2016

moderntoss

Contradictions And Refusals

Admin at 12:06 pm March 10, 2016

Chairman of NAMA Frank Daly and Finance Minister Michael Noonan

You may recall the sale of Nama’s property loan portfolio in Northern Ireland – the biggest loss on a Nama loan sale for Irish taxpayers.

The sale is now the subject of investigation by the National Crime Agency in the UK and the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US.

You may also recall how Stormont’s Committee for Finance and Personnel carried out a ‘fact-finding’ review of the sale for eight months.

Publication of an 18-page report on the progress of this review was embargoed until just after midnight this morning.

It criticised Nama and Finance Minister Michael Noonan – specifically for Nama refusing to give oral evidence to the committee; for Minister Noonan not encouraging Nama to give the same; and for Minister Noonan not stopping the sale of the Northern Ireland portfolio once he became aware that bidders PIMCO were due to send a sum of money to Northern Ireland Nama advisor, Frank Cushnahan.

From the report…

For its part, DFP [Department of Finance and Personnel] provided initial oral evidence and papers on 23 July 2015, but subsequently delayed providing further evidence until 9 October 2015, after it had concluded an internal file review and engaged with the NCA.

NAMA, on the other hand, while agreeing to answer questions in writing, refused to give oral evidence. The reason cited by NAMA is that the appropriate forum to which it should account for its activities is the Oireachtas and to committees established by the Oireachtas.

While the Committee does not dispute this point, it believes greater co-operation from NAMA would have assisted it in fully understanding the DFP-NAMA relationship since 2009.

And:

As with the oral and written evidence received from the other stakeholders, including the documents received from the Republic of Ireland’s (RoI) Department of Finance and NAMA, the Committee placed the DFP papers in the public domain, except for seventeen documents relating to individual borrowers.

In this latter case, DFP cited data protection and commercial sensitivity concerns for its request that the documents were not to be released. The Committee, however, took legal advice on this matter and continues to pursue the issue with DFP.

And:

In addition to the aforementioned evidence gathering exercise, the Committee accepted an invite from the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to make a formal address on the progress of the review. This invitation was made in light of the respective committee inquiries into the Project Eagle sale.

During the address on 1 October 2015, the Chairperson also took the opportunity to point out that there was an increased onus on NAMA to appear before the Committee, even simply out of courtesy and respect for the institutions in Northern Ireland.

And:

The Committee notes with regret the decision of the NAMA Board not to suspend the Project Eagle sales process once PIMCO had disclosed to the Agency in March 2014 that PIMCO’s proposed fee arrangement with the Brown Rudnick international law firm included also the payment of fees to Tughans, a Belfast law firm, and to a former external member of NAMA NIAC. From the evidence to date, the Committee considers this development to be a core area of concern within the entire sale and purchase process. The need for further information and clarification in this regard underlines the case for NAMA attending an oral hearing of the Committee.

Whilst it is does not fall to this Committee to pursue, given the seriousness of the revelation by PIMCO, it is unclear why the Irish Government’s Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan, did not intervene at this point, by exercising his general powers of direction over NAMA to suspend the sales process until matters were investigated fully. The Committee also notes that Minister Noonan did not inform the Northern Ireland Executive of this development. In addition, the Committee regrets that Minister Noonan did not encourage NAMA to attend an oral hearing of the Committee.

And:

The Committee established that NAMA ‘…had no knowledge of meetings between Mr Cushnahan and prospective purchasers of NAMA-secured assets in Northern Ireland…’ including whilst he was on the NAMA NIAC. This is deeply concerning to the Committee.

And:

The Committee also noted from the BBC (NI) Spotlight programme that the other former external member of the NAMA NIAC, Mr Brian Rowntree, stated that the NIAC members had access to information which was of a ‘commercially sensitive nature’ and which offered ‘commercial opportunity’ and would have been of some value to a bidder for Project Eagle.

This is of particular significance as it appears to contradict the position adopted by NAMA to date. For example, in written evidence to the Committee on 27 November 2015, NAMA stated that the external members of the NAMA NIAC ‘never had access to confidential information’. Furthermore, in evidence to the Dáil PAC on 9 July 2015, the NAMA Chairman, Mr Frank Daly, stated that the external members of the NAMA NIAC ‘did not gain any confidential information or any useful insider information from being a member of that advisory committee’.

Therefore, given these seemingly contradictory positions, the Committee recommends that a full examination is made of what precisely was discussed at the NAMA NIAC meetings and what information was shared with the NIAC members.

And:

The Committee found the refusal of NAMA to attend an oral evidence session particularly unhelpful. NAMA needed to be more open and accessible given the importance of the Project Eagle portfolio to the Northern Ireland economy. The Committee does not accept NAMA’s rationale for not attending an oral hearing of the Committee, especially given that Agency representatives have previously held many meetings with Ministers and officials in Northern Ireland.

Read the report in full here

Previously: Spotlight Falls On Noonan

Mark Stedman/Rollingnews

H/T: Namawinelake