This morning.
Somewhere in Dublin.
Warehouse Manager Michael Leonard checks the seals of hundreds of ballot boxes ready to go to polling stations in a secure warehouse ahead of voting on Saturday in the Generel Election.
Please don’t ask us where.
Not with provies on the ballot.
From top: The Shop That Nearly Wasn’t launch; Cancer survivors Senator David Norris, 10-year-old Lily Burke, milliner Sarah McGahon; and children’s books author Nicola Pierce outside the new pop-up shop in Temple Bar, Dublin 2
In Temple Bar, Dublin 2.
A new pop-up shop called The Shop That Nearly Wasn’t – in aid of Breakthrough Cancer Research – was officially opened by Senator David Norris on Tuesday and will remain open until Tuesday, February 11 (while there’s also an online outlet).
Several workshops and events will also take place while it is open.
They write:
“The shop is selling a unique range of products made by cancer survivors from all over the island of Ireland, including art, photography, books, crafts, clothing, protective sports gear, and even a Michael Flatley limited-edition print.
It is a celebration of all the things that cancer survivors can do because scientific research has saved their lives. Those attending the launch will have the opportunity to meet some of the cancer survivors who have contributed to the shop, browse the exciting collection, and hear about Breakthrough Cancer Research’s ground-breaking work.”
Meanwhile…
This lunchtime…
Pics: Maxwell
Property developer and Fianna Fáil donor John Fleming (left) and Micheal Martin; Mr Martin’s holiday home in Courtmacsherry, West Cork built by Mr Fleming
Murky pasts.
We all have them.
Via VIllage magazine [more at link below], Frank Connolly writes:
‘…A successful house builder on the newly zoned lands around expanding Cork city, John Fleming also developed what was, at the time, a luxury holiday-home complex at Courtmacsherry in picturesque West Cork, in the late 1990s.
In December, 1999, Micheál Martin took out a mortgage of £135,000 from Irish Life and Permanent to purchase 4 Meadowlands, one of the first of the large houses built in the scheme overlooking the sea in the small holiday village.
The property was purchased from John J Fleming Construction, one of the companies in the larger Fleming Group.
By this time, Martin was in government after being appointed to his first cabinet position by Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, in 1997. A former school teacher, he was made Minister for Education before he was given the health portfolio in 2000 and then served as Enterprise, Trade and Employment minister from 2004 to 2007.
In January 2007, Fleming travelled to Hungary with Martin as a member of an Enterprise Ireland delegation headed by the minister and later announced that he had won a contract to develop a wind-farm project in the eastern European country. Later that year, Fleming’s company made a donation of €900 to the minister’s general election campaign.
…On 11th March, 2010, six days after Fleming’s property company went into liquidation (on 5th March, 2010) the Irish Permanent mortgage on the Courtmacsherry holiday home purchased by Martin, was cancelled, according to documents lodged with the Land Registry.
There is a reference in the Land Registry documents connecting the charge on the holiday property to the Martin’s family home in Ballinlough, Cork which they purchased many years previously.
In July 2009, a further charge “for present and future advances” with AIB was lodged with the Land Registry in respect of the Courtmacsherry property.
Village asked Martin to explain the circumstances surrounding the acquisition of the property and the cancellation of the loan on 11th March 2010.
A Fianna Fáil spokesperson replied:
“The property was bought through an auctioneer with a mortgage in 1999. In 2010, Micheál switched mortgage provider and the loan was restructured to include the balance of this loan and refurbishment of Micheál’s family home. Repayment of this mortgage is ongoing.”
Asked was there any significance in the fact that the loan was cancelled, according to Land Registry documents, just six days after the company which sold the property, owned by John Fleming, went into liquidation (on 5th March, 2010), the spokesperson said:
“None. See above. These questions clearly represent an attempt to raise a controversy in the dying days of the General Election campaign where there is none.” [more at link below]
Micheál Martin, evasive and misleading, in 2020 (Frank Connolly Village)
Previously: So, Why Did That Money End Up In Your Wife’s Bank Account, Mr Martin?
Village/Rollingnews
🗳️ #GE2020#VMNews Leaders’ Interviews – Sinn Féin, part one
Mary Lou McDonald joins Colette Fitzpatrick for our series of live studio interviews with all the party leaders@sinnfeinireland | @MaryLouMcDonald pic.twitter.com/ctY8NFvtZi
— Virgin Media News (@VirginMediaNews) February 5, 2020
From top: Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald; Virgin Media News’ Colette Fitzpatrick; Virgin Media News last night
Last night.
On Virgin Media News, broadcaster Colette Fitzpatrick interviewed Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald.
It follow Sinn Féin’s Conor Murphy, who is Minister for Finance in the North, apologising to the family of Paul Quinn who was murdered at the age of 21 in Monaghan 13 years ago.
