58 thoughts on “De Friday Papers

    1. SOQ

      I think you are being a bit judgemental there Catherine. There are plenty of reasons why someone cannot be cared for at home- but they are still loved. Advanced dementia requires 24/7 care in a secure environment which very few if any can provide.

      But, if this is in reference to Johnson- his comments were about inheritance, not care, The only time the state will go after a home is if no one else is living there. Why should others be paying for such when the family can well afford to pay for it privately?

    2. Spaghetti Hoop

      Condolences. But for clarification, are you suggesting that residents receive no love or care while in the home – or that their families display none because they arranged the care and transfer?

  1. Charger Salmons

    Hello Ireland.
    Welcome to your new leader.
    The one you elected without opposition.

    “I will make use of the clauses in the Treaties that allow proposals on taxation to be adopted by co-decision and decided by qualified majority voting in the Council.

    https://twitter.com/EU_Taxud/status/1151465268062957568

    Don’t say you weren’t warned.
    Heh,heh,heh.

    1. eoin

      “I will ensure that taxation of big tech companies is a priority. I will work hard to ensure the proposals currently on the table are turned into law.”

      Yep, she is attacking Ireland’s tax brand, but she’ll face obstacles with tax sovereignty and in any event, to the extent Ireland controls taxation, we’ll defend it to the last. We’ve shown that.

      1. GiggidyGoo

        Much as I’d like to agree Eoin, this is the first time it’s been said that the clauses will be made use of. Up to now it was the odd hint or threat by Germany and France. It has been easy for Noonan and Donohue to brush it off.
        The above is not a threat. It’s a statement of intent. “Passerelle Clauses” as someone mentioned in the replies, which were put into the Lisbon Treaty (where we were sent back to give the right answer in a second referendum) are worrying.

        1. Charger Salmons

          Obviously these worrying statements of intent published two days ago have been thoroughly aired and discussed by the Irish media.
          Has the Irish Times taken time off from its incessant Brit-bashing to actually report on something negative involving the EU ?
          Has RTE’s Tony Connolly been reporting breathlessly from Brussels about the threat facing Ireland ?
          Or is his nose still firmly wedged up his EU minder’s backside ?
          This country is badly served by its myopic media.

          1. Janet, I ate my avatar

            I have a theory that Salmon is actually an unhinged Nationalist hell-bent on using reverse psychology to goad us into feelings of patriotic pride

          2. B9Com From No

            Either that or a failed “comedian” working on a new show.

            Maybe he’s just like our US American diaspora thinks the donation into the NORAID bucket votes to the fight for the Irish freedom?

          3. Papi

            Charge is the internet equivalent of someone who has a terrible home life and goes to school to beat up other kids.

        2. SOQ

          So if the EU is so hell bent on standardising tax across all member states then why has France just passed a 3% tax on annual revenue for digital services from the likes of Facebook and Google?

    2. dav

      the irony coming from the purveyor of unicorns and stardust..
      https://qz.com/1644202/who-are-the-160000-conservatives-picking-the-next-uk-prime-minister/
      “..The project’s research has found that Conservative party members are markedly less diverse than the UK population. Some 97% of the party’s members are white—compared to 86% of the UK population—according to the project’s Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary. That’s not all that different from other UK parties, whose members are over 95% white, Bale explains.

      Tory party members are also older than the average member of other parties—most are above 55, and nearly 40% are above 66 years of age. Apart from the Liberal Democrats, they are the most likely to be middle class—and one in 20 members makes over £100,000 ($125,000) a year. Seven in ten are men, compared to the overall population, which is 51% female and 49% male.”

      1. Charger Salmons

        Remind us again of the social background and percentage of the population of the people who voted for Varadkar as Taoiseach ?

        1. dav

          oh sweetie, leo was voted by wannabe thatcherites who are as much deserving with distain as your tory masters..

          1. Charger Salmons

            Precisely.
            While you’re at it perhaps you might also explore the idea that the interests of the population in matters of financial oversight and political accountability are not best served by there being no effective opposition.

          2. dav

            I’d might suggest you’d explore the impact of a no deal brexit and implantation of border posts on the Good Friday Agreement and the subsequent peace process but I think we both know that you and your ilk don’t really care..

          3. Charger Salmons

            You obviously haven’t been following my posts for the past three years.
            Of course it can be difficult doing this during school hours but surely you could have found time in between doing your homework and going on the Xbox ?

    3. B9Com From No

      About fupping time

      As others note we will fight it tooth and nail like the good little sycophants we are, then as with Mercosur, one of ours will be bribed or co-opted into the negotiating team, then a few years later it’s just announced – as a fait accompli.

      But so what? Why should farmers or a few multinationals dictate our tax policy anyway? I’d be much happier with the EU dictating it as we might eventually get to an equivalence in terms of public service provisions and basic rights for all citizens. No one needs your dystopian vampire squid capitalism

  2. eoin

    Where is Lisa Smyth? She’s in a refugee camp says the media. So, she’s free to go? Nope. She’s being held by a group called the “Syrian Defence Forces” (SDF), a ragtag military grouping with some backing from the US, France. This isn’t a refugee camp, it’s a detention camp while the SDF decides what to do with its captives. Some are being sent (“sold” according to some) to Iraq where they face harsh conditions including torture (“Palestinian suspension”, “parrot perch” and suspension by the wrists are common) and punishment for the activities of the group known as Islamic State. The Al Hawl camp is, according to some, a hotbed of pro-Islamic State militantism because the captives were all captured in Islamic State territory, and in many cases, they’re suspected of being militarily or familially involved with IS. Lisa Smyth says she wasn’t militarily involved, others say they’re “absolutely positive” she was training fighters and you don’t need to speak Arabic to show someone how to use a gun. Even Lisa Smyth herself says she wants to see a caliphate, that is, land governed according to a strict version of Islam. At the very least, she says she was married to an IS fighter and has a child by him. The SDF is currently considering moving 2,000 captives to Iraq for prosecution. Lisa Smyth will likely be one of them. Very little of this is being reported in the Irish media.

