A motivational pet project by Dennis Hoogstad, who explains more here.
Full screen required.
The World
at
Lousie Bayliss, of SPARK
This afternoon , SPARK (Single Parents Acting for the Rights of Kids) are delivering a post-budget submission to Oireachtas members and a petition to Minister for Social Protection Leo Varadkar.
Louise Bayliss writes:
Many people believe that losing One Parent Family Allowance when a child turns 7 is a good thing and point to international norms where parents can lose this support when a child turn 3 or 5.
However, the reality is that the changes only had a financial impact on lone parents in work or education and this is completely in contrast to international practice.
In the UK for example, a lone parent working 12 hours per week is entitled to working credits, they can breach the benefits cap and are also entitled to higher housing benefit to reward them for working. In Ireland, the changes cut the income of a parent working 19 hours on minimum wage by 18%.
Lone parents in receipt of rent supplement can only keep first €75 of wages and 25% of anything above this, regardless of the cost of childcare or transport Many lone parents are actually financially worse off now by working.
The policy is trapping lone parents into long-term social welfare dependency. This is something SPARK always predicted and which has now been validated by the recent report from NUIG.
We’re also out of step internationally by ignoring a parents care role once a child turns 14. In the UK, a lone parent is recognised until the child turns 16 or 19, if they are in full time education.
The new Single Affordable Childcare Scheme means the ending of capped schemes for lone parents in training and while lone parents may be entitled to the full subsidy of €8,000 pa , there is no cap on how much crèches can cost and we fear lone parents will not be able to top up the difference, especially if creches increase their costs as expected.
One of the greatest anomalies of the changes however is in relation to maintenance.
Under One Parent Family payment, the ‘other parent’ has a legal obligation to the Department of Social Protection to pay maintenance.
This now stops when a child turns 7 and the Department writes out telling the “liable relative’ they have no further obligation to the Department.
This resulted in 28% drop on the number of parents in receipt of maintenance. Worse than that, lone parents are now being told that unless they seek maintenance (from the person who received a letter saying they were no longer obliged to pay!) they will face financial sanctions.
This is worrying, as although the Department have stated they do not expect domestic abuse survivors to contact their abusers, they have confirmed they have no guidelines to know who is at potential risk.
So, after our presentation we will be handing in a petition to either reinstate the obligation on the ‘liable relative’ or remove the condition to receive maintenance. Women’s Aid and the NWCI are joining us along with some members of the Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection.
Petition here
Earlier Michael Taft on The Childcare Conundrum
Previously: The Joan Parent Allowance
Rollingnews
From top: Independent TD Catherine Connolly; Nama board members Oliver Ellingham, Willie Soffe and Brian McEnery, at a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee today
This afternoon.
The Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee is continuing to question Nama officials in relation to the sale of Project Eagle.
The three members of Nama before the PAC today are non executive director at NAMA Oliver Ellingham, and Nama board members Willie Soffe and Brian McEnery.
Mr Soffe is also chair of Nama’s credit committee while Mr Ellingham is chair of Nama’s risk management committee.
Mr McEnery is chair of Nama’s audit committee and a former member of Nama’s Northern Ireland Advisory Committee (NIAC) – alongside Frank Cushnahan who was heard receiving £40,000, in bundles of two, from a Nama client during a secret recording broadcast on a BBC Northern Ireland Spotlight programme last month.
Readers may recall how, on Friday, a former member of Nama’s NIAC Brian Rowntree went before the Public Accounts Committee and spoke of the NIAC seeing a University of Ulster study which contained both commercially sensitive and confidential information in relation to Nama.
Mr Rowntree said:
“This refers to a piece of work, an evidence based piece of work undertaken by a university who were doing land assembly analysis and before they’d even undertake or engage with NAMA they had whole stage of caveats around the confidentiality of the information and this was explained to the committee, now if that’s not commercially sensitive, I don’t know what is. This data not only had the location and types of property, this data also had details of planning permissions, current, and about to expire and potential for renewal. it also had details of housing and residential need overlaying on top of it, it also had details in consolidated form of holdings by other banks. So one would have a got a picture of the complete land bank of Northern Ireland, and one one have looked at the opportunity locations within that portfolio.”
“…The information was provided to the university by NAMA, so it was shown as NAMA properties and there was a separate section of the report which was privileged to NAMA which showed the NAMA impact analysis across all those platforms..”
Further to this, earlier today Independent Catherine Connolly asked Mr Soffe if he disagreed with Mr Rowntree’s claims.
