Above: Trinity College, Government Buildings, The GPO, St Patrick’s Cathedral, the Phoenix Monument, the statue of Wolfe Tone on St Stephen’s Green and the gates of Aras an Uachtarain last night.
Perfection has been achieved.
(Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)
Bankrupt former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Sean FitzPatrick has told the High Court he intended any profits from his Stg£250,000 investment in a London property, funded via a loan from Anglo, would give “a lift” and “a chance of money” to a “bright young kid” who joined the bank from school.
Mark Redmond could have made thousands “or nothing, which is what it turned out to be”, Mr FitzPpatrick said.
Mr FitzPatrick added he paid, from his own money as “gifts”, school and college fees for some children of Anglo officials.
Mmf.
The man’s a saint.
(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)
Rupert Murdoch, Grumpy Cat and Jeffrey Tambour.
Francis, the internet salutes you.
Papal doppelgängers to broadsheet@broadsheet.ie.
(Images: Niall (via App); Jonathan Koshi via boingboing and Redditor wallco)
Terminals 1 and 2 last night, assimilated by the Borg all gussied up for St Patrick’s Day.
(Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)
(Above: Bill and Enda Enda Kenny at the Merrion Hotel last October at the launch of Bill’s autobiography “We’ll Leave It There So”.)
Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Jimmy Deenihan said Mr O’Herlihy would prove to be an “excellent chairman” of the board and has been tasked with increasing indigenous audiences for Irish film.
Mr O’Herlihy had been one of former Fine Gael Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald’s media “handlers” in the 1980s, but Mr Deenihan stressed that he had no involvement in politics in recent decades.
“He was never an adviser in my time for the last 30 years. I’ve never seen Bill at any Fine Gael function. I have never met Bill in any other context other than sport and television.”
We’ll leave it there, so.
O’Herlihy to chair Irish Film Board (Ronan McGreevy, Irish Times)
(Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland)
In an interview with the Guardian, Senator John Crown (above) has claimed Opus Dei (symbol, top) has been lobbying Irish professionals to try and thwart the expected abortion legislation.
Senator Crown said he received abuse after he told a subcommittee 30 terminations were carried out in Ireland last year.
He calls for members of the Dáil and Seanad to be required to declare their membership of organisations such as Opus Dei.
“That is something that should be declared because there are potential conflicts of interest if one believes that one is answering to a higher authority than the parliament of the republic.
“We have several examples in history where leaders of this country asked if people should state their allegiance. Garret Fitzgerald [a former taoiseach] once famously asked his cabinet to inform him if they were members of secret organisations, which I think is not a bad idea at all for the whole of the Oireachtas.”
Opus Dei accused of lobbying to prevent Irish abortion reform, Henry McDonald, Guardian)
Opus Dei, eh?
According to Dr John Roche, who was in Opus Dei for 14 years:
The Irish wing of Opus Dei numbers its membership at more than 1000 with about 30 priest-members…
Numerarii are the top people, taking private vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, from which hunchbacks, the one-eyed and stutterers were excluded. Dr. Roche said that such exclusions were common at certain levels in the Church until recently.
Next are Supernumerarii, which made up most of the membership, and are mainly married lay people, offering their first loyalty to Opus Dei, not their spouse, and who supported the organisation financially to some extent.
Associates come next, and are intellectually inferior most often to the high ranks, while the Numerarii are almost always graduates.
Cooperators have been more of a helping role, mostly financially. Freemasons and Communists are excluded, while membership of Opus Dei generally is open to all religions, but in Ireland is mainly Catholic.
Dr John Roche, Irish Times, 1998
(Pic: ProfJohnCrown)
Former energy minister and would-be Lib Dem leader Chris Huhne and his ex-wife economist Vicky Pryce – both jailed for 8 months yesterday over a penalty-points scam dating back to 2003.
Sure where would you get it?
Not here.
Huhne and Pryce verdict: ugly stuff for three penalty points (Guardian)
(Hat tip: John Gallen)
Well, the Revenue’s property values website went live yesterday.
It will allow homeowners to calculate how much they will have to pay in property tax.
This year property owners are being asked to pay for just half a year, from July 1st. However this effectively means whatever is paid this year, will double in 2014.
Joy.
The Government will have legislated for the X case.
According to RTÉ, this rough date has been relayed by the Irish Government to the Council of Europe’s committee of ministers. The committee oversees how EU states comply with judgments set down by the European Court of Human Rights.
The move follows the A,B,C vs Ireland case at the ECHR.
Government to enact X case legislation by end of July, RTÉ
(Pic: Oona Tully)
“The agent, Kevin Phelan, got Stg£248,624 from Mr Lowry on Aug 28, 2002, six months after the date their negotiations were supposed to have had been finalised and settled.”
“Six days earlier, Mr Phelan received a separate fee of £150,000 on behalf of Denis O’Brien. This was transferred on Aug 22, 2002, after a dispute was resolved between Mr O’Brien and Mr Phelan over the agent’s role in the Doncaster Rovers project.”
“Under the terms of the O’Brien deal, Mr Phelan was paid outstanding fees and relinquished certain claims to profits.
“But the final point of agreement involved clarification from Mr Phelan that a reference to Mr Lowry in one critical document was not Doncaster-related. This issue arose from a note on 1999 fax discussion and was detailed in tribunal testimony by Denis O’Brien Snr, who handled these negotiations on his son’s behalf.
Mr Lowry, Mr O’Brien Snr and Denis O’Brien Jnr have all denied the former Fine Gael minister had anything to do with the Doncaster project.”
Conor Ryan, in today’s Irish Examiner, reporting that Michael Lowry paid Kevin Phelan that £250,000 six days after Mr Phelan, separately, agreed with Denis O’Brien to retract a reference linking Mr Lowry with the Doncaster Rovers project.
*popcorn*
Read more here.
(Eamonn Farrell/Photocall Ireland)
