What you may need to know:

1. Don’t shoot the messenger.

2. If you must, his name is Dinesh D’Souza, bestselling conservative author, ardent Trumpian and filmmaker considered a ‘right-wing Michael Moore‘.

2. The 2020 US Presidential Election result remains rife with claims by the Republican Party of fraud by the Democrat Party.

3. Many US states have laws allowing people to return completed mail ballots on behalf of others, such as family members, in ballot drop boxes scattered around polling districts.

4. A mule is a criminal delivery person, who physically takes a sack of ballots provided by shady NGOs and political machines, dumps those ballots in collection boxes throughout a voting district.

5. Do enough of this, and you have planted voter fraud across a nation.

6. With eyewitness testimony and geotracking, D’Souza claims an already corrupt system was taken over and supercharged by national-level operatives to produce a fake result.

7. FIGHT!

Andy’s verdict: Watch, then decide.

Release: May 7. Available to rent on YouTube and some other streaming services. Not available on Netflix.

1967.

A nation under trembling fear.

No change there then.

Moate?

Ireland rugby international Eimear Considine with a size 5 ball

This afternoon.

Keep the shape.

Lose the girth.

Via RTÉ Sport:

Eimear Considine, who won her 26th Ireland cap against England, is in favour of coming in line with the other sports.

“I actually don’t know the reasons why we use a size 5 ball but it’s worth a discussion,” she tells RTÉ Sport.

“My hands aren’t big enough to a one-handed offload but maybe if there was a smaller ball it might allow for you to be a bit slicker in your offloads.

“Naturally, we have smaller hands, that’s just our physiology, it’s nothing to do with not being able to play with a size 5 ball.:

We’re saying nuffink.

Considines agree rugby needs to grasp smaller ball (RTE)

Pic via BlxBox

This morning.

Dail Eireann.

Meanwhile…

Um.

Earlier…

The Sisters of Charity are the shareholders of the St Vincent’s Healthcare Group which the Department of Health said will be the “sole owner of the new hospital” which is planned to be built at the St Vincent’s Hospital site at Elm Park, Dublin 4

This morning.

Via Irish Times:

The Government will not consider any changes to the structure or governance of the new National Maternity Hospital in the coming weeks, despite Opposition concerns about the ownership of the site and potential religious influence.

Government will not reopen National Maternity Hospital deal (Irish Times)

Meanwhile…

…via solicitor Simon McGarr in The Gist (full article at link below)

The first thing to say is that the papers released [on Tuesday night] represent only part of the documents constituting this deal. They are missing the documents which govern and control the company which the nuns have set up and transferred their shareholding to.

Under canon law, this transfer required the approval of the Vatican and is subject to whatever conditions were set by the Vatican to proceed. The Minister does not appear to know what those rules are, telling the Irish Times

“I guess you’d have to talk to the Vatican about that. We don’t have any such documents.”

In fact, the state has been kept so in the dark on the matter that Mason, Hayes and Curran, the solicitors working for Holles Street Hospital, have a footnote at page 3 of the Co-Ordination Agreement meekly asking “MHC Note: Can you clarify whether any third party consents/approvals or additional steps are required in advance of the ability of SVHG to grant the Lease.” This seems like something of a loose end to leave unresolved when you’re bringing a supposedly oven-ready deal to cabinet.

The papers released also lack basic elements on their own account- the Operating Licence is missing the Facility Operations Agreement, which is meant to be attached as a Schedule and the Lease is missing the maps and Annexes which would show the parts of the St Vincent’s campus the current hospital management would control and which parts would actually be under the control of the new hospital’s management. Those maps are also missing from the various option agreements.

This last point is particularly interesting in the light of the eye-opening clause of the Lease which commits that a portion of the land and/or the building being leased is still going to be left in control of the nuns’ new vehicle…(more at link below)

The Gist: The Maternity Hospital’s Difficult Birth (Simon McGarr, The Gist)

RollingNews

From top: Built in Baltimore in West Cork in 1926, the ‘Ilen’ served for over 70 years, transporting cargo between the Falkland Islands before being brought back to Ireland 20 years ago and restored; Jeremy Irons

Yesterday and last night.

London, England, UK.

Niall Moonan writes:

Ireland’s last timber-built cargo ship became the mast-er of The Thames at a special event in London to celebrate Anglo-Irish trade and cultural links. Actors Jeremy Irons and his wife Sinead Cusack were among the guests joining the crew of the Ilen.

The 96-year-old cargo ketch left Steamboat Quay in Limerick on April 23 for the 750-nautical mile voyage, sailing up the River Thames and berthing at St Katharine Docks in the shadow of Tower Bridge.

The Ilen will remain berthed in London’s docklands until May 14, with the hope that further commercial and cultural collaborations can be arranged.

Ilen Marine School

Pics: Clare Frew

*screech*

This morning.

Via Dublin City Council:

We have today launched a new tool for members of the public to rate traffic signals in the city.

‘Rate My Signals‘ is a new web map tool that allows road users to provide feedback on their experience of the traffic signals they come in contact with as part of their daily commute and travel through the city.

The Traffic Control team in DCC’s Civics office will use the analytics generated from the feedback to improve how they operate the City’s traffic signals.

Finally.

Rate My Signals (DCC)

Rate My Signal (Rate My Service)

Gulp.

Last night.

County Cork.

Gardaí seized a quantity of the illegal plant cannabis, with a ‘street value ‘of €60,000, around €9,000 in cash and arrested one man following an operation in Cobh as part of Operation Tara, A man in his late teens was arrested and detained and released without charge. Investigations are ongoing.

The streets are a little safer this morning.

Rollingnews/Garda Press office

Broadsheet.ie