In addition, Ms Connolly questioned Nama’s decision not to tell Lazard – which was hired to oversee the sale of Project Eagle – about the ‘fixer fee’ arrangement whereby 15million pounds was to be divided between law firm Brown Rudnick, Belfast solicitors Tughans and Frank Cushnahan if Pimco successfully bought the Northern Ireland loan book.
After Pimco’s withdrawal from the sale – following the fixer fee arrangement becoming known – Cerberus bought the loan book as Brown Rudnick and Tughans continued to be involved in the sale.
Catherine Connolly: “In relation to the [University of] Ulster research. And Mr Rowntree was very clear about that: that it was a high-level piece of research and you’ve confirmed that to day and there were many presentations and he said that was potentially confidential information that somebody could make use of. To summarise him, that’s what he said. You probably listened carefully to his evidence so you know better than I did. So, are you disagreeing with him on that?”
Soffe: “Well, to explain, I mean the information in relation to planning zoning is available in planning offices all over…”
Connolly: “I understand that, I’ve been 17 years in local authority, I head you say that: I’m asking you a question…”
Talk over each other
Connolly: “No my question is: are you disagreeing with Mr Rowntree? That’s simply my question.”
Soffe: “I am…I, I…”
Connolly: “Good…that’s okay..”
Soffe: “I don’t see … there was nothing… anything particularly confidential about it that was of benefit. The same information could be found by anyone who wanted to inquire about developmental… was possible…”
Connolly: “That’s okay…”
Soffe: “On particular occasions…”
Connolly: “That’s okay. In relation to Lazard and Lazard was appointed in January 2014 and Lazard were given a verbal briefing to the sales process, isn’t that right? There was no written document? It was a verbal briefing? And..is that correct?”
Soffe: “Yeah, well we were..they were to come back with..”
Talk over each other
Connolly: “You didn’t give them a written document. You gave them a verbal briefing. Okay. And then the Comptroller and Auditor General has raised concerns in relation to what you relied on – the assurance from Lazard and today, you’ve relied on that again and Mr Soffe, in particular, you’ve come back and you’ve said that Lazard reassured you that the process was….”
Soffe: “Competitive tension to the very end.”
Connolly: “Okay. Now, you never told Lazard that Pimco had withdrawn in the circumstances that they had withdrawn.”
Soffe: “It was not relevant for them. They were gone out of the process and like, you know, there was no reason to discuss the, to discuss it with them. Pimco wanted to go away quietly and they were allowed to do that.”
Connolly: “Well, they certainly didn’t go away quietly because we’re talking about it now in 2016.”
Later
Soffe: [Lazard] gave us an absolute assurance that there was potential, tension to the end, competitive tension right to the very end and that we were achieving more than our minimum price.”
Connolly: “You’re not listening to my question, sorry now. The Comptroller and Auditor General has raised an issue in relation to the nature of the assurance given by Lazard. And he says that Lazard had only limited information. So he raises a concern about that assurance. Do you accept that concern?”
Oliver Ellingham: “I think if we were to phrase that, we were happy that the assurance we had from Lazard, for a commercial transaction, was adequate.”
Connolly: “Well…I…”
Ellingham: “As a board, we were faced with, we’re selling some assets and I’m sure any party would be able to find reasons why an advisor needed to be given lots more information to give us an opinion. What we were asking for, was an opinion from Lazard as to whether we were selling in a competitive process and getting fair price.”
Connolly: “How could you possibly rely on an assurance where you’ve given limited information. Where you know that Pimco have withdrawn? Sorry now, and then you come back and you even today tell us that you’re reassured by that assurance?”
Ellingham: “What we were trying to do was to sell some assets for a particular sum of money….”
Connolly: “Yes.”
Ellingham: “...in order to pay down debt. And therefore, we had an assurance that provided we got over 1.3million [sic] then that was the right price in the marketplace and the buyer was capable of buying it. We were not, for us, it was a commercial transaction and for Lazard to opine on the mass of the situation, that’s not, we didn’t think it was relevant for them to be told why Pimco had withdrawn.”
Connolly: “Well, certainly, to me, I’m no expert and I’d say to the ordinary person watching or listening, I don’t think…I’m not reassured. You give limited information to get the answer that you want. You gave limited information to get precisely the answer you want, which is reassurance that the competition is competitive when there’s only one remaining bidder.”
