Ray Grehan.

It’s how he rolls.

NAMA developer Can Pay Himself €5,000 Each Week, Rules UK judge (irish Independent)

Nama Fails To Stop Developer Being Paid €5,000 A Week (Simon Carswell, Irish Times)

NAMA Moves To Halt Sale Of Rockefeller Center Condo By Glenamaddy Developer (Declan Varley, Galway Advertiser)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhmwyPHz8BQ&feature=player_embedded

Northern Ireland Screen funded short film, THE SHORE, written, directed and produced by Belfast native Terry George, is among the final 10 live action short films which will advance in the voting process for the 84th Academy Awards®.

Academy Branch members will now select three to five nominees from among the 10 titles on the shortlist. One hundred and seven pictures had originally qualified in the category.

THE SHORE, which filmed entirely in Northern Ireland on location in Killough last year, is the story of an Irish exile (Ciaran Hinds) who fled to America 25 years ago to escape Belfast’s violence and is now bringing his grown-up daughter back to meet his childhood friends.

 

Terry George’s The Shore Advances In Oscar Race (Northern Ireland Screen)

That’s why it’s both incredible and poignant that a voluntary movement that was born in Ireland during the summer is about to go international.

Coder Dojo, the brainchild of 19-year-old entrepreneur and programmer James Whelton from Cork and tech entrepreneur Bill Liao, began as a Saturday morning club for kids to teach each other software programming.

It has grown into a national movement up and down Ireland, a place where kids and their parents can go and learn to write software code in a friendly environment. The first UK Coder Dojo was held in London only last week and other countries in Europe are clamouring to get the initiative started there, too.

What Whelton – who only did his Leaving Cert this summer and is already up and running with his own software company Disruptive Development – is at pains for people to realise is there is actually a lot of software talent among young kids in Ireland.


Coding For Our lives (John Kennedy, Silicon Republic)

Graphic: Silicon Republic

 

MORE THAN €5 million was paid into a controversial bank account used to finance foreign trips for public officials and trade union figures, according to a report published today.

The Dáil Public Accounts Committee will today consider  how millions of euro of State funding ended up in the account that was controlled by two individuals associated with the trade union Siptu.

The report also identified more than 40 foreign trips undertaken by civil and public servants, trade union officials and others that were funded by the Siptu “levy” account – again more than previously understood to be the case.

A separate HSE internal audit report…[adds] that in effect the forum has been unable to account for the disbursement of €770,000 of taxpayers’ funds to Siptu.

Siptu corporately has said the “levy” account was an unofficial one.

The Dáil committee was told last year that the account was controlled by a senior Siptu official, Matt Merrigan (middle pic), and a former national executive member, Jack Kelly (bottom pic).

 

Over €5m Paid Into Siptu Fund – Report (Martin Wall, Irish Times)

Siptu To Demote Official Over Travel Fund (RTE, June 24, 2011)

(Photocall Ireland)
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