Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Richard Bruton at a media doorstep giving details of the establishment of a Commission on the Future of Irish Public Service Broadcasting.
Minister Bruton said the commission will consider ‘how to best deliver and fund public service broadcasting into the future’.
Meanwhile…
following the submission by RTÉ of its revised strategy to government, the Government is to provide an additional €10m funding to broadcasting with approximately €9m going to RTÉ to implement its new plan.
The funding will come from the Department of Social Protection, in respect of free TV licences and will be provided in the 2020 revised estimates.
Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Katherine Zappone has published the General Scheme of the Certain Institutional Burials (Authorised Interventions) Bill 2019 – to ‘ensure that respect and dignity are afforded to the children who are buried at the site in Tuam’.
Via the Department for Children and Youth Affairs:
Taking into account the Government decision of 23 October 2018, that there would be a legal basis to carry out a programme of phased, forensic standard excavation, exhumation and re-interment of remains at the site of the former Mother and Baby Home in Tuam.
–There would be a legal basis for a programme of forensic analysis of any recovered remains, providing for samples to be taken from the remains as well as from family members of the deceased for the purpose of identification of the remains.
– As no appropriate oversight structures are currently in place for such a complicated and unprecedented project, there would be a legal basis to establish an Agency to manage intervention at the site and act as a dedicated and responsive authority. Such an Agency would operate for a specific and limited duration and would cease to exist as soon as the work was complete.
– Government could authorise interventions of a similar nature to take place at current or former institutional sites other than the Tuam site, if it deemed that necessary in specific circumstances.
…In addition, the Government has approved the arrangements necessary to facilitate the transfer of the €2.5 million offered by the Sisters of Bon Secours Ireland towards the cost of implementing this course of action. I will now proceed to finalise matters with the Congregation so that this money can be transferred as soon as possible.
Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Katherine Zappone said:
“The drafting of this legislation is a priority for me, and I am delighted that Government supports the approach outlined in the General Scheme to deal with the various sensitive and complex issues at hand.
“I know that family members of the children interred at the site in Tuam have been eagerly awaiting this development and I am pleased that agreement on a General Scheme marks a significant milestone on our journey to afford those buried there the dignity and respect that they deserve.
“I am also mindful that local residents will be impacted by action taken at the site and I am confident that the General Scheme strikes an appropriate balance between doing what is right for the deceased, while minimising negative effects for those living nearby.
“The Certain Institutional Burials (Authorised Interventions) Bill will now be drafted along the lines of the General Scheme and I hope to publish it in Spring and bring it through the Houses of the Oireachtas as soon as possible.”
I was sickened reading a fawning obituary to this absolute creep and impostor Randal McDonald.
They fail to mention that he was a predator and pederast with an insatiable lust for young boys.
He made a misery of my late teenage years and I carried for way too long the shame and guilt for what he did to me as though it had been my responsibility.
Twice he seriously abused me, even once video recording the abuse so he could press pause and marvel at the highlights of his wickedness.
I didn’t have the luxury of pressing pause on what was happening to me, nor was I later able to scrub the the tape of my life clean.
In my own delusional way, I put it all down to a wild adventure but I know now that was just a hopeless coping mechanism.
They say not speak ill of the dead but I’d gladly strike the first match at his cremation and spit paraffin on his embers Go rot in hell! [continued at links below]
I have sent the piece to The Irish Independent and I hope they publish it as a form of redress to the scandalously inappropriate obituary this man received. I am not defined by what happened to me but it is a part, a very painful part, of what made me the man I am today
. I’ve got more fire in me than ever before and all the words I’ve read here today have blown such a warm gust into my sometimes tattered, sometimes uncertain sails but I am more sure of my course than ever.
Barrister, broadcaster and writer Paul Anthony McDermott
We are very sad to hear this news. Paul Anthony McDermott was a regular guest on the programme providing our listeners with clear explanations of issues as diverse as bail laws, double jeopardy and Tribunal confidentiality. Our thoughts are with his friends, family and colleagues https://t.co/V1pHQJAGc9
This is jealousy. RTÉ don’t understand why people pay €8 a month to Netflix but not €13 a month to them. They argue they produce more output; forget the quality.
Netflix has probably given Aisling Bea more airtime than RTÉ has given all Irish comedians combined this year. pic.twitter.com/4bnVYQCPl6
“I think this is fair value for 44c-a-day per-household; especially in comparison with the subscription costs to other media services; none of which offer anywhere near this level of Irish perspective or output.”
Part of RTÉ Director General Dee Forbes’ opening statement to be read out at an Oireachtas Communications Committee meeting this afternoon.
Farmers and IFA members stand at the picket line as supply trucks are denied access to Musgraves Distribution centre in Kilcock, Co Kildare. pic.twitter.com/R1etodrVIV
Outside Musgraves’ central distribution centre in Kilcock, Co Kildare this morning
This morning.
Members of the Irish Farmers’ Association began to hold their fourth protest over beef prices at 7.00am, outside Musgraves’ central distribution centre in Kilcock, Co Kildare.
Musgraves owns Centra and SuperValu.
Sylvester Phelan, of Agriland, reports:
Beef farmers should not accept the current beef price on offer from the factories and demand a lot more, IFA president Joe Healy said at the picket.
Once again, the protest will last 12 hours and follows similar action at the Tesco central distribution centre in Dublin yesterday and the Aldi and Lidl CDCs last week.
