Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys was paid a visit by Cavan-based Community Employment Supervisors wondering why, while in Government, she didn’t honour the [2008] Labour Court recommendation to provide a pension for CE Supervisors.
Meanwhile…
Yesterday…
Protesters also called for the pension at the opening of the new Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy bridge over the River Barrow between Glenmore in Co Kilkenny and New Ross, Co Wexford.
Also yesterday…
Demonstrators protested outside the constituency office of Minister for Education Joe McHugh in Donegal.
Protesters outside the constituency office of Fine Gael Minister of State for Trade, Employment, Business, EU Digital Single Market and Data Protection Pat Breen in Ennis, Co Clare.
The Central Statistics Office published the results of its Household Finance and Consumption Survey for 2018 and compared the results with those of 2013, the previous year the survey was carried out.
Statistician Stephen Lee writes:
“The results show that in Ireland, the wealthiest 10% of all households have a net wealth greater than €835,000 while the bottom 10% have a net wealth of less than €1,000. Net wealth is calculated as the value of all assets minus debt.
In 2018, the median net wealth value of Irish households was €184,900, representing an increase of 80.2% on the 2013 value of €102,600.
The median value is obtained by arranging all households in ascending order from the smallest to the largest value and then selecting the middle value. In terms of wealth, the median provides a truer reflection of the average household as it is not influenced by extreme values.
The value of the household’s main residence is a key component of wealth. In Ireland, 69.5% of households own their own residence. In 2018, the median value for households’ main residence was €250,000, up from €150,000 in 2013.
The median net wealth of households that own their own home is €287,300 while for renters it is considerably less at €5,900.
We see that wealth is more concentrated in the ‘Eastern and Midlands’ region with a median net wealth of €212,700, compared to €189,700 in the ‘Southern’ region and €146,900 in the ‘Northern and Western’ region.”
The Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport are reportedly set to reveal details of a “refinancing arrangement” for the FAI involving the Government, UEFA and the Bank of Ireland.
RTÉ reports:
The football body, which has recently been the subject of a number of audits and investigations into its financial affairs, warned that it could not continue to pay the wages of over 200 staff if an immediate bailout of €18m was not forthcoming.
Leader of Fianna Fail Michael Martin at the Irish Institute of International and European Affairs, in Dublin this morning.
This morning.
Irish Institute of International and European Affairs, Dublin 2.
Leader of Fianna Fáil Micheál Martin responded to warnings yesterday of ‘Brexit chaos’ by Ireland’s EuU Commissioner Phil Hogan.
“I would make the point that they [Fine Gael] are politicising it. I think Phil Hogan should stay out of domestic Irish politics now for the next week.
That was, to me anyway, a coded, partisan intervention and I just want to make this key point, you know, I kind of remember before Christmas this was a great deal. Everything was great and now in the last 48 hours there is a freight train coming down the tracks.
Big Phil is telling the Irish people that they are in a slumber and so there is a new story being created, a new narrative has been created that things are desperate altogether and I think people are going to see through that, as, as an election creation designed to try and frighten people into voting in certain directions. I don’t think it will work.”
Paschal Donohoe says that Catherine Noone is free to do an interview with anyone she wishes after calling Leo Varadkar autistic. Contradicting the story that she has been barred from speaking to the media by Fine Gael #GE2020pic.twitter.com/6FzBtNme2O
For a party headquarters to effectively tell the media, as they have in this case, that they consider one of their own candidates too incompetent to face a media interview is, and there’s no other word for it, astonishing.
It’s not surprising that they would have conducted a preparatory mock interview with her, nor that they would have decided that in the circumstances, putting her on air was not a good decision.
But in this case, somebody has actively decided to inform a reporter that they’re hiding their own candidate from the press because they do not trust her. That’s a level of viciousness that’s extraordinary, especially given that it is towards one of their own.
And it’s not the first time, either. Or the second. In recent years Fine Gael has displayed more brutality and vindictiveness towards its own members than it ever has towards its political opponents.
…If you come across a young person who’s thinking of joining Fine Gael, give them one piece of advice: Don’t ever make a mistake. Because Fine Gael won’t just try to ruin your life – they’ll actively seem to enjoy doing it.
From top: Radie Peat of Lankum; Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín; Lankum video for The Granite Gaze
This morning.
On RTÉ Radio One’s Today with Seán O’Rourke.
Singer Radie Peat, of Lankum, sang The Granite Gaze just after Mr O’Rourke finished an interview with Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín.
Following her performance, Mr O’Rourke and Ms Peat had the following exchange after he asked her about folk songs and their use as protest songs.
Radie Peat: “I am thrilled to play that song after Peadar Tóibín there because it’s basically, yeah, it’s a protest against some of his views. So I’m pretty, pretty glad I got to play it.”
Seán O’Rourke: “Ok, well, we’re not going to engage in electoral …”
Peat: “Oh no…”
Later
O’Rourke: “Your name Peat, as in Radie Peat, it’s associated with a very long-running, sadly no longer there, Peat’s on Parnell Street.”
Peat: “Yeah.”
O’Rourke: “But it gives you, I suppose, an identification with this great capital city of Dublin. Because it was an institution there for how many generations in your family?”
Peat: “So it was three generations. It would have been my great-granddad WB Peat founded that. Yeah, so it was very sad, very sad to see it go, you know.”
O’Rourke: “And I read somewhere that every time you come back from, say you’re foreign touring, you just notice something different, not all of it that you appreciate or would approve of, in just the streetscape and the shape of the capital?”
Peat: “Yeah, I’m finding it really shocking. It’s not one building, it’s entire blocks just seem to be missing. I spotted another two just yesterday, just gone. You know, so, I find that worrying, really. And I wonder what’s going up in its place and if it’s like a hotel or student accommodation. That’s not what we need.”
O’Rourke: “Just on that thing, yeah, I read that you’re not mad keen on the amount of student accommodation that’s being built but I mean every year, every autumn we, on this programme and others, we’re reading about students just struggling to find somewhere to live.”
Peat: “Yeah but that’s part of a bigger problem that there’s like a housing crisis and a rent crisis and the rents are too high. You’re not going to fix that by building student accommodation that no one has the possibility to buy.”
O’Rourke: “Yeah, yeah.”
Peat: “That’s not going to work. You need to build social housing, you need to sort out, like there’s bigger problems there than students not being able to afford, families are homeless, that’s a bigger problem.”
