This afternoon.
In the car park of the Ashleaf Shopping Centre in Crumlin, Dublin 12.
Rory Fitzgerald writes:
Why take one space when you can take two?
Sure, why not.
Category Archives: Misc
JG Byrne tweetz:
Best ever photoshopped advert. Client: “We think we might call it Robin Cleaning”. Designer: “Leave it with me. I know EXACTLY what to do!”
Tonight.
Paying for Sex: Reality Bites
On RTÉ2 at 10pm.
Melanie O’Connor writes:
Paying For Sex is a one-off documentary for the Reality Bites strand that explores the ongoing debate and the highly contentious and taboo subject of “paying for sex” in Ireland.
The documentary follows sex worker Kate McGrew (of Connected) and prostitution survivor Rachel Moran as they campaign tirelessly on opposing sides of a new law (part of the Sexual Offences bill) which, if passed, will make it a crime to pay for sex in Ireland.
Garda Keith Harrison
Yesterday.
On RTÉ Radio One’s This Week.
John Burke reported that Garda whistleblower Keith Harrison, who lives in Donegal, believes he was placed under surveillance when he went to Galway for a meeting with members of GSOC earlier this year.
Garda Harrison met members of GSOC, which has its headquarters in Dublin, in March to discuss his complaints which were being handled by GSOC.
Mr Burke reported:
“[Following the meeting] on his way back to Donegal, he believed then that, as I understand it, he identified an unmarked Garda car which was following them from Galway back to Donegal which would indicate that they had actually followed them down there also. The complaint was then made to GSOC that, by Garda Harrison’s lawyers, that they believe their client had been followed, that this was a matter of deep concern, if it was the case that a guard who had made a protected disclosure to GSOC was being kept under surveillance whilst attending what should have been, from GSOC’s point of view and the garda’s point of view, a highly confidential meeting with GSOC.”
“An indication of how serious GSOC treat the confidentiality of those meetings is actually outlined in documents which we’ve also seen which show that that meeting was booked via a private travel company using none of the names of the four participants at the meeting to GSOC officials, Garda Harrison and his solicitor. Nobody else, other than those four people, it seems should have known that that meeting was taking place.”
GSOC couldn’t comment on the allegation, RTÉ reported.
You may recall how just under two weeks ago Independents 4 Change TD Clare Daly told the Dáil:
Nineteen times myself and Deputy Wallace have raised what has been happening to whistleblowers Nick Keogh and Keith Harrison, who’s out two years surviving on a pittance with a young family. His post has been opened. Garda patrol cars cruising down a lane where he lived 25 kilometres from the nearest Garda station. The HSE called to his kids – all on Commissioner [Nóirín] O’Sullivan’s watch.”
You may also recall how, during her appearance before the Oireachtas joint committee on justice, Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan had the following exchange with Sinn Fein TD Jonathan O’Brien:
Nóirín O’Sullivan: “Am I aware of any…”
Jonathan O’Brien: “Whistleblowers being put under surveillance?”
O’Sullivan: “Absolutely not, deputy.”
O’Brien: “Ok, are you aware of any intelligence files being opened in relation to whistleblowers?”
O’Sullivan: “Deputy, I’m aware of suggestions in the media, and in public commentary, but I am personally not aware.”
Later
O’Brien: “And if there are intelligence files in relation to whistleblowers, will they also be handed over?”
O’Sullivan: “Deputy, I believe there are no intelligence files but if Mr Justice O’Neill requires any access to any area of An Garda Siochana, he will be made fully aware, given full access.”
O’Brien: “Will you undertake to find out if there are any intelligence files in relation to whistleblowers?”
O’Sullivan: “I am not aware of any intelligence files, deputy.”
In addition.
Readers may also recall how, on April 30, 2014 – at which point former Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan had already stepped down as Garda Commissioner on March 25 – then Independent TD Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan told the Dáil that earlier that day he had been to the offices of GSOC on Upper Abbey Street in Dublin 1.
Mr Flanagan said he went to GSOC, with Garda whistleblower John Wilson, because he had been approached under the Garda Síochána Act by a serving member of the Garda with a serious allegation of corruption within the National Drugs Squad.
He told the Dáil that, while they were in an Insomnia café, adjacent to the GSOC offices – the same café whose Bitbuzz wi-fi network was claimed to have caused one of the GSOC ‘bugging’ security issues – Mr Flanagan and Mr Wilson felt they were being followed by an unmarked Garda car.
