✈️Big announcement in Portugal at lunchtime today. Time to fly out with the team. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/yJkjxYrTh9
— Paddy Cosgrave (@paddycosgrave) April 26, 2017
Web Summit to return to Dublin?
Anyone?/FIGHT!
Thanks Laura Gaynor
Monday: Web Crawler
Author Archives: Admin
Cork firefighter Tom Collins and friend
*swoon*
Kevin Collins writes:
In case you haven’t seen it yet, photos of a firefighter in Cork giving a rabbit some water after a gorse fire that have gone viral . The man in the picture Tom Collins is my brother, here is a message from him:
“The fire was a gorse fire on the Sheep’s Head peninsula, we were putting out the fire when the rabbit came over to us looking a bit worse for ware. We carry bottles of drinking water with us so the natural thing to do was to cool it down wish a quick wash and give it a drink. Adrian Collins (no relation), a firefighter from Skibbereen, took a couple of photos [above] on his phone.”
The rabbit, meanwhile, ran away on his merry way after a drink….
Mmf.
Pics: Adrian Collins
Yesterday: We Didn’t Start The Fire
Konnichiwa!
They’re back.
Are Ya Having That writes:
‘LeatherJacketGuy’ & ‘JohnnyBS’ try Japanese Snacks from – ‘WOWBOX‘
Miriam O’Callaghan and Rhona Mahony through the years and on last night’s Prime Time (above)
Sisters, eh?
Belinda B writes:
Was it it appropriate that Miriam O’Callaghan was chosen to interview Rhona Mahony, the Master of Holles Street [on last night’s RTÉ Prime Time] when she has been involved in a fundraising project for the National Maternity Hospital Foundation, where Ms Mahony and Peter Boylan, whom Ms O’Callaghan also interviewed, are directors, and also, on pictorial evidence alone, Miriam and Rhona appear quite close?
Anyone?
Earlier: How Deal Leaves Doors Open For Church Control
Pics: RTÊ, Independent, Rollingnews
From top: St Vincent’s Healthcare Group, owned by the Sisters of Charity order; Minister for Health Simon Harris and Master of Holles Street, Rhona Mahony with a model of the intended National Maternity Hospital.
Last night A 25-page report on the terms of agreement between the National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street and St Vincent’s Hospital Group – as written by mediator Kieran Mulvey – was published by Health Minister Simon Harris.
We asked Legal Coffee Drinkers, what’s it all about?
Broadsheet: “Legal Coffee Drinker, what’s it all about?”
Legal Coffeee Drinker: “It’s a report on the agreement (“the Agreement”) reached between the National Maternity Hospital Holles St and St Vincent’s Hospital Group regarding the new maternity hospital at Elm Park.”
Broadsheet: “According to the report, who will run the new hospital?”
LCD: “Clause 1.1 of the Agreement says that the hospital will be operated by a designated activity company called the National Maternity Hospital at Elm Park DAC (“the Hospital Company”).
Clause 4 says that the Hospital Company will in turn be run by a Board of Directors consisting of nine directors (“the Directors”) one of whom must be the Master.
Four of the Directors will be nominated by the St Vincent’s Hospital Group and another four Directors will be nominated by the National Maternity Hospital Chartered Trust.
The remaining Director will be an independent international expert in Obstetrics and Gynaecology appointed by a Selection Committee.
The composition of the Selection Committee, however, is not clearly stated, something which is particularly unfortunate given that the expert appointed by it could effectively have the casting vote on Board decisions.”
Broadsheet: “So that’s the first point of concern? What’s the next?”
LCD: “Clause 1.2 of the Agreement which says that the Hospital Company will be a 100% subsidiary of St Vincent’s Hospital Group.
This means that St Vincent’s Hospital Group – and not the National Maternity Hospital Chartered Trust – will own the Hospital Company.
Under company law, shareholders of a company have the ultimate control of that company, having the ability to alter the composition of the Board of Directors or the objects and scope of operation of the company by amending its incorporating documents.
The concern is that St Vincent’s Hospital Group could, down the line, use its shareholder status to change the structure of the Hospital Company from that originally set up under the Agreement, undermining its entire effect.
