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Senator Ronan Mullen and with his fellow candidates Ben Gilroy, of Direct Democracy Ireland; Thomas Byrne, of Fianna Fáil; Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, Independent; Mark Dearey, of the Green Party and TJ Fay and Mark Fitzsmons, both Independents, on RTE Prime Time’s debate of Midlands-North-West MEP candidates last night

You may have caught Senator Ronan Mullen on Prime Time’s second panel debate of the Midlands-North-West MEP candidates last night.

During Senator Mullen’s appearance, he took host Miriam O’Callaghan to task, accusing RTE of bias, censorship and of being too cosy with Government parties – an outburst that earned vocal approval and agreement from Mr Flanagan.

Senator Mullen’s claims came on foot of Senator Mullen and Mr Flanagan’s annoyance over their exclusion from the first panel debate.

This morning, the RTE Player had the debates from last night posted but it stopped short in the second panel’s debate, just before Ms O’Callaghan turns to speak to Mr Mullen and when Mr Flanagan is in mid-sentence – therefore those looking back this morning cannot see  Senator Mullen’s outburst.

In total, of the 44-minute video posted, 37.15 minutes consisted of the first panel’s debate, with the remaining seven or so minutes consisting of the second panel’s debate – with the seven or so minutes consisting only of contributions from Thomas Byrne, Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan and Mark Deary.

The two debates in total were actually approximately an hour and 15 minutes.

Now, in the last few minutes, it appears the Prime Time debate has been removed from the RTE Player entirely.

Prior to the the second panel’s debate, an earlier panel consisted of Senator Lorraine Higgins, from Labour; Cllr Matt Carthy, of Sinn Féin; Mairead McGuinness, Fine Gael MEP; Jim Higgins, Fine Gael MEP; Marian Harkin, Independent MEP; and Pat ‘The Cope’ Gallagher, Fianna Fail MEP.

The first panel consisted of sitting MEPs and those candidates whose parties, or Independents, who won 10% support or more at the last election – a set-up which prompted complaints from both Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan and Senator Mullen.

Anyone?

RTE Player (Prime Time)

UPDATE: RTE has since posted the two debates in their entirety.

UPDATE: RTE Player no longer has the debates on its website.

UPDATE:

 

Update:

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Created by Ranga Vadhineni, Localmint is a site and companion iOS app that lets you find out opening times of shops around you.

It doesn’t sound like something that would be hard to to find using Google, but it surprisingly IS especially when you’re in a hurry.

It’s one of those apps that you’ll have on your phone, forgotten about until the last can is drunk and you need to get to the closest shop still open.

Ranga and his co-founder Oisin Ryan are currently part of the current batch of start ups in the NDRC Launchpad programme and are working to bring their app to the UK and Australia.

The app is available now on the Apple App Store and an Android version is in the pipeline to be released in July.

Do you have an Irish app? Broadsheet@broadsheet.ie

As always, no favours, cuddles, or pints were given for this post. We have some guidelines on submissions.

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You may recall a post from last week in relation to Cork developer Michael O’Flynn and how his loans are being sold by Nama to global private equity firm Blackstone.

It has been reported that Mr O’Flynn owed his banks €1.8 billion when he entered Nama in 2009, and has now left Nama owing Blackstone €1.1 billion.

Mr O’Flynn also remains in control of his property business.

Further to this, Business Editor of the Irish Times, John McManus recalls how Nama was pitched to the Irish electorate back in 2009 – suggesting that the late former Finance Minister Brian Lenihan and former Taoiseach Brian Cowen either didn’t understand how Nama would work or deliberately misled the Irish public.

He writes:

It’s pretty clear that the two men [Cowen and Lenihan] either did not understand what Nama was and how it was going to work or instead played fast and loose with the truth in order to get the Nama legislation over the over the line. One suspects it was the latter. 

…what did turn out to be at best a fib was the claim that Nama would operate in a way that would make it impossible for the developers who took out the loans to benefit from the writedowns. The Nama legislation did include a clause that the developers could not buy their loans back from Nama but, as we have seen, it was not possible to prevent them having a continued interest in the underlying business and assets once the debt had been written down and sold off by Nama.

Nama pragmatism before action to benefit developers (Irish Times)

Previously: ‘Sucked Up By The Taxpayer’

3

Curious Gordeaux writes:

“Just wondering if the call I received last week from 3 Mobile was a one off, or if your readers have experienced something similar. 3 rang last Thursday evening to talk about my bills, which tend to run around €3/€4 above my my set bill each month. The guy had a suggestion for how to reduce that, he would send me out a couple of 3 sim cards, pay as you go ones, for me to distributed amongst the non-3 friends of mine who I contact.
I was a bit surprised and asked if he was serious. He questioned my response and I told him it’s none of my business what network my friends are on, if he wanted them to change then he should ring them. He said (paraphrased) “I save all of my customers money, you just need to top up this sim card now over the phone by €20 and I can send it out to you and you can give it to someone who you ring that isn’t on 3.” I ended the call then. I actually thought it was a scam so I rang back the number [1800-949-560] to check it out. It’s legit it seems…”

Anyone?

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It costs about €139 to fill the tank of a Ford Transit with petrol in Denmark; in Ireland, it costs about €128. The cheapest place to buy petrol is the United Arab Emirates followed by Malaysia, Mexico and the US. It costs €27 to fill up a tank with petrol in the UAE, €37 in Malaysia, €52 in Mexico and €55 in the US.

“It is Irish taxes alone which see our fuel prices this high,” said Conor Faughnan, director of consumer affairs at the AA.

Taxes account for almost 60 per cent of the cost of filling up the tank of a Ford Transit with petrol in Ireland, compared to about 13 per cent in the US. There are no fuel taxes in China> or Malaysia.

There you go now.

Ireland is world’s fourth most expensive for petrol (Sunday Independent)

Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland

maps

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy2Zk196uYM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

What you may need to know:

1. This trailer is NSFW-ish.

2. It’s the new David Cronenberg movie. He did Scanners (1981), The Fly (1986), Crash (1996) and A History Of Violence (2005). The masterpiece? That’d be Videodrome (1983).

3. It stars Julianne Moore, John Cusack and Robert Pattinson, star of Cronenberg’s earlier Cosmopolis (2012).

4. We still believe in John Cusack. Even if he doesn’t. We’re enjoying his awkward cinematic mid-life crisis, even if it involves having to sit through a lot of crap b-movies. That said, who doesn’t love Hot Tub Time Machine (2012)?

5. The critics are in favour.

6. Broadsheet Prognosis: The Player (1992) meets Naked Lunch (1991).

Release Date: TBC

Broadsheet.ie