Category Archives: News

news as it is happening-ish

FIANNA FÁIL has bounced back to become the second-biggest party in the State for the first time in more than two years, according to the latest Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll.

Since its disastrous general election performance 18 months ago, Fianna Fáil has frequently found itself in fourth place in opinion polls behind Fine Gael, the Labour Party and Sinn Féin.

Fianna Fáil is now narrowly ahead of Sinn Féin and well ahead of Labour, having gained a substantial level of support over the course of 2012.

Of course we’ll vote them in next time. We always vote them in next time.

It’s what we do.

Fianna Fáil bounces back as second-biggest party, poll finds (Stephen Collins, Irish Times)

pic

“I should have been rewarded for all the good things that I’ve done because I did everything within human power to avoid the war and to reduce human suffering,” said Mr Karadzic, who still sports a shock of thick white hair and occasionally smiled as he spoke with spectacles perched on his nose.

“Neither I nor anyone else that I know thought that there would be a genocide against those who were not Serbs,” claimed the man accused of bearing responsibility for the slaughter of about 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica and for the bombardment of Sarajevo that claimed some 10,000 lives.

Mr Karadzic said he was “a mild man, a tolerant man, with a great capacity for understanding others . . . a literary man, a group analyst and a psychiatrist” who had “nothing against Muslims or Croats”.

“I never made any discrimination. My hairdresser of many years was a Muslim,” he added.

Aw. Bless.

(Pic: Reuters/BBC)

JUST OVER a third of the 48 State agencies earmarked for abolition or merger in 2012 will have completed the process by the end of the year.

Last November, the Government published a list of 48 bodies which it said would be rationalised by the end of 2012, including the National Roads Authority; the Railway Procurement Agency; the employment rights bodies; the State’s galleries, libraries and museums; the Equality Authority; and the Irish Human Rights Commission.

Detailed information disclosed by the relevant Government department in response to queries by The Irish Times has shown that only 17 of the 48 abolitions will have been completed by the end of 2012.

No doubt a quasi autonomous non governmental agency will be set up to look into this.

Only 17 out of 48 quangos to be abolished or merged this year (Harry McGee, Irish Times)

(Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland)

Many people from the Border counties of Cavan and Fermanagh gathered for the rally, which got underway after 4pm.

Well-known GAA figures Mickey Harte, Donegal selector Rory Gallagher and Peter Quinn spoke out in support of the family at the rally, organised by the Concerned Irish Citizens group.

Seán Quinn’s wife Patricia and his daughters were among those at the rally. Mr Quinn’s daughter Ciara Quinn told the crowd that the family will succeed and create jobs again and that she and her siblings would not become Anglo scapegoats.

Mr Quinn and his wife Patricia eventually broke down as prayers and a poem were read for their jailed son, Sean Quinn junior.

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Thousands attend Quinn rally (Áine McMahon, Irish Times)

(Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)

(Pix 5/6: Rodney Edwards)

(Hat tip: Lars Biscuits)

The Department of Transport’s 2009 National Transport Policy Framework has an ambitious target to get 10 per cent of all commuters cycling by 2020 – aided by tax incentives under the Cycle to Work Scheme, which IBBA says resulted in the sale of 90,000 bicycles between 2009 and 2011.

Under the scheme, employers can buy a bike up to €1,000 for employees to cycle to work and recover the cost from the employees’ pre-tax salary over the next 12 months.

With no benefit-in-kind taxation, employees can save up to 52 per cent of the cost of the bike.

 

And then it gets nicked.

Number Of Cycling Commuters Rises Dramatically (Frank McDonald, Irish Times)

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)

TRADE UNIONS are set to oppose the latest effort by the Government to eliminate a wide range of public service allowances.

Following last month’s climbdown on reforming allowances, the Government has reopened the issue and is seeking to eliminate more than 80 allowances currently paid to serving staff across the public service.

The move comes after only one allowance for serving staff out of more than 1,000 was removed last month following a major review overseen by Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin.

Previously: Public Sector Win

Coalition targets over 80 public service allowances (Martin Wall, Irish Times)

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)

THE MORIARTY tribunal has awarded costs to the estate of the late Charles Haughey. The size of the costs sought is expected to be in the region of €4-€5 million, according to informed sources.

The former taoiseach, who died in June 2006, was the subject of the first of the tribunal’s two reports, published in December 2006. The tribunal investigated payments to Mr Haughey during his years as taoiseach and whether he had sought to do favours for those who made payments to him.

It found that he took payments of €11.56 million between 1979 and 1996, and granted favours in return. It said the scale and secretive nature of the payments “can only be said to have devalued the quality of a modern democracy”.

Hurray! Justice is serv…oh wait now.

State to pay Haughey tribunal legal bill which may hit €5m (Colm Keena, Irish Times)

(Eamonn Farrell/Photocall Ireland)

Unlike Ireland…

In a response to a Maori affairs select committee inquiry into the tobacco industry and Maori smoking rates, tabled in Parliament today, the Government agreed to develop targets for reducing smoking rates with the goal of becoming a smokefree nation.

It will also consider law changes around the promotion, packaging and display of tobacco products as part of the Smokefree Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Bill currently before Parliament. Associate Health Minister Tariana Turia said the Government’s response was “a landmark moment” for New Zealand.

“It is about us asserting our own identity as a nation and defining for ourselves the role tobacco is allowed to play in the life of this country. This is not something we are just going to leave in the hands of the tobacco industry.”

Smokefree NZ by 2025? (3News)

(Hat tip: Mark Geary)

DISABILITY ALLOWANCE payments to under-18s will be ended in the budget if the Government adopts a proposal from the expert group that recommended reducing the rate of child benefit.

The Coalition was forced into a U-turn after last December’s budget when its plan to stop the practice of paying disability allowance directly to 16- and 17-year-olds met strong opposition from the parents of severely disabled children and Opposition parties.

The contentious proposal to increase the minimum qualifying age for the allowance from 16 to 18, while providing a compensatory payment for the teenager’s parent or guardian, is back on the agenda as Budget 2013 approaches.

Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton has said the EU-European Central Bank-International Monetary Fund troika has raised concerns about social welfare payments going straight to under-18s and said she was worried about young people losing the incentive to stay in education.

A u-turn on an earlier u-turn.

It’ll be as if nothing had ever happened.

Dail protest in 3…2…

Advisers tell Burton to axe disability allowance for under-18s (Mary Minihan, Irish Times)

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)

MINISTER FOR Health James Reilly is on a collision course with medical specialists over the expected selection of Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown as the location for the new national children’s hospital.

Dr Reilly said at the weekend he would bring the long-awaited decision on the hospital to the Taoiseach and Tánaiste in the next 10 days and a Cabinet decision was likely to follow shortly after.

Separately, the master of the Rotunda maternity hospital, Dr Sam Coulter-Smith, expressed concern last week that the decision on the project was becoming a political rather than a clinical one.

Blanchardstown is seen as the favourite to win not only because it can offer to build the project on a greenfield site with fewer planning difficulties but also because it is located in the constituency of Ministers Joan Burton and Leo Varadkar.

Another greenfield site, at Belcamp in north Dublin, which is in Dr Reilly’s constituency, has also featured strongly in speculation.

This is becoming somewhat tiresome.

Consultants warn Reilly over children’s hospital site (Paul Cullen, Irish Times)

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)