Author Archives: Bodger

Leo Varadkar (left) and Tony Holohan at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020

This morning.

The Chief Medical Officer and public health advisers do not see the need for new restrictions to deal with the ‘surge in Covid cases’, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar told a party meeting last night.

Via RTÉ News:

Addressing a meeting of the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party, Leo Varadkar said Omicron is less severe and the population is highly vaccinated.

Leo Varadkar said Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown was very busy on his visit there today but the situation was similar to a bad flu season.

He said that economic and social restrictions are not imposed during a bad flu season.

Mr Varadkar encouraged everyone to get their booster vaccine, to wear masks, prioritise ventilation and to focus on outdoor activity.

The Government also wants to see advice from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) on a fourth vaccine dose

CMO does not see need for new restrictions – Tánaiste (RTE)

RollingNews

This morning.

Further to the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) securing a multimillion euro contract to manage Jeddah Airport in Saudi Arabia for the next five years…

…via Irish Times Letters:

Saudi’s General Authority of Civil Aviation must have its head buried in the sand following the award of the management of Jeddah airport to a subsidiary of DAA..

Clearly the Saudis are not aware of or doesn’t care about the level of mismanagement by the DAA of security at Dublin Airport in the recent past which has caused untold disruption and resulted in great inconvenience to many travellers going through Dublin Airport.

Not only that but the DAA has admitted that this disruption and inconvenience will continue indefinitely. How’s that for “being on top of your game”?

Jeddah airport, you have been warned!

Fight!

Irish Times Letters

DAA International wins contract to run Saudi’s Jeddah airport (Irish Times)

ArabNews

Blame it on the moonlight

Blame it on the good times.

Do not, under any circumstances, blame it on the experimental, gene-altering, clot-making boogie.

*moonwalks out of room*

Warmer summer nights linked to higher risk of heart death in some older men (Irish Examiner)

RollingNews

This afternoon.

Earlier…

This morning.

Boosted, eh?

Earlier…

From top: Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly and the latest vaccine uptake stats

This morning.

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has said that the number of coronavirus infections in Ireland is ‘running into hundreds of thousands a week’.

Via RTÉ News:

Mr Donnelly addressed a meeting of Fianna Fáil party members online last night, when he said that the number of positive cases of Covid-19 is likely to be hundreds of thousands a week.

Mr Donnelly said that while the daily number of PCR and antigen tests can reach 15,000 a day – the true figure is likely to be two or three times that.

Despite the rise in the number of cases, he said that the “very firm advice” remained that no restrictions need to be introduced.

‘Hundreds of thousands’ of Covid infections per week – Donnelly (RTE)

Um.

RollingNews

A sun-worshipper is requested to leave Merrion Square Park, Dublin 2  on Bank Holiday May 1, 2020

Covid Emergency Powers are due to expire on Thursday.

Unless TDs vote to renew them.

Time for a petition!

Diarmaid Ó Cadhla writes:

The Emergency Powers allows a Minister to: Set aside provisions of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU and of our own Constitution – without any public discussion or vote’ Restrict our right to Work, Travel and Associate; Segregate and divide us based on Health Status; Force us carry a Digital Certificate (ID card) in order to gain access to services, including sports, restaurants and bars.; Dictate, by coercion, what medicines are put into our body, or that we wear face-coverings without any proven benefit; Delay medical treatments for things like Cancer and Heart Disease, in favour of a single illness which is far less dangerous.

We want respect for our fundamental Human and Civil Rights, they cannot be given and taken away at the whim of any Government. We demand respect for the right to Informed Consent and Bodily Integrity.

Sign here

RollingNews

This afternoon.

Earlier…

From top: The Russian Ambassador to Ireland Yury Anatoliyevich Filatov; The Russian Embassy, Dublin 6

Gulpski.

This afternoon.

More as we get it.

RollingNews

Above from left: Artists Una Sealy, Helen Steele, Robert Ballagh and Jill & Gill and Asbestos

Ah here,

This morning.

Dublin 2.

The launch of the Incognito art sale in aid of the Jack and Jill Children’s Foundation, where the sleb artist’s identity remains a mystery until the sale closes.

Each artwork costs €65, with all funds raised going to support Jack and Jill’s ‘in-home specialist nursing care, respite support and end-of-life care for children with highly complex and life-limiting medical conditions up to the age of six’

The collection goes live this Thursday with the sale on April 21.

Register here.

Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland

This morning/afternoon.

Foxrock, county Dublin.

Mourners leave The Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour folowing the funeral mass for Irish cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski, who was killed covering the conflict in Ukraine on March 14.

Above from photo number three: Nick Zakrzewski (brother of Pierre); Ambassador of Ukraine to Ireland Gerasko Larysa (left) with Pierre Zakrzewski’s widow Michelle; Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney (centre) and Pierre Zakrzewski’s mother Marie-Ange (right).

Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews

Pat Davitt, chief executive of the Institute of Professional Auctioneers & Valuers

This morning.

A total of 6,824 private landlords left the market between 2018 and 2020.

Why are they leaving during ‘good times’?

Via Pat, Davitt, of the Institute of Professional Auctioneers & Valuers:

Other organisations have documented in budget submissions and elsewhere how poor an investment proposition it is now to invest in residential property, given that one pays over 50 per cent of rental income in tax and with capital gains of 33 per cent on the sale of such property. Commercial property investment is treated much more favourably by comparison, with some very attractive tax breaks.

Exacerbating the issue is the unequal treatment between private landlords within Rent Pressure Zones. Where properties are on a first rental and in cases where properties have not been rented for a two-year period, landlords are free to charge market rent – or in other words, the rent the market will bear.

Other private landlords in the same areas are confined by the RPZ legislation to minimal increases. Those worst-hit, ironically, are those who didn’t rush, as many did, to increase their rents to market level before the RPZ rules took effect in December 2015.

What is not often understood is how this differential impacts the value of one’s property when selling on. A tenanted property rented at 50 per cent of market rent, will achieve only 50 per cent of the market value of that property as an investment property.

This forces affected landlords to end tenancies and gain vacant possession so that they can achieve market value by selling the property to an owner-occupier. The tenant has to find another property at much higher rent or face becoming homeless, adding to the problems for the State.

Private landlords would be willing to sell tenanted properties if they could get market value. Other investors would buy them, just like in several other countries were it not for the unfair restriction imposed via the current RPZ legislation…

Anyone?

Why are private landlords selling up despite record rents? (Pat Davitt, Irish Times)

Pic: via IPAV