Category Archives: News

news as it is happening-ish

French tax officials investigating links between Google’s French arm and its European head office in Dublin seized files during police raids at four Paris addresses linked to the company.

Google, which declares its European profits in Ireland, insists that all its advertising in the region is handled by staff based in Dublin and that Google France’s work is limited to “marketing assistance and service support”.

The arrangement means that while Google generated between €1.25 and €1.4 billion in revenue in France last year, according to estimates, it paid just over €5 million in corporate tax to the French exchequer.

Awkward.

Google files seized in Paris police raids (Ruadhán Mac Cormaic, Irish Times)

(Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland)

A group of tourism and catering experts more used to catering to the most privileged in Ireland will be helping some of Ethiopia’s least privileged next week by letting them in on the tricks of the tourism trade.

Chef Kevin Thornton, who owns and runs a Michelin-starred restaurant, and hotelier and television presenter Francis Brennan, who owns the Park Hotel in Kenmare, are leading a 14-strong team of people with backgrounds in tourism, catering, marketing and crafts.

The voluntary trip is organised by Connect Ethiopia, a charity that uses the skills of Irish business people to help their Ethiopian counterparts. They are focusing their efforts on Lalibela, a holy city known for its churches hewn out of rock. It is about 45 minutes by air from Addis Ababa but western tourists tend to stay only one or two nights. Connect Ethiopia manager Katherine Meenan said the team was aiming to improve the offering for tourists so they would stay longer.

One week. But no film crew. Pity. It would have made an interesting documentary.

Irish entrepreneurs head to Ethiopia to help it improve its tourism offering (Alison Healy, Irish Times)

The austerity measures being imposed on the country are causing unnecessary suffering and have no purpose because the programme itself is failing, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) has told the European Commission.

In a letter sent to István Székely, the European Union representative on the troika of the EU, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, Ictu general secretary David Begg said Ireland would not quickly or easily recover from the scarring effects of structural unemployment or the breaking up of families as a result of emigration.

He said Ictu believed jobs were “the central economic objective and that this should be the guiding light on the road back to fiscal prudence rather than the deficit reduction being the main objective”.

But…but, how can he say that?

Enda’s getting an award and everything….

Austerity failing to achieve results, Ictu says (Martin Wall, Irish Times)

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)

The government has said it is working on a strategy with the European Union to exit Ireland’s rescue programme at the end of next year without a second bailout.

Mr Noonan said he was very confident Ireland would exit the programme by the end of next year “in all circumstances”, irrespective of getting relief on the historic cost of bank recapitalisation.

Mr Howlin pointed out that Ireland had drawn down 80 per cent of the €67 billion loan from the troika and had fulfilled 160 conditions.

“We are the most successful programme country. We have hit all the targets,” he said.

Separately, a highranking member of Germany’s central bank warned against using Europe’s nascent banking union to deal with “past sins”. Andreas Dombret, a Bundesbank executive director, argued in an interview with The Irish Times against the ESM fund taking on legacy banking assets. He insisted he was not trampling over Irish hopes for debt relief but said people should be “particularly realistic” about what was doable or not.

Oh.

Government confident of bailout exit next year (Harry McGee, Arthur Beesley, Irish Times)

(Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland)

Some 30,000 printed copies of the children’s rights referendum Bill will have to be pulped after a misprint suggested the proposed constitutional amendment related to the article protecting the right to life.

The copies erroneously stating an amendment to article 40 of the Constitution was proposed were sent to post offices across the country so they could be made available to members of the public.

Article 40 is of particular concern to anti-abortion campaigners because it contains a statement that the State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn.

The referendum actually proposes to insert article 42A, entitled Children, into the Constitution, aiming to protect children at risk and make it easier for the children of married parents to be adopted.

Referendum copies to be pulped after right to life error (Mary Minihan, Irish Times)

(Eamonn Farrell/Photocall Ireland)

European airlines will have to compensate passengers by up to €600 if their flights are delayed by over three hours following a landmark ruling by the European Court of Justice yesterday.

Europe’s highest court upheld a 2009 decision which ruled that passengers flying within the EU who suffer significant flight delays have the same rights to compensation as passengers whose flights are cancelled.

It will pave the way for passengers to claim millions in compensation. But consumer advocates said they did not anticipate airlines would make it easy for delayed people to claim.