Clause 3 of the Agreement seeks to safeguard against this by providing that the Directors shall be entitled to exercise in an undiluted manner and in a manner designed to preserve the autonomy and clinical and operational independence of the new hospital the power to provide maternity, gynaecological, obstetrics and neo-natal services and control, utilise and protect all financial and budgetary matters as they relate to the hospital and shall also be entitled to retain the existing Mastership model, appoint the Master and other officials and agree the annual SLA with the HSE (all of which are collectively described as ‘the Reserved Powers’).
It further states that a provision shall be inserted in the incorporating documents for the Hospital Company saying that the Reserved Powers cannot be removed save with the prior written and unanimous approval of all Directors of the Board and with the consent of the Minister for Health.”
Broadsheet: “So the Directors retain independence in the performance of maternity, gynaecological, obstetrics and neo-natal services unless they all vote to relinquish this and the Minister for Health also agrees?”
LCD: “Yes.”
Broadsheet: “So that’s all right then?”
LCD: “Not necessarily. Firstly, although the reserved powers cannot be easily removed, they are powers, not obligations, given to a Board of Directors less than half of whom will be appointees by the National Maternity Hospital Chartered Trust.
The remaining members (who could potentially outvote the Trust appointees in all and any decisions relating to the hospital) consist of appointees of the St Vincent’s Hospital Trust and an international expert appointed by an as yet undefined selection committee. They are the people who will determine the extent to which the reserved powers are exercised in practice.
Secondly, the scope of the reserved powers are necessarily limited by the objects of the Hospital Company as defined in Clause 2 of the Agreement, which talks about providing
‘a range of health services in the community as heretofore’.
The words ‘as heretofore’ could potentially be relied on in the future to argue that new health services – possibly abortion, if legal, or new methods of assisted reproduction – fall outside the purposes of the hospital.
As such there are two ways in which St Vincent’s could potentially, under the Agreement, obstruct procedures in the Hospital of which they did not approve.
Firstly, they could argue, as regards procedures which were not previously carried out in Holles Street, that they fell outside the scope of the authority to carry out work ‘as heretofore’.
Secondly – and separately – they could, if supported by the international expert director, use their influence on the Board of Directors to outvote the Master and nominees of the National Maternity Hospital Chartered Trust and in this way prevent the procedures being carried out.”
Broadsheet: “What about the ‘triple lock’ referred to by Master of Holles Street Rhona Mahony?”
LCD: “The triple lock referred to by Dr Mahony locks one door by which St Vincent’s could seek to obstruct such procedures. It does not ‘lock’ the other two doors mentioned above, which are left open by the use of the words ‘as heretofore’ in Clause 2 and the failure of the Agreement to clearly define the composition of the Selection Committee which will appoint the Independent Expert.
The report on the deal states:
‘The independent international expert in Obstetrics and Gynaecology will be chosen from a list of candidates drawn up by SVHG and the NMH Trust.
They will be assessed by a Selection Committee, chaired by the SVHG Clinical Director,and the other members will include the SVHG CEO and a representative from the NMH Trust.
Any proposed nominee will be appointed by the Selection Committee after consultation with the SVHG Nominations Committee.’
Broadsheet: “So St Vincent’s could potentially use these two doors in the Agreement to control the hospital’s future activities?”
LCD: “Potentially, yes.”
Broadsheet: “One final question. Who will own the hospital if and when built?
LCD: “The owners of the ground on which the hospital is built will own the hospital. The Agreement references a ‘lien’ being put in place to protect the HSE investment. A lien is normally a security interest put in place to protect a creditor.
Presumably what is meant is that the HSE will take a charge over the hospital land for the amount of the money expended. However if, as is likely, the building will increase the value of the land to significantly more than this sum, it will be the owners of the land, rather than the HSE, who will get the profit under such an arrangement.”
Broadsheet: “Hmm.”
LCD: ‘Indeed.”
Broadsheet: “Thanks Legal Coffee Drinker.”
LCD: “Don’t mention it.”
Last Night: The Maternity Hospital Deal
Previously: Thank You, Peter Boylan
Lens flare, Donovan Lane, Dublin 8, last evening.
(Thanks Ciaran Cahill)
MORE to folly
Just now.
A 25-page report on the terms of agreement between the National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street and St Vincent’s Hospital Group – as written by mediator Kieran Mulvey – have been published by Health Minister Simon Harris.
It comes a week after the Irish Times reported that the Religious Sisters of Charity would be sole owners of the new hospital.
Read the report on the terms of agreement in full here
More to follow.