    Let her off to face justice in Iraq. Her child is another orphan of war and there are 100,000+ in Syria, northern Iraq.

    1. ReproBertie

      Irish media is pretty consistent in saying she is being detained. I’ve seen no suggestion that she’s free to leave but then I don’t read the tabloids. That said, the IDM above even says “where she is being held”.

      1. eoin

        Refugees in refugee camps are free to leave, it’s just they have nowhere to go and they get food, medicine, shelter and protection in a refugee camp. Lisa Smyth is not in a refugee camp, she’s not free to go, there’s wire fences around the camp, a la German PoW camp. Which Irish media has reported who’s detaining her and what their plans are? Has any Irish media spoken to the detention camp commander? Has any Irish media reported on the transfer of detainees to Iraq? Course not, that might clear up some confusion and that isn’t a role our brave media embraces.

        1. ReproBertie

          Has any Irish media reported that she is free to leave? Or have they all said she is either “being held” or “detained”? On Six One yesterday RTÉ were very specific that she is not free to leave.

    2. B9Com From No

      Completely agree about the reporting Eoin and thanks for the additional information in your post. But you’ve again gone straight for the pitchfork , do steady on, old chap.

      While she clearly doesn’t have the media training or concerted campaign behind her like that ex-guard you love, her agenda is no less obvious.

      A military “analyst” on the Telly last night confirmed that at one stage it was considered possible for the Connacht Rangers to go in and extricate her, and added that as an Irish citizen who got into “trouble “ abroad, the precedent would be for the state to go and get her out, as there is no evidence to support the claims of her training militants, likely none that could be obtained, or in any case, there’s no law in Ireland against joining ISIS

  3. bertie blenkinsop

    That Angela Merkel flag was funny at the time but bringing it to your wedding reminds me of when Bart Simpson was the “I didn’t do it kid”

    1. Spaghetti Hoop

      It made national news yesterday and today’s prime-time bulletins! But Bert, oh soccer trivia man, weren’t the North Korean (or hired Chinese) fans first at the 2010 WC with the phrase of ‘Kim-Jong -il thinks we’re at work’?

    2. B9Com From No

      I noted the wife’s surname is German!
      Do you think he chatted her up with this banner?

    3. V

      True
      But you know what Bert
      It’s the only nice thing in those papers today

      ISIS Bride – and Irish citizen – who might be sent to Iraq for torture- fecking torture
      Boris, and whatever tis he’s on about today
      Trump – always a bad sign
      Army Pay – always a downer
      Pilots Strike in holiday season – as if the weather here in JULY FFS wasn’t tough enough without the fear of being stuck in it when you should be in Majorca
      McIiroy in another meltdown
      Baby agony

      And the villa is haunted

      C’mon
      Let the groom off for getting another day out with his flag and his five minutes

      1. Bertie Theodore Alphege Blenkinsop

        Ah Clampers has a lovely story about waiting for his wife to come out of prison (reading between the lines) on the Nicks Tix thread :)

  4. eoin

    Sorry, forget which commenter mentioned the circulation figures for the Irish Daily Mail during the week, but yesterday, the circulation figures for all British newspapers in Ireland in June 2019 were published. The Irish Daily Mail has circulation of around 27,000 a day. Circulation for all British papers is down 11% in the year, and the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday are following the market. Funnily enough, there was no real impact on the Times Ireland which stopped its print issue on 21 June.

    http://www.ilevel.ie/media-blog/print/abc-irish-newspaper-circulation-june-2019/

  5. eoin

    A day after the Irish Times had a 1/4 front page ad for BAM, the Dutch construction business which is the lead builder at the National Childrens Hospital, the “most expensive” hospital in the world, the paper today gives a platform to the CEO of BAM, who tells us how it is. There’s even a nice upward angled pic of the hands-folded Theo. You couldn’t get a more tushy licking article if you tried. And if BAM were such experts, why has the cost of the NCH increased 100%+.

    Remember this is believed to be the business that Leo was talking about when he said “there are one or two contractors who, quite frankly, I would not like to see get a public contract again in this State” In response to that, BAM issued Leo with a 2-hour ultimatum to clarify he wasn’t talking about BAM, but Leo ignored them. Since then, Leo has been visited by the Dutch royals who probably leaned on him because BAM is formally called “Royal BAM Groep”.

    1. B9Com From No

      Probably

      They’re also probably one of the few large contractors capable of delivering such a large and complex project of this scale, without going bust.

      Carillion, anyone?

      They also delivered the new motorway yesterday

    2. SOQ

      If I asked you to build me a house and it turns out the Quantity Surveyor never bothered even visiting the site and architect didn’t know his ass from his elbow- how is that your fault? Pretty certain BAM are on solid legal ground with NCH- otherwise they would have been challenged long before now.

        1. Charger Salmons

          Probably because you’re boring.
          Although being a knob as well doesn’t help your cause.

          1. B9Com From No

            Hahaha

            That’s the funniest thing you’ve ever said

            The NORAID comparison hit home I see

    1. Papi

      Yeah, you’d think you’d have learned by now, but no, just keep coming back for more, Tommy.

Comments are closed.

Sponsored Link
Broadsheet.ie