Soffe: “Well, there were two to the end and as we have said, that is not uncommon. Even if you look at, processes, like Project Eagle, there were two at the very end and that’s quite normal…”
Connolly: “It could well be but this is not a normal process, this is not a normal situation. You’re now aware that there were success fees. You’re fully aware of all that and you still don’t pass on that information to Lazard.”
Soffe: “That was dealt with and out of the way and it had nothing to do with the remaining process.”
Watch live here
Last Friday: Nama’s Project Eagle Anomaly
A rather excellent flipped image by Nick Ulivieri of Chicago’s long autumnal shadow reflected in Lake Michigan, taken during an aerial shoot last Friday.
Someday
at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyh6-CsvCU8
“it’s literally gold…”
Food blogger Sean O’Manachain goes hunting in Ballyhoura [in central Munster[ for wild, ceps, chanterelles and hedgehog mushrooms With Mark from Ballyhoura Mountain Mushrooms.
SHROOMS SHROOMS SHROOMS SHROOMS
Music by Laurence Nugent
Lyons!?
Darragh Doyle Via Aoife on the OMGWACA Facebook group, tweetz:
How Trinity College are settling the big Lyons vs Barry’s tea debate (or finding culchies)…
Fight!
The Angels plot of the Mother and Babies Home in Tuam Co Galway on Saturday
The excavation of a the possible site of a mass grave in the grounds of the Tuam Mother and Baby home has begun.
But have they identified the right plot?
Izzy Kamikaze writes:
A few weeks ago, I was happy to hear an excavation was starting at the site of the Mother & Baby Home in Tuam.
Then I saw where the hoarding went up.
I have information that suggests they’re digging in the wrong place and I know the Commission of Inquiry into Mother & Baby Homes has that information too.
It’s hard to know how to react. I struggled with feelings of powerlessness and despair. Is the hoarding in the wrong place accidentally or on purpose?
Whose interests does it serve? In a country that ‘apologises’ to Magdalene women, then tries to swindle them out of the medical care they were promised, the line between conspiracy and cock up is very hard to find.
…When corruption at the top gets to people at the bottom of the pile, it tells us we don’t matter. We might see what’s happening, but we can’t change anything, we’re too small and unimportant.
Nobody will believe us. Nobody will hear us. There’s nothing we can do. If the people at the top don’t want change and the people at the bottom think they can’t make change, then change doesn’t happen. That’s how the country that once led the world in locking up inconvenient people becomes the world leader in letting sleeping dogs lie.
The time for letting sleeping dogs lie at Tuam is over.
We’re meant to feel powerless, but we are not powerless.
[Historian] Catherine Corless, who documented 796 deaths at the Tuam Children’s Home, is not powerless.
Adopted people denied information about their origins are not powerless. Women whose children were taken are not powerless. We can expose what’s hidden. We can make change.
One way we can make change is to appeal to those who do have power and to do so publicly. We can make it impossible for people in power to say they didn’t know what was going on and what they needed to do to put it right.
So, I’ve written a letter to Katherine Zappone, who’s currently the Minister for Children, but I’ve also written it to you. In it, I tell her (and you) that
Witness descriptions of burials at Tuam confirm there is more than one burial site.
One witness description of burials closely matches disused sewage tanks below the site (formerly a 19th century workhouse.) These tanks are outside the area being investigated.
Witness descriptions of a second burial site may describe either a section of the 19th century sewage system or the 20th century septic tank which replaced it. Only the 20th century tank is within the area being investigated.
An area which may contain burials is under an access laneway used by cars. This may be destroying evidence and is also potentially dangerous to drivers and pedestrians.
If underground structures at the site in Tuam were not properly treated when the housing estate was built, there is serious risk of them collapsing, causing injury or death to users of the area which includes a children’s playground.
Failure to find bodies at Tuam, or to find the number of bodies there should be (which is in excess of 800) may indicate that deaths were falsified in order to facilitate illegal adoptions.
It’s a long letter [full text below], but easy to read, so put the kettle on and make some time. Come back to it later, if you need to.
But please don’t read this just as an appeal to the power of the Minister. It’s an appeal to your personal power, the power they try to make you believe you don’t have.
A letter to the Minister with responsibility for the Tuam Babies (Izzy Kamikaze)
Previously: ‘The Septic Tank Was In This Location’
Pic: Andy Newman via Tuam In Pictures
Interactive satellite images of Dublin for your timewasting pleasure.
Conor Delaney writes:
Satellite image of Dublin, near infrared highlighting the vegetation. Make you own pictures here…