During his response, Taoiseach Enda Kenny suggested maybe the gardaí thought someone was dealing drugs.
Mr Kenny was asked to withdraw the comment by several TDs, including Independent TD Mattie McGrath, Fianna Fáil’s Micheál Martin and then Independent TD Roisin Shortall, while the then Independent TD Finian McGrath called the remark ‘out of order’.
Mr Kenny did not withdraw the comment.
Listen back in full here
Previously: Protecting Disclosures
Last night.
Clontarf Road, Dublin 3.
Manus Keane writes;
Train Carriages heading for the Glamping site in Enniscrone [Co Sligo]. The same lad that brought the plane down along the west coast. There were three railway carriages in convoy last night which came from England on three low loaders, left Dublin Port last night heading for Sligo….
For the past few months, Fin Dwyer, of the Irish History Podcast, and journalist Peter McGuire have been looking into child sexual abuse in the recent past and present.
They have been doing their investigations with the help of the Mary Raftery Journalism Fund.
Further to this…
Mark Malone writes:
Your readers might be interested in this podcast around sexual abuse published today by Irish History Podcast. It’s not easy listening, but in the context of what it explore and uncovers, it’s necessary listening.
It includes information on how conservative Catholic activists acted in the 1980s to shut down Department of Education research into the nature and scale of abuse experienced by school kids in the family home.
From 8.33min in… “In 1981, the Department of Education surveyed school children and the results revealed child sexual abuse to be a considerable problem. However, in January 1982, Christina Bhean Ui Chribin and Una Bhean Ui Mhathuna took court action to prevent the department conducting further surveys. These women, deeply conservative catholic activists, reflected a view held by many in Irish society that the safest place for children was in the traditional family home.”
Listen here
Haunted by our history: Ireland and Child Sexual Abuse (Irish History Podcast)
Related: ‘I was eight when my brother started coming into my room’ (Peter McGuire, Irish Times)
Thanks Mark
Yesterday.
Bray, Co Wicklow.
Harry Warren writes:
A fine autumn day in Bray…Sez it all about homelessness.
On Saturday.
Outside 4, Merrion Square, Dublin…
The opening of the Church of Scientology’s Irish office.
Donal Lynch, in yesterday’s Sunday Independent, wrote:
The question of how Scientology would transplant its cultish craziness into a leafy Dublin street was answered on Saturday afternoon as a small crowd of about 200 gathered to watch the ribbon cutting on the group’s new national affairs office on Merrion Square.
It was like a mini Mardi Gras with a sinister edge. A line of people waved Irish flags and sang as a small band played As The Saints Go Marching In. A cheer went up as party streamers ignited and the doors swung open to “the public” – which excluded any passers-by or members of the press, who were strictly barred from entering (journalists are thought of as ‘merchants of chaos’ by the church).
Meanwhile, on Saturday, Emer Sugrue, reported on The Irish Times online wrote:
I somehow found myself at the launch, almost by accident, through a friend who had received an invitation. Not there as a journalist, I was afforded an interesting insight into the strange world of Scientology and what it hopes to do here in Ireland.
Before the ribbon-cutting ceremony, the Church held a party in the Davenport Hotel around the corner from their new office. As I wandered into the lobby feeling more out of place than I have in my life, an American woman with a painfully wide smile greeted me asked me if I was there for the dancing. I was led to a room with food, drinks and a live swing band.
…Nothing in the room indicated this event had anything to do with Scientology, until you started talking to people. Almost no one in the room was Irish, and it was clear (from an overheard conversation) that many of them had been flown in from the US and the UK for the event. The National Affairs Office staff are all new too, they arrived from their respective countries just last week, according to a number of them I spoke to.
Chatting to someone whose business card described them as ‘The Way to Happiness Co-ordinator’, I was told about the plans for the new office. She explained that this would be a secular branch of the church, not trying to convert people but just helping with social issues. She particularly stressed that they would be fighting for our human rights, human rights we don’t even know we have.
Mardi Gras with a sinister edge as Scientologists open new Dublin HQ (Sunday Independent)
Inside the strange world of the Church of Scientology in Dublin (Emer Sugrue, Irish Times)
Pics: Killian Raynor (top three) and Church of Scientology
The British, like many folk,choose
To get their nutrition from booze
I must admit that
It’s quite low on fat
So I can’t see how they could lose.
John Moynes
Pic: MailOnline
Athlone Town Centre, Sunday.
(Thanks Tanya O’Neill)