Yearly Archives: 2017

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and UK Prime Minister Theresa May at Number 10, Downing Street, London last month

The Irish Times reports:

Free movement from the European Union into Britain will end in March 2019, Downing Street has said.

… international trade secretary and vocal Brexiteer Liam Fox said unregulated free movement of labour after Brexit would “not keep faith” with the EU referendum result and that the cabinet had not agreed a stance on immigration.

…“The prime minister’s position on an implementation period is very clear and well-known,” he said.

“Free movement will end in March 2019. We have published proposals on citizens’ rights. Last week, the Home Secretary said there will be a registration system for migrants arriving post-March 2019.

“Other elements of the post-Brexit immigration system will be brought forward in due course. It would be wrong to speculate on what these might look like or to suggest that free movement will continue as it is now.”

Free movement between EU and Britain ‘to end’ in March 2019 (The Irish Times)

At the Forty Foot in Dun Laoghaire 

A Facebook group, entitled Protect Our Seas, Ditch The Drills at The Forty Foot, writes:

On July 11th 2017, the Irish government gave consent to Providence Resources to begin drilling for oil and gas in the Porcupine Basin off the south-west coast of Ireland.

The same company are now preparing for a submission for a licence which will allow them to start drilling in the Kish Bank of Dublin Bay, barely kilometres away from The Forty Foot.

This drilling would have serious effects on greenhouse gas emissions, water quality and Irish marine life. We have to stand in solidarity with our friends in Cork and Kerry to stop this rogue company before it builds up momentum and turns its oil rigs to Dublin Bay.

Join us on [Sunday] August 6th as we take action at the Forty Foot coinciding with action in Cork to tell our government that this is not acceptable – not here, not anywhere!

A petition against oil or gas drilling off the Irish coast can be signed here

Protect Our Seas, Ditch The Drills at The Forty Foot (Facebook)

Related: Forty Foot ‘next in line’ for oil exploration, claims Senator (The Irish Times, July 19, 2017)

Rollingnews

Frank Connolly

Yesterday.

In the Sunday Business Post.

It was reported that a book by investigative journalist Frank Connolly, called Nama-land, will be published by Gill & Macmillan in October.

Tom Lyons reported:

A book to be published in October is expected to contain significant revelations concerning the operations of Nama and the manner in which its disposal of public assets has transformed property ownership and created a new elite in Ireland.

Written by investigative journalist Frank Connolly, Nama-land details events from the establishment of the ‘bad bank’ in 2009 and its management and subsequent sale of huge property portfolios, mainly to US vulture funds over recent years. It examines how the process has enriched international investors and their local agents against the background of a deepening housing and mortgage crisis.

It also looks at the role of key players in politics and business, North and South, including in the controversial sale by Nama of its Northern Ireland portfolio, Project Eagle, to US fund Cerberus in 2014.

“I hope it will get behind what has been something of a veil of secrecy surrounding the operations of Nama and the largest disposal of public assets in the history of the state. It is based on research, facts and investigative journalism and will be published in October,” Connolly said.

Book to lift lid on Nama’s operations and their fallout (The Sunday Business Post)

Rollingnews

Yesterday.

On the same day that Sunday Times columnist Kevin Myers’ article was removed from the Sunday Times website, an apology was issued and it was announced that Mr Myers will not write for the newspaper again…

Rabbi Julia Neuberger and Sunday Times columnist, Kevin Myers, sit next to each other at the West Cork History Festival in Skibbereen.

Eek.

Via Jackie Keogh

Meanwhile…

Yikes.

Meanwhile…

Readers may wish to note the apologies issued yesterday by Martin Ivens, editor of The Sunday Times; and Frank Fitzgibbon, editor of the Irish edition of The Sunday Times, following the publication, and subsequent removal of Kevin Myers’ article…

Via Miqdaad Versi

Previously: Kevin’s Gate

Saturday.

Dame Street, Dublin 2

Pro Choice protester Clare Woods (above right) joins a counter protest against a street exhibition by the Irish Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

The Irish Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform is a group “working to establish prenatal & reproductive justice and the right to life for the preborn”.

Irish Centre For Bio-Ethical Reform (Facebook)

Sam Boal/Rollingnews