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Evanna Lyons, from Meath, and Alexis Cronin [above on couch – brother of the ‘sheet’s Olga], from Cork, have founded an upcycling initiative in Arusha, Tanzania.

Evanna and Alexis convert plastic bottles and bags into furniture – then funnel some of the profits back into the community.

Darragh Murphy, in today’s Irish Times, reports:

Dunia Designs pays teams of workers to clean discarded plastic bottles and bags they collect in the thronged city’s townships and incorporate them into hard and soft furnishings. And then they give away their profits.

It sounds good, if aesthetically problematic. Walking into the Dunia Designs workshop in Arusha’s Ilboru quarter (after a death-defying ride on a “picky picky” motorcycle), I expect to find uninviting objects of austere minimalism.

Not so. The company’s founders, Evanna Lyons and Alexis Cronin, wanted to make furniture they would buy themselves. “That was our whole aim all along,” says Lyons, a psychotherapist from Meath who also works in the local hospital. “It had to be impossible to tell it from any other furniture. And nobody believes it until you sit on it.”

I ask to see some samples – and am informed they are all around me, and indeed under my backside. Most of the furniture is made using upcycled plastic, local fabrics and frames made of “greenwood” (processed street waste made into planks as durable as any wood).

… In the teeming, chaotic, rutted streets around Ilboru, there are several schools, but they don’t come free. Lyons and Cronin want to spend half of their Dunia profits sending as many children to school as they can afford – currently three in primary, five in secondary and five in tertiary education.

… Eleven months on, and they are making pool tables, looking into making bricks out of shredded plastic and are about to supply furniture to Fumba Town, a new eco-city in Zanzibar.

Once completed, Fumba Town eco-city will comprise 1,500 houses, plus apartment blocks, hotels and restaurants on the semi-autonomous archipelago, which is particularly plagued by plastic refuse.

A fantastic use for plastic in Tanzania (Irish Times)

Dunia Designs

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A very impressive graduation short written directed and animated by Karis Oh. To wit:

A story about an artist who learns about the importance of the things unseen as she gets to draw a stranger’s portrait.

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A short film by Quartz. To wit:

Designers and artists all over the world use Pantone’s color guides to make sure their blue is actually blue. Like a Webster’s dictionary for color, Pantone guides are a standard against which anyone can check their own work. Those standards are created at Pantone’s factory headquarters in Carlstadt, New Jersey. In this video, Quartz talks to the workers who maintain and enforce those standards.

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Noirin-OSullivan

President of the Association of the Garda Sergeants and Inspector Antoinette Cunningham; and with Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan

The new president of the Association of the Garda Sergeants and Inspector Antoinette Cunningham spoke to Seán O’Rourke on RTÉ Radio One this morning.

They discussed the AGSI members’ plans to protest next week over pay and their willingness to take industrial action if needs be.

They also talked about the O’Higgins’ report, Sgt Maurice McCabe’s allegations and Garda Commissioner Noirín O’Sullivan’s allegation to the inquiry that McCabe told two officers he was acting out of malice.

The allegation was proven to be false after Sgt McCabe produced a recording of his conversation with the two Gardai.

From their discussion…

Antoinette Cunningham: “I can tell you Seán, from our conference and our mood on the ground, I can tell you that we are prepared to go as far as we have to go. Next week we have a march, we will picket the Dáil next week, as a national executive from AGSI.”

“The week after that we will move on to picket the Office of the Minister for Justice and the Taoiseach. We will do whatever it takes for us to highlight our cause around pay. It’s not a desirable position, it’s not what we want to do but I would like members of the public to understand, we don’t want to try and affect services to the public but we have to try and highlight our cause in some form and sadly this is the last one that’s left.”

Later

Seán O’Rourke: “The O’Higgins’ report published last week, looking into claims of corruption and malpractice made by your colleague, Sgt Maurice McCabe. One of the things the report did was highlighted the ill treatment he received in the force after he spoke out. Now, do you think, or do you agree with the suggestion that An Garda Siochana is a cold house for whistleblowers?”