Last Friday, we asked YOU, our Broadsheet commenters, to furnish us with your favourite tunes-you-used-to-hate, for us to pick from for playing today. In fact, we asked:
‘At one point in my life I sincerely could not listen to _____________________ but now enjoy their/his/her sounds, in particular__________________’
The competition as ever was stiff, but only one contestant could bring home the twenty-five-euro voucher courtesy of Golden Discs… Spaghetti Hoop, with a rather personal entry.
I played the album as a kid while the sister was out and I accidentally warped it by leaving it beside the radiator. The fall-out was terrible for me; I was in so much trouble and had to do so many errands to make up the price of the ‘LP’ . I never wanted to hear UB40 again. The only song that could be played after I warped it was 1 in 10; the disc was so contorted that the needle would fly off into space but would settle on 1 in 10 which was in the inside of the disc.
It was at the same sister’s funeral in 2015 that I heard 1 in 10 again; she was, coincidentally, the 1 in 10 that die of lymphoma cancer every year.
The song does not make me sad about vinyl-warping or death; I think it’s just about people who are under the radar and want to be. I want to be 1 in 10 not 9 in 10. I love the song now, for it’s darkness and eighties multi-racial band that UB40 were.
Other highlights from the running:
BROADSIDESKID: “I bought John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme (unheard) in 1990. I was so excited to play it. I put it on, and to my young ears it sounded like a full dishwasher being pushed down a flight of stairs. Cut to 2016. I bought a secondhand copy on CD purely to see if it was really as bad as I remembered. I couldn’t believe how melodic, soulful and wonderful it was. Now, it’s an album I listen to all the time.”
HAPPY MOLLOY: “At one point in my life I could not listen to Kenny Rogers as I thought he was pretty naff, as was anything country and western related (this of course being pre-my Johnny Cash awakening), but now I love a lot of his songwriting, like the heartbreaking Ruby that I never really listened to, and the wonderful Coward of the County, that confirmed for me that there are certain, quite extreme, situations when you gotta fight to be a man.”
STARINA: “At one point in my life (when I was a spiky teenager who thought all female singers were either trying too hard to butch it up or were folky fartwads, with the notable exception of Shirley Manson and Courtney Love – I also thought feminists hated men, LOL what a dumbass) I sincerely could not listen to Tori Amos but now enjoy her sounds, in particular the first three albums. You can see her moving lyrically from viscerally-relatable coming-of-age lyrics through darker story-telling to being a battle-scarred but strong woman. I love her SO much now and I really wish I had given her a chance as a teenager cos her music woulda helped.”
CHRISTOPHER CARROLL: “At one point in my life I sincerely could not listen to R.E.M. I associated them with simplistic, sentimental pop like Shiny Happy People and Everybody Hurts – but now enjoy their/his/her sounds, in particular the early albums Life’s Rich Pageant and Fables of the Reconstruction, which have a raw, raging pulse that’s completely distinct, foreshadowing the grunge movement to come.”
MARK1: “At one point in my life I sincerely could not listen to Fleetwood Mac (post-Peter Greene) but now enjoy their sounds, in particular Go Your Own Way. I think discovering in later years what a crazy bunch of people they all were when making Rumours has endeared them to me.”
Fisherman’s Quay, Grove Island, Limerick city; Kersten Mehl of KMPM
You’ll recall the Tyrrelstown amendment.
It was added to the Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Bill 2016 before Christmas.
It had originally proposed that where a landlord proposes to sell 20 or more units in a development – within six months – the sales would be conditional on existing tenants being able to remain in the property unless there were exceptional circumstances.
During a Seanad debate on this amendment, the number was changed from 20 to five.
But on foot of advice from the Attorney General, the Minister for Housing Simon Coveney increased this figure, from five to 10.
Readers may also wish to note how director of advocacy Focus Ireland Mike Allen in January stated that “a third of families who are becoming homeless in Dublin are becoming homeless because their landlord has been forced to sell up“.
Further to this…
Last week, it was reported in Limerick Leader that up to 14 families renting apartments in Fisherman’s Quay, Grove Island, Limerick city are facing eviction after they received letters on Good Friday informing them that they had to leave their properties by different dates this summer.
The letters were issued by Kersten Mehl Property Management which has managed the complex for the past eight years. KMPM sent the letters on behalf of Munster Pensioner Trustees Ltd – a group which intends to sell the property.
