FlanGarveyITTralee_largeThe Institute of Technology Tralee’s Flan Garvey.

You don’t get to stand in front of leatherbound books wearing a cape by scrimping.

The chair of Institute of Technology Tralee’s governing body may soon have to review his position after being embroiled in controversy over high expenses payments and a plagiarism investigation, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn has indicated.

The minister is to ask the Higher Education Authority (HEA) to probe expenses across the 14 institutes of technology, after it has emerged that Flan Garvey [above] was paid more than €125,000 in expenses by the college from 2005 to 2011, far higher than any other board member. Mr Garvey last week said he welcomed his vindication after a successful appeal against a finding that his degree awarded for a research masters at IT Tralee (ITT) was unjustified because of plagiarism. His average expenses of almost €18,000 in the seven years to 2011 were multiples of those paid to any other governing body member.

 

IT Tralee expenses paid to Flan Garvey:

2005: €12,532.46

2006: €20,920.50

2007: €17,765.61

2008: €21,642.79

2009: €11,510.22

2010: €21,086.82

2011: €20,285.51

Total: €125,743.91

ITT chair in spotlight over hefty expenses (Niall Murray, Irish Examiner)

Chair of institute has plagiarism ruling overturned (Niall Murray, Irish Examiner)

Pic: Irish Examiner

KehoeFine Gael Government chief whip Paul Kehoe’s constituency office in New Ross, Co Wexford was set on fire last night.

Solicitor Marin Lawlor’s office was also attacked. RTÉ is reporting that Mr Lawlor is one of the main Fine Gael party organisers in the area.

It reports:

“Two men were arrested following the incidents, which happened at around 3am this morning.

Gardaí say they are investigating if the incidents were politically motivated.”

Investigation after New Ross arson attacks (RTÉ)

-1Or bike.

Goose writes:

I realise you don’t normally do this but my friend’s bike was stolen [this morning] from outside her apartment in the north Ranelagh area. This is particularly crap as she’s due to take part in a charity cycle in a few weeks in aid of LauraLyn. It’s a Trek 7.3 WSD, 17 inch, 2012 model. Answers to the name Tess

.

KennyRabbitteIn 2009, when in Opposition, Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Labour’s Pat Rabbitte were very concerned about the immunity granted to drug dealer Kieran Boylan.

This is what Pat Rabbitte had to say in the Dáil to then Justice Minister Dermot Ahern, of Fianna Fáil.

“I am particularly concerned at the recent case involving the alleged drug dealer and Garda informant, Mr. Kieran Boylan, which should be vigorously and efficiently investigated and, if appropriate, matters should be referred to the appropriate authorities. I understand that the commission is engaged in a public interest inquiry in this matter, but there needs to be a timeframe and the report needs to be advanced urgently.

“It is not lightly that I mention the name of any citizen in this House. It has been alleged that Mr. Boylan, a drug trafficker, had a relationship with the Garda that facilitated collusion and resulted in Boylan being shielded from drugs charges by a small group of gardaí in this city. It is alleged that while working with the Garda, Mr. Boylan was trafficking drugs into this jurisdiction with the knowledge of certain members of the Garda who appear to have turned a blind eye and did all in their power to keep him out of prison.

“Questions must be answered in respect of why charges against Mr. Boylan for importing heroin and cocaine worth an estimated €1.7 million, seized at a truckers’ yard in Ardee, County Louth in the Minister’s constituency in October 2005, were dropped and a nolle prosequi entered. It is alleged the reason is that Mr. Boylan threatened to reveal details of his relationship with members of the force, which would cause embarrassment. Moreover, it has been reported that when people discovered drugs on Mr. Boylan’s premises in 2004 and reported the matter to the Garda in confidence, they were subsequently threatened by Mr. Boylan and his associates, and the Garda appears to have failed to act on the information in an appropriate or any manner at all.

“The breach of trust that would result in a confidential report to the Garda by members of the public being ignored and then the person complained about being told about it and threatening those who were carrying out their civic duties is a gross breach of trust and must be investigated. Internal Garda inquiries are no longer satisfactory in matters as serious as that involving Mr. Kieran Boylan. It is essential that the commission carries out this investigation with great care and efficiency but within a specific and definite timeframe. Nothing less is required at this delicate moment in the history of the Garda Síochána.”

While Kenny also aired his grievances in an Irish Examiner article at the time:

“Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said the licence issued in September to Boylan, despite numerous “Good Repute” checks, contradicted national policy against drug crime. With respect to allegations of a Garda cover-up, he said, given the information in the public domain Mr Dempsey (then Transport Minister Noel Dempsey) should revoke Boylan’s licence.”

 

Garda Ombudsman to publish Boylan Report in weeks (Cormac O’Keeffe, Conor Ryan, Irish Examiner)

Earlier: “Black Ops Being Run Off The Books”

Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland

gravity-movie-poster

What you may need to know.

1. Now that’s what I call a teaser trailer.

2. There are only two people in this movie, and they’re both Oscar winners.

3. Last time Alfonso Cuaron made a movie we got Children Of Men (2004), a stone cold masterpiece and possibly the most under-appreciated movie of the past decade.

4. Man, Ireland badly needs a proper IMAX cinema.

Release Date: October

U2 - Bono and Bush

The Front Man [by Dublin Institute of Technology’s Harry Browne] is about a boy who never grew up or faced facts. Through very careful accretion of detail it left me feeling that Bono resembled no entertainment or arts figure nearly as much as that other sad, sheltered boy, George W. Bush.

In fact, what surprised me most about my reaction to the book was how my response changed as I read. At first, the prose seemed too reserved, too cautious, incapable of capturing the outrageousness of Bono, one part talent to nine parts hubris.

But as the pages turned, what engrossed me was another portrait: Bono as that little boy in man’s boots, surrounded by forces he fathoms no more than a five-year-old fathoms the perils of the sea. In the end, Harry Browne’s Bono is not so much a huckster as a sucker; not a con man so much as a victim of the world’s greatest con artists; not an egomaniac but someone so insecure he has found ways to be shielded from almost all harsh realities (well, at least his own). If this were a movie, you might be able to measure the price paid just by the way he looks at himself in the mirror.

Most less than adulatory writing about Bono, including my own, is a blend of anger, contempt, condescension and frustration.

The Front Man recognizes all these instincts, but keeps them under tight command. For instance, Browne allows himself to be angrier (in tone) at Bono’s wife, Ali, whose business machinations are real but comparatively trivial, than at Bono, himself. There’s kind of a shadow behind such moments, as if we’re meant to glean that the
book’s protagonist can’t be judged like other men, not because he is extraordinarily gifted or brave or empathetic, but because he’s so lost, frightened and pathetic.

Bono may be the personification of all that’s evil about contemporary celebrity culture and all that’s worse than bankrupt about liberal capitalism (and liberal capitalists) but there’s also a real person in there, and he’s spent most of a lifetime making himself what history must surely judge—perhaps not with as much restraint as the author—as a fool.

Rock writer Dave Marsh, who first met Bono in 1984 and is a longtime critic of U2’s music and their singer’s politics, reviewing Harry Bowne’s book The Front Man: Bono (In The Name Of Power).

Bono: Mascot Of Neo Liberalism (CounterPunch)

Burton drags U2 into corporate tax avoidance ‘scandal’ (Independent.ie)

Previously: Anything Good On Amazon

(Getty)

Thanks Michael Nugent

Broadsheet.ie