Author Archives: Bodger

This afternoon.

The Central Statistics Office published the results of its Household Finance and Consumption Survey for 2018 and compared the results with those of 2013, the previous year the survey was carried out.

Statistician Stephen Lee writes:

“The results show that in Ireland, the wealthiest 10% of all households have a net wealth greater than €835,000 while the bottom 10% have a net wealth of less than €1,000. Net wealth is calculated as the value of all assets minus debt.

In 2018, the median net wealth value of Irish households was €184,900, representing an increase of 80.2% on the 2013 value of €102,600.

The median value is obtained by arranging all households in ascending order from the smallest to the largest value and then selecting the middle value. In terms of wealth, the median provides a truer reflection of the average household as it is not influenced by extreme values.

The value of the household’s main residence is a key component of wealth. In Ireland, 69.5% of households own their own residence. In 2018, the median value for households’ main residence was €250,000, up from €150,000 in 2013.

The median net wealth of households that own their own home is €287,300 while for renters it is considerably less at €5,900.

We see that wealth is more concentrated in the ‘Eastern and Midlands’ region with a median net wealth of €212,700, compared to €189,700 in the ‘Southern’ region and €146,900 in the ‘Northern and Western’ region.”

Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) 2018 (CSO)

Ah here.

Irish celebrity Lookalikes (@DoppelLangers) tweetz:

Just in time for #GE2020, here’s our bumper selection of Irish Political Lookalikes…

In fairness.

Meanwhile…


Leader of Fianna Fail Michael Martin at the Irish Institute of International and European Affairs, in Dublin this morning.

This morning.

Irish Institute of International and European Affairs, Dublin 2.

Leader of Fianna Fáil Micheál Martin responded to warnings yesterday of ‘Brexit chaos’ by Ireland’s EuU Commissioner Phil  Hogan.

“I would make the point that they [Fine Gael] are politicising it. I think Phil Hogan should stay out of domestic Irish politics now for the next week.

That was, to me anyway, a coded, partisan intervention and I just want to make this key point, you know, I kind of remember before Christmas this was a great deal. Everything was great and now in the last 48 hours there is a freight train coming down the tracks.

Big Phil is telling the Irish people that they are in a slumber and so there is a new story being created, a new narrative has been created that things are desperate altogether and I think people are going to see through that, as, as an election creation designed to try and frighten people into voting in certain directions. I don’t think it will work.”

Micheál Martin attacks Phil Hogan over “partisan” election intervention (Independent.ie)

Yesterday: A Bitter Phil

Sam Boal/Rollingnews

This afternoon.

Meanwhile…

For a party headquarters to effectively tell the media, as they have in this case, that they consider one of their own candidates too incompetent to face a media interview is, and there’s no other word for it, astonishing.

It’s not surprising that they would have conducted a preparatory mock interview with her, nor that they would have decided that in the circumstances, putting her on air was not a good decision.

But in this case, somebody has actively decided to inform a reporter that they’re hiding their own candidate from the press because they do not trust her. That’s a level of viciousness that’s extraordinary, especially given that it is towards one of their own.

And it’s not the first time, either. Or the second. In recent years Fine Gael has displayed more brutality and vindictiveness towards its own members than it ever has towards its political opponents.

…If you come across a young person who’s thinking of joining Fine Gael, give them one piece of advice: Don’t ever make a mistake. Because Fine Gael won’t just try to ruin your life – they’ll actively seem to enjoy doing it.

Fine Gael tears one of its own to pieces. Again. (John McGuirk, Gript)

Earlier: Noone Gets Out Of Here Alive

From top: Radie Peat of Lankum; Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín; Lankum video for The Granite Gaze

This morning.

On RTÉ Radio One’s Today with Seán O’Rourke.

Singer Radie Peat, of Lankum, sang The Granite Gaze just after Mr O’Rourke finished an interview with Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín.

Following her performance, Mr O’Rourke and Ms Peat had the following exchange after he asked her about folk songs and their use as protest songs.

Radie Peat: “I am thrilled to play that song after Peadar Tóibín there because it’s basically, yeah, it’s a protest against some of his views. So I’m pretty, pretty glad I got to play it.”

Seán O’Rourke: “Ok, well, we’re not going to engage in electoral …”

Peat: “Oh no…”

Later

O’Rourke: “Your name Peat, as in Radie Peat, it’s associated with a very long-running, sadly no longer there, Peat’s on Parnell Street.”

Peat: “Yeah.”

O’Rourke: “But it gives you, I suppose, an identification with this great capital city of Dublin. Because it was an institution there for how many generations in your family?”

Peat: “So it was three generations. It would have been my great-granddad WB Peat founded that. Yeah, so it was very sad, very sad to see it go, you know.”

O’Rourke: “And I read somewhere that every time you come back from, say you’re foreign touring, you just notice something different, not all of it that you appreciate or would approve of, in just the streetscape and the shape of the capital?”