This morning, RTÉ’s Brian O’Connell reported on the matter during the Today with Seán O’Rourke Show. He reported that around tenants in eight properties are affected.
He explained:
“Anywhere up to about 10,11, 12 tenants could be affected in those properties. The notices were served by the new landlords of these properties. They are the Munster Pension Trustees Limited. So, at some point, these properties went into receivership. They were sold, this pension trust bought the properties. They bought, I understand, the 14 properties in a bundle for about €1.1million, I work out that’s about €75,000-€78,000 per property. So, now they’ve decided to sell eight of the 14 properties. They’re probably going to get on the open market between €100,000 and €120,000 for those properties and that will obviously reduce then significantly their outlay on the six properties that they’re going to hold on to. And this decision to sell is impacting on a mix of tenants I met from young families to pensioners.”
Mr O’Connell’s report included interviews with some of the tenants who have received these letters and Kersten Mehl, who has 40 years’ experience in property letting and whose company currently manages more than 900 properties across Limerick.
From the interview with Mr Mehl…
Kirsten Mehl: “We’re told there’s families, right? I looked at, who’s registered here among the eight units. So, you’ve got two couples, I don’t think they’ve children, you’ve two single people, so that’s three, and of the other five, they’re registered in a single person, only one person. So it’s not a question of turfing out families, but…”
O’Connell: “But you’re still turfing people out?”
Mehl: “No, we’re asking people. Basically, it’s fully within the rights of the owners to say we want the property and we want to sell it. Right? No tenant, no, no, let me finish this, Brian. No tenant, right, has a guaranteed right and was ever promised a guaranteed right by any agent or any owner that they could stay there as long as they wanted. You can look into the morality of it, right? But…”
O’Connell: “But you don’t think there’s anything being done wrong here, in terms of the morality of it, do you?”
Mehl: “Absolutely not and I’ll tell you why. Because, like, there’s hundreds of thousands of investors who had their mortgages increased while the market was retreating. I’ve no problem with the tenant legislation, I’ve no problem with the improvement in housing standards but there is no morality, right, in the way investors have been treated. I actually think that we’re on the cusp of large-scale selling. Now…”
O’Connell: “If it was your granddaughter in here, with her child, and got this letter in the door last week, you wouldn’t be happy about it.”
Mehl: “There’s plenty of things I’m not happy about but you know what…”
O’Connell: “But do you think it would be right then, in that instance, that someone who’d made a commitment, maintained the property here and suddenly, because somebody wants to make a few bob, and has bought into it, bought an asset that was in receivership probably, and now they can flip it, to hell with the tenants?”
Mehl: “But, like, there is other properties out there..”
O’Connell: “But isn’t the problem that there isn’t?”
Mehl: “There is because I tell you what. Since January, I have probably sent out 40 notices plus for individual owners that are selling. Owners are now departing the market, landlords are departing the market in a fairly significant scale because, you know what, the equity, we’re getting near the situation where they’re break-even and they’re out the door. Well, I would expect if it was my daughter and my granddaughter, I would expect my daughter to find alternative accommodation.”
O’Connell: “I’m going to be meeting some of the tenants now and you can imagine what they’re going to be saying. A lot of them are saying they’re not going anywhere.”
Mehl: “Well, that’s fine, right? That’s there decision and then the investors have to make their decision but like that’s taking the law into their own hands, ok? There’s law there. If they want to change the law, they can change the law. But I guarantee you one thing, you bring in long tenure in this country, in the rented sector right now and you have a bigger crisis then we already have.”
O’Connell: “And why not sell them with the tenant in situ, as is done with commercial property, we see it all the time, tenants not affected.”
Mehl: “I can answer that question because that’s a very good example you’ve given. Because a property is enhanced in commercial when there’s a tenant because you’ve a guaranteed rental flow but in residential, ok, that’s not necessarily the case because potentially you’re always looking for an owner-occupier.”
O’Connell: “What happens if the tenants dig their heels in here? Are you going to be down here trying to pull people out of their homes?”
Mehl: “Course I’m not. It’s not my job, that’s a sheriff’s job, ok but like, you know, I’m 40 years in the business, I don’t know what’s going to happen here but I know where I am in this situation, as in, I’ve given the notice and after that, well things just go flow from here.”
Listen back in full here
Previously: “Tenants Are Completely Unaware But They’re At Huge Risk Of Being Evicted”