David McCourt with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at a Science Foundation of Ireland event in New York, March 2018

Yesterday.

Via The Sunday Business Post:

In a highly critical report into the National Broadband Plan (NBP) seen by The Sunday Business Post, members of the cross-party Oireachtas Communications Committee warned that public money would be used to subsidise its roll-out in areas where it wasn’t needed.

The report, which will be published on Tuesday, found that the procurement process run by the Department of Communications was “overly complex, restrictive, redundant and unfit for purpose”, despite being well intentioned.

It said the terms of the tender were too narrow and excluded “other viable options”.

A government source disputed the findings and said that if the recommendations were followed it would add a further siginificant delay to the project.

Broadband plan is waste of taxpayers’ money, says report (Peter O’Dwyer, The Sunday Business Post)

Related: Broadband deal signing with Granahan McCourt set to be delayed for month (Justine McCarthy, The Sunday Times)

Previously: Still Loading

Hello you.

A young Cilian Murphy rehearsing for Neil Labute’s The Shape of Things at the Gate Theatre, Dublin in 2002.

Leon Farrell/Rollingnews

Meanwhile….

How was it for you?

Peaky Blinders, episode one review: Slick, superficial and absolutely gripping (The Independent.co.uk)

Yesterday.

The Barrow Way, County Carlow

Wickedfairysad writes:

Walked about 10k along the Barrow Way yesterday. What a gorgeous part of the world. Butterfly spotting, saw Peacocks, Red Admirals, Small Blues, Small Whites, and Damsel flies.

Highly recommend. Carlow is beautiful…

Barrow Way?

Vet Noel Fitzpatrick

‘sup?

Today is International Dog Day.

Bebe writes:

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick, our own fantastic Irishman, who does wonderful work in his UK practice for all animals including dogs – reads a poem which should resonates with dog lovers worldwide…

Send your dog to broadsheet@broadsheet.ie marked ‘My Dog On Dog Day’

Noel Fitzpatrick

yesterday.

Tuam, County Galway.

Survivors, family members and supporters remember the 796 Tuam Babies whose remains at the site of a former Mother and Baby home  have still to be exhumed.

[Historian] Catherine Corless said the exact location of the buried children was known since the publication of the Fifth Interim Report of the Commission of Mother and Baby Homes in April, and that campaigners had mapped out the burial chambers before the ceremony.

“Anyone that walks in here today cannot but be moved by the love and the care that was put into these exhibitions here. People care so much about the babies who were put into the sewage tank, and if only the Government and the Church could show a bit of care, just as the people have here today.“

Tuam mother and baby home protest calls for site to be fully exhumed (Irish Times)

Behold: globular star cluster Omega Centauri, also known as NGC 5139. To wit:

…some 15,000 light-years away, the cluster is packed with about 10 million stars much older than the Sun within a volume about 150 light-years in diameter. It’s the largest and brightest of 200 or so known globular clusters that roam the halo of our Milky Way galaxy. Though most star clusters consist of stars with the same age and composition, the enigmatic Omega Cen exhibits the presence of different stellar populations with a spread of ages and chemical abundances. In fact, Omega Cen may be the remnant core of a small galaxy merging with the Milky Way.

Full sized image here.

(Image: Michael Miller, Jimmy Walker)

apod

US President Donald Trump reportedly suggested bombing Hurricane Michael before it reached America

Poor Donald still doesn’t know why
You can’t use a nuke in the sky
To blow up some wind
But this orange-skinned
Fool is still willing to try

John Moynes

Pic: Reuters

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