Peat: “Yeah, I’m finding it really shocking. It’s not one building, it’s entire blocks just seem to be missing. I spotted another two just yesterday, just gone. You know, so, I find that worrying, really. And I wonder what’s going up in its place and if it’s like a hotel or student accommodation. That’s not what we need.”

O’Rourke: “Just on that thing, yeah, I read that you’re not mad keen on the amount of student accommodation that’s being built but I mean every year, every autumn we, on this programme and others, we’re reading about students just struggling to find somewhere to live.”

Peat: “Yeah but that’s part of a bigger problem that there’s like a housing crisis and a rent crisis and the rents are too high. You’re not going to fix that by building student accommodation that no one has the possibility to buy.”

O’Rourke: “Yeah, yeah.”

Peat: “That’s not going to work. You need to build social housing, you need to sort out, like there’s bigger problems there than students not being able to afford, families are homeless, that’s a bigger problem.”

O’Rourke: “Yeah, ehm, just back to the music…”

Ms Peat is taking part in Imagining Ireland: Speaking Up, Singing Louder at the National Concert Hall on Sunday, February 9.

She’ll also be a special guest when Beak play at the Button Factory on Thursday, February 6.

Listen back in full here

Previously: You May Like This

The now-closed Natural Bakery outlet in Ranelagh; Fine Gael Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy with volunteers in Ranelagh, Dublin 6 this morning

Today.

The latest edition of The Phoenix magazine reports that on the day the general election was announced, January 14, the Natural Bakery outlet in Ranelagh was closed.

The next day the former bakery became a campaign office for Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy.

The magazine reports:

According to Dublin City Council’s planning office, there is no record of any application for a change of use or the erection of large election signs.

Now, after various Ranelagh residents raised objections, the Planning Office’s enforcement squads are on the case.

Murphy may now have to make a belated planning application for retention of his pop-up office, although it is likely to shut its doors sometime in mid-February when the DBS ballot papers have been counted…..

Murphy’s Law runs in Ranelagh (The Phoenix Magazine)

Pic via Eoghan Murphy and The Phoenix

It’s there if you look…

Rob Reeves writes:

As we are fast approaching Valentine’s Day, I went out into Dublin’s fair city determined to find love. Whether I was successful or not, you can decide for yourself.

But I did find a pensioner with a boyfriend 40 years her junior, a mother trying to set me up with her daughter and, for a second there, I even thought I found a young lady doing a Masters in ‘erection studies’. Tis a wonderful world…

Rob Reeves Films

Minister for Children Katherine Zappone

Twenty days ago, the Early Years Alliance announced its plans to hold a protest on Wednesday, February 5.

Thousands of providers are reportedly expected to take part.

However, Minister for Children Katherine Zappone on Tuesday released a circular telling providers that those who close their service in order to attend the protest will lose payments.

They’ve also been told that they cannot change their working calendar – to allow for the creches to close next Wednesday.

This morning. Paula Donohoe, of Clever Clogs Childcare in Ballyconnell, County Cavan, spoke to Seán O’Rourke on RTÉ Radio One.

Asked about the circular from Ms Zappone’s department and if she will still attend the protest in light of it, Paula said:

“Yes, in fact, the circular, as of Tuesday, has probably made me even more resolute…this is the reason, the very reason we are going out on this protest is the behaviour of the department, and the minister and her department that led to Tuesday’s action.

“What Tuesday, the announcement on Tuesday was that they will not fund the services. Now I get that, if you’re not working, you don’t get paid.

“But we have always been entitled and able to, under our contractual arrangements with the department, to change our calendar.

“As long as we run it by [inaudible] on behalf of the department, which is the county childcare committee. I have had to do this in the past. There has never been a problem. I’ve changed my calendar and I’ve never had to to give a reason as to why I had to change my calendar.

“I’ve changed my calendar, had it approved and re-issued a new calendar.

“The circular on Tuesday, or the announcement on Tuesday by the minister, was that we are no longer allowed to actually change our calendars.

“My intention always was to close next Wednesday, the 5th of February but to provide the parents and children of my service…an alternative day so the children to not lose out.”

Mr O’Rourke asked Ms Donohoe if her 25 childcare workers will now lose a day’s pay because of the closure in order to attend the protest. She said:

“Absolutely not. I’m fighting on behalf of my staff for a very long time, for very low waged professionals. So, in my case, I can verify that they will get their wages.

“Whether I get my Government funding or not, those girls will get their wages. There is absolutely no way I will punish them.”

Good times.

Department of Children and Youth Affairs FAQs on the proposed Early Years protest 5 February 2020 (Department of Children and Youth Affairs)

Listen back in full here

Crèches closing for protest rally to be docked State funds (Independent.ie)

Previously: How Much?