In 2007 Mr Murphy told BBC Spotlight that Mr Quinn was involved in criminality.
From the interview…
Colette Fitzpatrick: “Your party colleague Conor Murphy issued a statement this afternoon saying his remarks about Paul Quinn are a matter of regret. He said he was sorry and that they added to the grief for that family and what they felt and he wanted to apologise for that. ‘A matter of regret’. Does that go in anywhere near being enough for an apology for Breege Quinn and her family?”
Mary Lou McDonald: “Well, Breege Quinn and the family made very plain that they wanted the record set straight in respect of their son, their son who received a really, really brutal death at the hands of criminals and they felt very aggrieved. And that grief has endured over a long number of years and Breege Quinn was very clear that she wished a retraction and an apology and that it would be done publicly and on the public record.”
Fitzpatrick: “‘A matter of regret’ for saying that her murdered son was involved in smuggling and criminality…”
McDonald: “Well it’s a full withdrawal and retraction of the comments and a very sincere apology. I know I hear, earlier today, Colette, I heard Breege speaking on the radio. I know that she indicated that she had taken some comfort from the words that I had to say on the previous evening [on RTÉ’s Prime Time debate] and I hope that they take now some comfort from this complete retraction and sincere apology.”
Fitzpatrick: “Ok, how would you categorise his remarks? What would you call them? Would you say they were abhorrent? What he said about Paul Quinn.”
McDonald: “I think that they were extremely hurtful, extremely hurtful at the time when they had lost their son and they were traumatised to lose their son so brutally and so suddenly.”
Fitzpatrick: “You don’t think they were abhorrent?”
McDonald: “I think they were clearly abhorrent for the Quinn family, of course they were, Colette. I mean, I’m not, the commentary has been entirely withdrawn and apologised for and the reason for that is because the comments were wrong. At the time when this murder occured there was commentary around criminality and activities up around the Border but it is entirely wrong to suggest that Paul was in any way implicated.”
Fitzpatrick: “Ok, so you agree the comments were abhorrent. Do you think Conor Murphy should now go to the gardaí and the PSNI and tell them who the men were that he spoke to? Cause he says he spoke to men in the IRA about this. Give them the names.”
McDonald: “Well, Conor, at the time, spoke to both the gardaí and the PSNI at the time he was an elected MP for the area.”
Fitzpatrick: “Did he give them names though, Mary Lou?”
McDonald: “I don’t know, I wasn’t privy to the conversation. But you can be sure that Conor or anybody else is duty-bound to cooperate with what is an ongoing investigation.”
Fitzpatrick: “So have you asked him, have you spoken to him today and have you asked him to go the gardai and the PSNI to give them those names?”
McDonald: “Colette, it’s not necessary for me to ask Conor to do that.”
Fitzpatrick: “So you haven’t asked him?”
McDonald: “Conor has already, back when this happened, spoken to the gardai and the PSNI. And it’s for the gardai and the PSNI to advance this investigation. It’s not for me and it’s not…”
Fitzpatrick: “Yeah, but there’s a distinction, Mary Lou, between speaking to the gardai and the PSNI and giving the gardai and the PSNI the names of the men that he says he spoke to in the IRA.”
McDonald: “At the time he said that he spoke to republicans in the area because there was a speculation obviously as to who was responsible for this absolutely horrendous crime. He spoke to local republicans and they said that there was no republican involvement. But Colette, let me just repeat, in any of these investigations, it is the duty and at the discretion of the PSNI and the Garda Síochána to pursue their lines of investigation.”
Fitzpatrick: “I’m just going to ask you one final time.”
McDonald: “Sure.”
Fitzpatrick: “Will you ask Conor Murphy to give the names of those men to the gardai and the PSNI? It’s a yes or no. Will you ask him to do that?”
McDonald: “It’s actually not a yes or a no, Colette, with all due respect. It is, my position is that the investigation must be cooperated with. I mean there’s no ambiguity, there’s no lack…”
Fitzpatrick: “Well why wouldn’t you ask him to do that?”
McDonald: “Because he has spoken to the authorities already. You are inferring that in some way – and I think it’s quite unfair, if I might say so – that Conor is in some way obstructing an investigation. He’s not. At the time…”
Fitzpatrick: “But if he doesn’t give the gardai and the PSNI the names of the men he spoke to, he might possibly be obstructing that investigation.”
McDonald: “I don’t accept that. I think that if Conor or anybody else has information that is material to finding those that carried out this dastardly murder, of course they need to bring information forward. I don’t have to say that to Conor, that is as a matter of course. For Conor Murphy or for anybody else for that matter.”
Fitzpatrick: “Have you spoken to Breege Quinn yourself?”
McDonald: “I haven’t.”
Fitzpatrick: “Are you going to?”