Ryanair Flight Delay Indemnity Surcharge in 3….2…

Airlines must pay for delays, says court (Conor Pope, Irish Times)

(Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland)

Ever since the Jimmy Savile scandal broke, the one question that has been asked but never satisfactorily answered is how he got away with it for so long. Warren Ellis has recounted a conversation he had in the late 80s/early 90s about tabloids, celebrity scandal and Jimmy Savile.

This person had, I think, just finished telling me about the special Vault kept at The Sun newspaper, where they put all the stuff about “celebrities” that they can’t print but might like to use one day. They’d pay off the people who brought these things to them – the one example I remember was a guy who’d bought a flat from a TV presenter and, upon moving in, found explicit Polaroids of said TV presenter stuffed behind a fitted wardrobe, and, like any scumbag would, took them to The Sun to sell – and put the materials in the Vault. The cover story about the Vault was that The Sun were protecting our beloved celebrities from themselves. But everyone knew what the Vault was really there for.

My drinking companion had, I think, just finished telling me about this – unless that was someone else, some other time, because, hey, drunk – and, after another drink, said, “and then there’s Jimmy Savile.”

The unnamed source goes on to detail the rumours that are now in the public domain (paedophilia as well as necrophilia). With so many stories swirling around him, how did Savile continue as if there was nothing amiss?

“Go on, then. Now you know about Jimmy Savile. What’re you going to do about it? Knowing that you’re going to cut off tens of millions to, for argument’s sake, a children’s hospital if you shop the bastard. Ignoring for a moment that he’s also probably been shagging kids in a BBC broom closet since 1964 and everyone’s been saying ‘Oh, that’s just Jimmy and his funny ways.’ Ignoring for a moment that he did those ‘This Is The Age Of The Train’ TV ads for the fucking Government. Ignoring what it’d do to the families of the dead, let alone the alive. Ignoring that he’s met the Queen, he’s odds-on for a fucking knighthood, he visits Thatcher at Chequers every New Year’s Eve and everyone your age still fucking deifies him because of Jim’ll Fix It. The charity work that buys him access to kids alive and dead also saves thousands more kids every year. What’re you going to do?”

What would you do?

Jimmy Savile and the Price of Silence (Warren Ellis, Vice)

THE REVENUE Commissioners has said it believes Government departments and public bodies have been involved in “a number of instances” of “offensive tax avoidance and or abuse”, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Acts.

The documents, which did not detail cases, said the instances had “directly or indirectly” come to the attention of Revenue and were considered a breach of tax codes. “Where such activities come to Revenue’s attention we will challenge them by reference to the law,” the documents said.

Released by the Department of Health to The Irish Times, the documents were issued to departments when concerns were raised in the Dáil about the tax compliance of consultants hired by ministers on special contracts through consultancy companies.

This should be fun…

Tax abuse in State bodies, says Revenue (Fiona Gartland, Irish Times)

(Laura Hutton,/Photocall Ireland)

Customs officers have reported a large increase in the discovery of ecstasy in items entering the Republic in the postal service and in private courier parcels.

The drug is one of a range of synthetic substances being discovered with much greater frequency since head shops and the psychoactive products they sold were banned under legislation in 2010.

Gardaí and Customs officers also believe ecstasy has begun to make a return because it is much cheaper than cocaine, the consumption of which has decreased since the recession began and disposable incomes were hit.

In 2010 the value of ecstasy seized by Customs stood at €3,390. Last year this increased to 41,000 tablets and 3kg of the drug in seizures throughout the year, with a combined estimated value of €700,000.

Customs reports rise in ecstasy seizures (Conor Lally, Irish Times)

Trade in banned head shop drugs grows via postal system (Irish Times)

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Giovanni Trapattoni has been told by the FAI they would like him to address some of the issues most commonly raised by his critics in the wake of Tuesday’s meeting of the association’s board where it was decided he should continue as manager of the Republic of Ireland despite the 6-1 defeat by Germany and general dissatisfaction over his team’s style of play.

FAI communications director Peter Sherrard spoke with the Italian after the meeting and conveyed the main concerns raised by board members.

These included his comparatively rare attendance at English league games and what is perceived as his lack of diplomacy when dealing publicly with players.

The feeling appears to be that he is well enough informed to do his job effectively but that he needs to be much more conscious of appearances.

Sorted. Now, onward to victory.

FAI tell Trapattoni to address concerns (Emmet Malone, Irish Times)

(Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland)