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Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sillivan (left) and Justice Minister and Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald

Earlier today, Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald outlined the proposed areas for a root and branch review of An Garda Síochána including:

The structure of the force, recruitment and training, oversight and accountability, its culture and ethos as well as the legislative framework for policing.

Meanwhile, via RTÉ

It is understood that the Oireachtas Justice Committee has agreed to give the Garda Commissioner a week to respond to a list of questions on how the force responded to the controversies over breath tests and fixed charge notices The committee will meet tomorrow to sign off on the questions.

Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan has already said an interim report will be delivered on the controversies in a month and a final report in 3 months.

However, the Justice Committee will focus on the timeline of the gardaí response to the discrepancies over 14,700 wrongful convictions and the number of breath tests being exaggerrated by 1 million.

Meanwhile…

The Taoiseach told the Dáil that he received the Fennelly Report last weekend and has given it to the Attorney General. The report was into the recordings of phone calls at garda stations.

He said the report ran to over 740 pages, with the summary running to 85 pages. He said he would publish it as soon as the Attorney General informs him that he can.

Live Politics, Finance Committee, Garda review (RTÉ)

Rollingnews

Screen Shot 2017-04-03 at 16.34.37

Well, almost.

On account of tidal locking, very few humans have seen any more than half the moon with their own eyes.

This composite visual stitches together high-resolution images (taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) of 98% of the Moon’s surface, showing an (almost) complete 360-degree rotation.

kottke

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The lobby of Yangzhou Zhongshuge bookstore in Zhen Yuan, China designed by Shanghai based studio XL-Muse: a cavernous curved roof, shelved with books and a polished black marble floor to create the optical illusion.

MORE: XL-Muse creates tunnel of books for shop in China (Dezeen)

mymodernmet

ogle1

Above from left: Wicklow community activist Fiona Nichols with Unite official and Right2Water coordinator Brendan Ogle and Solidarity TD Paul Murphy

This morning.

Buswells Hotel, Dublin 2

Right2Water activists, including Brendan Ogle and Paul Murphy,  welcomed the “now inevitable” ending of domestic water charges and blanket metering programme, the “consensus that there must be a referendum on protecting the ownership of the public water system in the Constitution” and called on all charges against water protesters to be dropped.

Community campaigner Fiona Nichols, from Wicklow added:

“This is our win, it is a win for a peoples’ movement all over Ireland, but while it is a massive win it is also a partial win. We want all single meters gone.

These meters save nothing, suck up money needed to fix leaks and ultimately they become the hardware of water privatisation”

Details of the planned Right2Water demonstration  in Dublin next Saturday were also confirmed.

to wit:

right2water

FIGHT!

Right2Water (Facebook)

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Touts – punk rock from Derry

What you may need to know…

01. What’s that, you say? Handsome boys in jumpers from Derry City playing enthusiastic rock ‘n’ roll? That’ll be Touts, then.

02. Riffing on the obvious NI punk comparisons, the lads take that energy and give it a modern, more aggro take on the classic power-chord sound.

03. Streaming above is Sold Out, the band’s new single. Shouted-out today on Nialler9, the lads are releasing an E.P. soon on Hometown, the label that’s currently giving us Rejjie Snow among others.

04. Belfast locals can catch the band while they can, this August on the 23rd, playing alongside Blossoms at Customs House Square. They’re supporting some UK pop band or other.

Thoughts: Is yer man Fergal Sharkey or Joe Strummer? He is neither, but these lads are great, making an earnest callback to grittier times without leaning too hard on its clichés.

Touts

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From top: Irish Cement factory, Mungret, Limerick; A dust laden car over the weekend

Irish cement dust?

Angela’s ashes?

YOU decide!

Tim Hourigan writes:

At the weekend there was a dust blow out from the Irish Cement factory just on the outskirts of Limerick City.

It coated cars and houses in four nearby estates in a grey, gritty, very adhesive dust similar to a larger blowout in 2015.

The company is vehemently denying that there was any incident and that they are the source of the dust.

This comes just a matter of weeks after the factory received planning permission to build storage and handling equipment to feed tyres, plastics, solvents and other wastes into the kiln (which has a history of blowouts including two very large ones in recent years).

It also comes just before the deadline for appealing that planning decision.

Limerick Against Pollution worked on a joint appeal with other groups and individuals who had originally objected to the planning. That included the residents associations of 6 nearby estates and dozens of individuals.

By the time it was submitted, there were 45 parties to the joint appeal.

Approximately 2,000 people have lodged objections with the EPA about the proposal, and just about every councillor has condemned the decision.

Clare councillors also proposed a motion to appeal it, as Limerick Council had not informed Clare Co. Co. of their intention to grant permission.

However, a last minute amendment from Fine Gael councillors in Clare County Council saw this defeated, with the councillors instead proposing an objection to the EPA.

You should also have a listen to this – https://www.live95fm.ie/on-air/shows/limerick-today/limerick-today-podcasts/march-2017/limerick-today-councillors-and-residents-have-gr/ An interesting 12 minutes for local radio :)

Consultants brought in to ‘educate’ councillors about the project were grilled by councillors, and when asked by councillor Frankie Daly, why they made no reference to the European Commission report on the Cement industry, the consultant said he wasn’t familiar with the report.

The report from 2013 contains figures showing that filter failures in Irish cement factories are more than 20 times higher than those in Germany cement factories.

Good times

Limerick Against Pollution (Facebook)


3/4/2016 Exterior shots of the new Central Bank. Inside the new Central Bank Head Quarters on North Wall Quay Dublin, which was originally intended to be the HQ of Anglo Irish Bank. For years after the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank, its unfinished hulk was a dramatic reminder of the corporate greed which not only brought down the bank, but also pulled the plug on the Celtic Tiger, plunging the country into economic recession and large sections of its population into poverty. Photo: RollingNews.ie0107 New 50e note Central Bank_905075223/4/2016 Interior shots of the new Central Bank. Inside the new Central Bank Head Quarters on North Wall Quay Dublin, which was originally intended to be the HQ of Anglo Irish Bank. For years after the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank, its unfinished hulk was a dramatic reminder of the corporate greed which not only brought down the bank, but also pulled the plug on the Celtic Tiger, plunging the country into economic recession and large sections of its population into poverty. Photo: RollingNews.ie0060 New 50e note Central Bank_905075273/4/2016 Interior shots of the new Central Bank. Inside the new Central Bank Head Quarters on North Wall Quay Dublin, which was originally intended to be the HQ of Anglo Irish Bank. For years after the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank, its unfinished hulk was a dramatic reminder of the corporate greed which not only brought down the bank, but also pulled the plug on the Celtic Tiger, plunging the country into economic recession and large sections of its population into poverty. Photo: RollingNews.ie0119 New 50e note Central Bank_90507509

Yesterday.

North Wall Quay, Dublin

Interior and exterior shots of the new Central Bank Headquarters designed by Traynor O’Toole Architects and originally intended to be the HQ of Anglo Irish Bank.

For years its unfinished shell was a reminder of the greed which brought down the bank,  pulled the plug on the Celtic Tiger and plunged the country into economic recession and large sections of its population into poverty.

Fight!

Rollingnews