McDonald: “I haven’t…well, if Breege wishes to speak to me, I would be more than happy to…”
Fitzpatrick: “She has said she wants to speak to you.”
McDonald: “Well that’s…I will speak to her so.”
Fitzpatrick: “When you leave this studio, could you pick up the phone and talk to her?”
McDonald: “Well I don’t have a telephone number for her.”
Fitzpatrick: “Every journalist in the country has her telephone number.”
McDonald: “Certainly if I am provided with a telephone number, I’ll be more than happy to speak to her.”
Fitzpatrick: “You’re going to call her? You’ll call her when you leave this studio?”
McDonald: “Yes.”
Fitzpatrick: “Okay. What happened to Paul Quinn on the night. He was lured into a barn in Co Monaghan and when he got there, ten or more men beat him with an iron and nail-studded bar for upwards of half an hour. His friends that were there and being held hostage at the time said they could hear the bars bouncing off him. Every single major bone in his body was broken. He was screaming and crying in agony. Horrific injuries, an excruciating death. He died two hours later in hospital. His mother said at the time his hands were so badly beaten, she couldn’t even wrap rosary beads around his fingers as he lay in the coffin. And all of that, nine years after the Good Friday Agreement.”
McDonald: “The death that Paul Quinn had was absolutely horrific. There aren’t words to describe the horror of that, of that murder.”
Fitzpatrick: “Gerry Adams made similar comments about Paul Quinn. Would you ask him to withdraw his remarks?”
McDonald: “Well look, the family specifically took issue with the remarks that Conor had made because they specifically implied – wrongly – that Paul was involved in criminality. I think other commentary..”
Fitzpatrick: “As did Gerry Adams’ remarks…”
McDonald: “Well people – Gerry made comments, others made comments also.”
Fitzpatrick: “He said criminality as well.”
McDonald: “Well people made comments about criminality up around the Border region. I don’t think the comments were quite as explicit. I mean, at the time, the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern also made commentary.”
[On November 14, 2007, the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern told the Dáil: “We have received a number of reports from the Garda and secondhand from the PSNI, and both of them match at this stage, that this action was due to criminality. I accept issues arise about where these people came from in the past, what they did previously and the fact that the format of the killing had a resemblance to what happened in the past. That has been in every newspaper in Northern Ireland in recent weeks. Our intelligence and information is that this was not the work of the provisional republican movement and that it was not sanctioned or condoned by it or by the Sinn Féin leadership.”
[On December 18, 2007, Mr Ahern told the Dáil: “In dealing with questions in this House and elsewhere, I shared certain information about the lines of inquiry being pursued and in speaking about criminality I was responding to questions asked on whether the murder had a political motivation or implications for the Northern Ireland Executive.
“I did not in any way intend to make an issue out of the character of Paul Quinn and I am happy to make that clear to the House.
“It remains the case that no information is available to me from the Garda Commissioner to suggest this attack was authorised or sanctioned by the IRA, a question I am continually asked outside the House….I am glad to state what the Minister told the family yesterday, that we have no evidence whatsoever that Paul Quinn was involved in criminal activity.”]
Fitzpatrick: “I’ll tell you exactly what Gerry Adams said. He said ‘linked to fuel smuggling and criminal activity’, that’s what he said Paul’s Quinn murder was, ‘linked to fuel smuggling and criminal activity’.”
McDonald: “Yes and others made those remarks as well. I think – and I can’t pretend to speak on behalf of the family – but I think what they took exception and hurt from what Conor said is that it was more explicit in relation to Paul. And Colette, I’m not trying to explain of this away: the remarks have been withdrawn. That was the correct thing to do.”
Fitzpatrick: “But it has taken 13 years for this to happen. Why has this taken so long?”
McDonald: “It shouldn’t have taken so long.”
Fitzpatrick: “Why suddenly has Conor Murphy apologised in the middle of an election campaign?”
McDonald: “It shouldn’t have taken 13 years, these matters should have been clarified and the Quinn family should have been given that easement a long, long time ago.”
Fitzpatrick: “You were asked about this a number of times over the last couple of days and you haven’t dealt with it until today, or Conor Murphy hasn’t dealt with it. And the issue is: Was someone telling you what to do? Was someone advising you, on this, on what to say or do? Were you taking instructions from anybody on this?”
McDonald: “Absolutely not, Colette. Absolutely not.”
Fitzpatrick: “Are you sure?”
McDonald: “I am absolutely certain of that point. Breege Quinn was on the RTE airwaves. She made her position clear. I was then subsequently, because we are in an election campaign, I was asked on the matter naturally. And I moved to speak… ”
Fitzpatrick: “Because the charge is that there are shadowy figures…”
McDonald: “That charge is entirely…”
Fitzpatrick: “…telling you and Michelle O’Neill what to do.”