Cunningham: “Well, first of all, I’m not going to comment on any individual, Seán. But I will comment on a general basis in relation to whistleblowing. And I think, look, organisations like An Garda Siochana, have a responsibility to ensure that people who do want to make disclosures within the organisation have a safe environment to do that. I know that the Protected Disclosures Act of 2014 brings in the guards within that and I think, you know, there shouldn’t be any fear or repercussions made by anyone who wants to report corruption or malpractice in any organisation, including An Garda Siochana.”

O’Rourke: “There was one thing which I think a lot of people were disturbed by. Now, in a sense, it’s difficult for people, particularly like the Garda Commissioner to comment because there is a restriction on what can be said or revealed about what emerges and exchanges add something to like a Commission. But nonetheless, it has emerged into the public arena that senior counsel for both the Commissioner and indeed members of the force suggested that Sgt McCabe had been acting with malice and that evidence would be brought to that effect. But then when it transpired that Sgt McCAbe had had a recording of the exchanges in which this malpractice was alleged to have been given voice to by him, that just vanished. Now does that concern you?”

Cunningham: “Well, I think, look Sean, the Commissioner has, at this stage, not commented on that so it would be remiss of me to try in any way to comment on that matter. What I would like to talk about in relation to…”

O’Rourke: “No but do you think we should know more? Or is it good enough that, and I wouldn’t accuse the Minister or the Commissioner of hiding behind a law, which is her duty to uphold, but nonetheless, would you accept that there should be some forum for clearing the air about this?”

Cunningham: “Well I think that’s a matter for the Garda Commissioner, Sean. I don’t think it’s, it would be appropriate for me to comment in relation to that.”

O’Rourke: “Is it not a matter for every citizen in this state? And you, as president of the AGSI, that such murky dealings appear to have been going on. At least that’s the suggestion, and we have to enter all sorts of caveats about this, it’s selective and we don’t know what the context is, but there appears to be a record which is the basis for this report by Michael Clifford last week in the Examiner.”

Cunningham: “Well I think if there is a murkiness or anything attached to it, Seán, that needs clarity, then it’s not for me to provide that clarity, it’s a matter for the Garda Commissioner.”

O’Rourke: “Well you could call for it thought?”

Cunningham: “Well I don’t know if it’s appropriate for an association to call for it, I think if  members of the public want to call for it, or if indeed anyone else wants to call for it, I don’t think it’s a matter for a Garda association…”

Listen back in full here

Pic: AGSI

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Janma Angibaud writes:

So my mate Dave’s recorded his own Euro 2016 anthem “Ireland Abú”. G’wan the Dave Boys in Green!

Ireland Abú

Previously: For Euro Consideration: Summer Of ’16

Euro 2016  songs to Broadsheet@broadsheet.ie marked ‘For Euro Consideration’.

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Taoiseach Enda Kenny and US President Barack Obama

You may recall the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership deal between the European Union and the US.

Part of the deal involves an ‘Investment Court System’.

Further to this…

Peter O’Dwyer, in today’s Irish Examiner, reports:

One of the most controversial aspects of the proposed deal is the inclusion of an investment court system (ICS), which critics argue would give corporations the power to sue sovereign states in trade disputes.

… Dublin-based senior counsel and former chairman of the Bar Council of England and Wales Matthias Kelly said the proposed investment court would “certainly infringe” upon the Irish Constitution in two areas and possibly three. In his opinion, the investment court system would:

Possibly infringe on Article 15.2.1 which vests sole power to make law in the Oireachtas;

Certainly infringe on Article 34.1 which vests the power to dispense justice in the Irish domestic courts;

Certainly infringe on Article 34.3.2 which makes the High Court and Appellate Courts above it the sole court in which a law may be questioned.

‘Referendum required’ in transatlantic trade deal (Peter O’Dwyer, Irish Examiner)

Previously: Luke’s TTIP

Broadsheet.ie