Category Archives: News

news as it is happening-ish

Minister for Health James Reilly has said a memorandum on planned abortion legislation will be brought to Cabinet next week and he hoped the new law could be produced before summer.

When asked when a new legal framework would be ready, he said: “I want it done as quickly as possible. I was hoping obviously that we could have something very substantial before Easter and that remains my hope.”

Asked if the planned law would be ready before the summer, he said: “I think in an ideal world that’s what I’d like to see but I mean I can’t foresee all the difficulties and potholes along the road.

Who can, Bottler? Who can?

Reilly hopes abortion law will be ready by summer (Mary Minihan, Marie O’Halloran, Irish Times)

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)

 

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) failed to give its British counterparts proper notice of the discovery of horse meat in burgers, the chairman of the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) has told a House of Commons inquiry.

The British were told on January 14th – a day before the public announcement – that horse DNA had been found in a number of samples taken from two plants controlled by Larry Goodman’s ABP group in Ireland and in Yorkshire.

“One of the things is that they didn’t tell us until the day before they announced it yet weeks before they must have known what they were finding but they didn’t tell us,” Lord Rooker told MPs.

Tesco group technical director Tim Smith, whose company yesterday ended its frozen burger contract with Silvercrest, said the Irish side believed the horse meat contamination dated back more than six months.

“I have had the benefit of conversations with the Minister of Agriculture in Ireland [Simon Coveney] and the FSAI and both of them have said – in a conversational way, rather than an evidential way – that they believe it started in May 2012,” he told MPs.

*popcorn*

Irish gave British one day’s notice of horse DNA in beef (Mark Hennessy, Irish Times)

(Gareth Chaney/Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)

 

Independent TD Clare Daly confirmed she drank a “hot whiskey” before she was arrested on Monday night after performing an illegal turn on a south Dublin road.

Results of a sample she gave at the station are awaited. She told RTÉ she was a little surprised that information had been “released” without charges having been brought or confirmation obtained that she was over the limit.

Ms Daly played a prominent role in a recent campaign for a public inquiry into allegations of corruption in the removal of penalty points from driving licences.

Hmm.

Just…hmm.

Daly says she drank ‘hot whiskey’ before drink-driving arrest (Mary Minihan, Irish Times)

(Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)

This time last year, it was revealed that NAMA had spent €27,550,000 on legal expenses in the first two years of operation, with the State’s biggest law firm Arthur Cox trousering €3,070,000 of that.

A mere drop in the ocean, friends…

Fees of some €70 million have been paid by Nama, the Department of Finance and two other State bodies for legal advice and services connected to the banking crisis.
An analysis of figures from the department, the National Treasury Management Agency, the National Pension Reserve Fund and Nama shows the State’s largest law firm Arthur Cox was paid some €32 million of this figure since 2008. The firm has provided advice on matters such as the bank guarantee, the restructuring and recapitalisation of the banks and the establishment of Nama.

Yikes.

Bank crisis legal advice cost State €70m (Stephen Carroll, Irish Times)

(Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland)

Responding to reports that the ECB had rejected Ireland’s proposal for a longer repayment schedule, Mr Varakdar disputed this was the case.

“There was no rejection. There was no breakdown. There are issues that need to be changed. And issues that need to be agreed on,” he said on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics.

Setting out the nature of the talks, he said: “There is agreement in a lot of areas, but there are a number of issues outstanding and some of those issues are very difficult . . . We need to work on them but we are still very hopeful of getting a resolution.”

The ECB told The Irish Times yesterday that it was “premature” to refer to any outcome and that talks on this issue were ongoing.

All righty, then. Or not.

Ministers concede difficulties with ECB over deal on promissory notes (Harry McGee, Suzanne Lynch, Tom Hennigan, Irish Times)

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)

The EU-IMF troika has raised the prospect of a new line of “comfort funding” for the Government to ensure there is no disruption to the public finances at the end of the bailout.

Under scrutiny in advance of the 10-day mission, which begins next Tuesday, is whether additional steps should be taken to ensure a smooth exit from the bailout in the autumn.

This question centres on the possibility of the troika providing a new line of credit to the Government as it attempts a full return to private debt markets.

More credit? Well, that’s comforting.

Troika raises possibility of ‘comfort funding’ (Arthur Beesley, Derek Scally, Irish Times)

(Pic: Laurent Gillieron/KEYSTONE, via Associated Press)

In a statement issued yesterday, Burger King said food quality and safety were “a top priority” for its restaurants globally.

“We have stringent and overlapping controls to ensure that the products we sell to our customers meet our strict quality standards.

“While this is not a food safety issue according to findings from the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), upon learning of these allegations, we immediately launched an independent investigation that is currently ongoing.

“As a precaution, this past weekend we decided to replace all Silvercrest products in the UK Ireland with products from another approved Burger King supplier,” it said.

The end of the line for the Bacon Double G-Gs.

We’ll get our colt.

Burger King drops Silvercrest as supplier (Colin Gleeson, Irish Times)

Legal reaction to sentencing by Mr Justice Paul Carney which saw a 72-year-old sex offender walk free from court on Monday has been mixed. Patrick O’Brien from Bray, Co Wicklow, was sentenced to 12 years with nine suspended for raping and sexually assaulting his daughter, Fiona Doyle, over a nine-year period, but was released on continuing bail pending an appeal.

In passing sentence, Mr Justice Carney noted that in another judgment, the Kennedy case in 2008, the Court of Criminal Appeal suspended a moderate sentence imposed on the basis of the health of the accused.

He said that in that judgment he was “horrified” to find the Director of Public Prosecutions, “behind my back, saying it’s a matter of indifference” whether the accused served a prison sentence or not.

He said he believed he was taking a moderate position by imposing a sentence of 12 years for the rape charges, along with concurrent sentences of three years for the indecent assault.

Barrister Paul Anthony McDermott said Mr Justice Carney may have felt the Kennedy case “somehow tied his hands”.

He said the sentence showed the judge felt the law was “uncertain” when “dealing with elderly, very sick defendants who nonetheless have committed very serious crimes”.

An ass.

That’s what the law is.

Previously: Judge Of The Day

Trial judge ‘may have felt hands tied’ (Joanne Hunt, Irish Times)

(Above:  Edge, Paul McGuinness and nine-year-old Siofra Marum from Portlaoise at the announcement of a new two-year research partnership entitled ‘Developing Diversity in Music Education in Ireland’ yesterday.)

U2 have given away the profits from their Irish concerts to charity, the band’s manager Paul McGuinness has revealed.

The band donated €5 million from their three Croke Park concerts in 2009 to Music Generation, a charity that provides funding for structured music education across the country.

Their three Croke Park concerts in 2005 would probably have generated similar revenues, while the band also played two concerts at Slane Castle in 2001.

Mr McGuinness said it had been the band’s practice “going way, way back” to give the profits away but it “was discreetly done in the past”.

Hmm.

U2 gave profits from Irish gigs to charity (Ronan McGreevy, Irish Times)

(Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland)

Google has spent $1 billion (€750m) buying a 2.4 acre plot in central London where, the company told Reuters, it plans to build a new million square-foot UK HQ by 2016. Construction starts later this year and the facility is due for completion in 2016.

“This is a big investment by Google,” said Matt Britin, Google’s VP for Northern and Central Europe. “We’re committing further to the UK — where computing and the web were invented. It’s good news for Google, for London, and for the UK.”

And a nice tax move for the enormously cash rich company whose massive property investment means the money doesn’t have to be sent back to the parent company in the US where tax would be due.

likecool/dvice