McDonald: “And do you actually believe that, Colette?”
Fitzpatrick: “It’s not for me say whether I believe that or not. That’s the charge that’s been laid against you and Michelle O’Neill.”
McDonald: “Let me refute, in the strongest terms, that charge. Nobody tells me what to do. Nobody pulls my strings or Michelle O’Neill’s. We are entirely capable of arriving at decisions and making our own decisions. I know my own mind, I also know right from wrong and I make my own decisions.”
Fitzpatrick: “The PSNI said that the IRA Army Council still retains an oversight of Sinn Féin. They said that back in the…”
McDonald: “Well they’re wrong. That is entirely, entirely farcical. And can I just say to you, as it happens, yesterday, Michelle O’Neill in the North, the Joint First Minister, was actually present at the beginning of recruitment campaign for the PSNI because the policing service has to be representative – sorry [as she was being interrupted] – of the community that it serves. So those remarks are wholly wrong and wholly inaccurate.”
Fitzpatrick: “Ok.”
Yesterday: How Was It For You [Updated]
Previously: Will I Get The Coronavirus If I Vote Sinn Féin?
From top; an artist’s impression of The Railway Gardens development on Cork’s South Link which was approved under the fast tracked Strategic Housing Development (SHD) scheme; Dan Boyle
A feature of being an elected councillor again, is the capacity to attend workshops and seminars on policy areas pertinent to local government.
I attended one such seminar, organised by the Irish Planning Institute, on the subject of increasing urban densities, something of which I would be very much in favour.
Making presentations at the seminar were officials of the Department of Housing and Bord Pleanala. They were there to laud the success of Strategic Housing Development zones, in helping to bring about fast track planning.
SHD zones work where developments of 100 or more housing units get to bypass local planning, being sent to directly to Bord Pleanala for adjudication.
In making its decision on such applications Bord Pleanala can, and more often will, ignore the development plan of the local authority where the development is to be located.
Part of the presentation given was extolling a proposed development recently given permission, but yet to begin construction, in my electoral area.
It is for a 17 storey built to rent facility comprising of 118 apartments. Such has been the developer led enthusiasm for SHD zones that critical evaluation of this application was altered from a 15 storey to a 17 storey building mid process, encouraged by Bord Pleanala itself.
This was against the views of Cork City planners, elected public representatives and the surrounding local community. The SHD process contains a veneer of consultation but the experience is that submissions are for the most part ignored as being inconvenient to the process.
Lack of democratic engagement is the prime victim of the SHD process. None of its supposed benefits are being achieved either.
Quicker planning is not leading to quicker development. One of the major contributing factors to the housing crisis in Ireland has been the hoarding of land in order to increase its value.
Having planning permission, sometimes available for a ten year period, has increased the practice of land hoarding.
The other failure of SHD zones is that they are utterly incapable of bringing about better affordability in housing. This is especially true of high rise private property developments.
Buildings over six storeys in height become subject to diminishing returns in cost benefits, resulting in higher construction costs. Higher costs bring higher prices thus less affordability.
This results in a further reduction in the acquiring of social housing units. Legislation allows local authorities to purchase, at market value, 10% of any private housing development for the purpose of social housing.
At one stage 20% was what was allowed for in legislation. For some strange reason this has been diluted in recent tears.
The reduced percentage is somewhat moot as the combination of land hoarding, increased construction costs and no little amount of price gouging, have made purchasing such units beyond the reach of most local authorities.
The most recent response of Cork City Council has been to acquire what are known as Part Five properties, not through purchase, but by way of 25 year leases. This provides a short term benefit to house some people more quickly, but offers no long term solution towards increasing the local authority housing stock.
If we are to have a new broom new government, one of its first priorities should be to immediately reform the SHD zone process.
It would be the best way of getting our house(s) in order.
Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator and serves as a Green Party councillor on Cork City Council. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle
A dramatic composite of two shots taken from the same location inside the Grand Canyon, one hour apart. To wit:
The two images were taken last August from the 220 Mile Canyon campsite on the Colorado River, Arizona, USA. The peaks glow red because they were lit by an unusually red sunset. Later, high above, the band of the Milky Way Galaxy angled dramatically down, filled with stars, nebula, and dark clouds of dust. To the Milky Way’s left is the planet Saturn, while to the right is the brighter Jupiter. Although Jupiter and Saturn are now hard to see, Venus will be visible and quite bright to the west in clear skies, just after sunset, for the next two months.
(Image: Robert Q. Fugate)
US President Donald Trump was acquitted on the two articles of impeachment against him
The result from the Senate is here
And exactly as many did fear
The Republicans stood
Up to say Trump is good
And he’ll now claim he’s in the clear
John Moynes
Getty
MORE to follow.
