Tag Archives: Patrick O’Donovan

Fine Gael TD and Minister of State for Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform Patrick Donovan

This morning.

Donal O’Regan reports in the Limerick Leader

Minister Patrick O’Donovan said people flouting the HSE regulations need to “cop on”.

Whether that’s hanging around street corners, breaking the 2km rule, behaving inappropriately, having parties or whatever – these people are now breaking the law. They should be bright before the courts and held accountable,” said Minister O’Donovan.

He called on the community to “do their part and report people”.

“I know that might sound like a difficult thing to do but it is not. You need to ring the guards and you need to report them. Even if they are your neighbours you need to report them because the behaviour of some could cost the lives of others,” he said.

Ring gardai if your neighbour is flouting HSE guidelines – Limerick minister (Limerick Leader)

Rollingnews

Meanwhile…

Odious snitch.

Meanwhile…

Fine Gael TD Patrick Donovan

This afternoon.

The Dáil’s Business Committee will meet at noon, while the Dáil will meet with a much reduced number of TDs at 2pm to discuss health and social protection matters concerning the coronavirus.

Further to this…

Meanwhile…

And on the plinth…

Rollingnews

Minister for Finance and Junior Finance Minister Patrick O’Donovan

Last night.

On RTÉ’s Drivetime.

Limerick County Fine Gael TD and Junior Finance Minister with special responsibility for Public Procurement, Open Government and eGovernment Patrick O’Donovan spoke to Mary Wilson.

He was on the show to talk about his proposed ‘opt-in’ eGovernment service – called the Digital Postbox – which will allow citizens to receive State correspondence electronically.

But they also discussed the National Broadband Plan – after Ms Wilson asked if there was enough broadband to make this service a reality.

From their discussion:

Patrick O’Donovan: “It’s regrettable and it seems a pity now that we have a kind of alliance building up that’s opposing the delivery of rural broadband…”

Mary Wilson: “I don’t think people are opposing the delivery of rural broadband, minister. They’re raising big questions about Government investment of €3billion which has to be, you know, up front Government investment. And is it €200million from Granahan McCourt?”

O’Donovan: “Well, I’m not going to get into what the specifics are in relation to it.”

Wilson: “Why not? Let’s get into it”

O’Donovan: “Because, as the minister for finance said, Mary, over the weekend and you know this as much as well as I do. There’s a commercial contract negotiations currently under way, the Government have said what are maximum liability is going to be.

“But it’s interesting, you know. While the opposition have given a whole plethora of reasons of why they’re against the roll-out of rural broadband to the people like the 22,000 people in Limerick that need it. They’ve provided no alternative.

“It reminds me a bit of the Brexit-type scenario. Some of the people from the Brexiteers who say ‘alternative technologies’. I mean I heard one person suggesting, you know, that we roll it out to the village. We’ll bring broadband to the village and God is good after that for the people who are living out in the hills around it.”

Wilson: “But at least, at least, at least your colleague, the Minister for Agriculture [Michael Creed] when he was asked a straight question: how much, he answered the question on Clare FM. He was asked ‘how much?’ and he said ‘something shy of €200million’. I’m asking you a straight question.”

O’Donovan: “I’ll give you a straight answer. I’m not a member of the Cabinet, I don’t know. And I don’t know because…”

Wilson: “Should you ask?”

O’Donovan: “No, I’ll tell you why I shouldn’t ask. Because it’s commercially sensitive between the Government which are the 15 members of the Cabinet and the consortium that has been put together to deliver a service that no, remember, no commercial company out there, after having dragged this around for years. No commercial company out there is prepared to deliver broadband to the 22,000-odd people in County Limerick…”

Wilson: “OK. Was Michael Creed, was Michael Creed wrong when he was asked a straight question to answer honestly?”

O’Donovan: “Well I don’t know. To be honest about it. I don’t know because I, what I can tell you, with my hand on my heart, I don’t know the answer to the question that you’re asking. What I do know…”

Wilson: “I know but Michael Creed did and he answered it. Was he wrong to answer it?”

O’Donovan: “Well I’ll tell you – we’re in the middle of commercially sensitive negotiations.”

Wilson: “But the figure is out there now. A man at the Cabinet table has given us the figure.”

O’Donovan: “But no one has, Mary, with the greatest of respect, no one has said that that’s the right figure or the wrong figure. What we know is that the maximum amount that the State’s liability will be, when you take out VAT, is €2.6billion and again, as I say, I have heard no one in the Opposition benches, or no one in the media, or nobody even in the commercial companies that are out there, who could possibly deliver this, saying ‘we could do that for a lot cheaper’.”

Listen back in full here

Rollingnews

Thanks Bebe

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co4PQ7vtgco&&w=600]

Limerick TD Patrick O’Donovan (Fine Gael) asked the new chairperson of the Road Safety Authority Liz O’Donnell at a meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications earlier for her opinion on the increase of penalty points from two to three and if she thought the penalty was disproportionate.

If that’s the deputy’s attitude, what’s the point?

Name the O’Donnell jammer anyone?

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)

FineGael

[A screengrab from the Fine Gael website last night]

Fine Gael’s website published has published a piece by Patrick O’Donovan, a Fine Gael TD on the Communications Committee, about the future…

Robert Synnott writes:

Go read it; it’s really quite an amazing piece. I believe it’s supposed to be about the Silk Road, a seller of illegal materials, largely drugs, on the Tor network, and possibly also about Freedom Hosting, also on the Tor network and formerly one of the world’s larger distributors of child porn. It could even be about Tor itself.

The reason for my uncertainty is that it is utterly incoherent. It talks about open-source browsers, and “replacement” open-source browsers quickly appearing to continue the illegal trade. But this is nonsensical. The only non-open-source browser in common use today is the much-in-decline Internet Explorer; while Chrome and Safari are technically closed source, they are substantially open source. Firefox is entirely open source. And there’s nothing illegal about open source browsers. I can only imagine that by “open source browsers” he means “Tor network sites”.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for the recent shutdown of the Silk Road and Freedom Hosting. Freedom Hosting was indeed a big child porn distributor, and Silk Road’s operator was a very nasty piece of work.

I’m not even worried that the government will make bad legislation off the back of this. When it comes to it, the government will not be banning Google’s browser on the say-so of an obscure TD.

My issue is more the amazing carelessness. It would have taken O’Donovan five minutes of reading Wikipedia to, if not have a clear picture of what was going on, at least know better than to write what he did. The computer-machines seem to be a strange focal point of governmental cluelessness; while TDs writing on other subjects are hardly perfect, you’re not going to get James Reilly writing a piece advocating the use of radium to cure The Humours, or something, nor will you find Alan Shatter extolling the virtues of the Freeman on the Land philosophy. This isn’t the first time, though, that a TD has spouted complete nonsense about computers.

It makes it all the worse that O’Donovan is on the Communications Committee. You’d expect he could at least put in a little effort on what his job is supposed to be. I don’t really expect him to know this stuff, though it’d be a nice bonus, but you’d think he could look up what the words mean. I mean, what are we paying him for? Is this all a backbencher does, write nonsensical letters about something they half-remember from a tabloid?

It’s also, of course, embarrassing; you can’t really go on about the Knowledge Economy on the one hand and do this sort of thing on the other. Not really good enough, Fine Gael.

Yikes.

O’Donovan calls for crackdown on internet browsers and payment systems which facilitate illegal activity (Fine Gael)

The government’s IT credibility problem (Robert Synnott)

Previously: Fidema: The Frape Tape