Twang.
The Apple Tax edition of Village, Ireland’s political and cultural magazine, on shelves now.
Tag Archives: Village Magazine
From top: Ronnie Hanna, Frank Cushnahan and Enda Kenny
You may recall how Taoiseach Enda Kenny has repeatedly rebuffed calls from various TDs for a Commission of Investigation into Nama’s sale of its northern Ireland portfolio, Project Eagle.
The calls came after two men were arrested in Co. Down on May 31 in relation to the sale and later released pending further inquiries.
Earlier this month, in the Dáil, Mr Kenny said, “Nobody has presented me with evidence of wrongdoing by Nama in this jurisdiction” and, on another occasion, Mr Kenny said: “Nama has done nothing wrong”.
Just last week, Mr Kenny stated: “I am informed that this loan sell was executed in a proper manner. Despite all the comments and allegations, there are no claims of wrongdoing against NAMA.”
Further to this…
Frank Connolly, in Village magazine, reports:
The arrest of two men in connection with the criminal investigation into the sale of Project Eagle, the single largest disposal of Irish state assets, has discharged a seismic shock through the establishment, north and south.
…Ronnie Hanna, a former head of asset management at NAMA in Dublin and Frank Cushnahan, a former member of the agency’s Northern Ireland Advisory Committee were arrested by police who also seized documents and computers during raids on a number of properties in Belfast.
Village has learned that the arrests came just days before the BBC ‘Spotlight’ programme was due to reveal fresh information concerning the role of both men in the Project Eagle saga.
The arrests of the two men by the NCA forced the cancellation of the programme, for legal reasons.
On Thursday, 2nd June, the Irish News reported that Hanna and Cushnahan had been arrested two days earlier by the National Crime Agency (NCA) and were being released on bail “pending further enquiries”.
It was the only news organisation to identify those arrested although, in its report, the Irish Times mentioned the pair as having been previously named in the Dáil by Mick Wallace in connection with the Project Eagle controversy.
… It is utterly wrong to say there is no allegation of wrongdoing against NAMA, when a central figure to its Dublin operation has been arrested, in the North.
The figleaf the Taoiseach and Michael Noonan sought, that there was no taint on the southern operation, has now been blown out of the water.
Kenny and Noonan under pressure and in denial (Frank Connolly, Village magazine)
Previously: Spotlight Falls On Noonan
Pics: Irish News
Yikes.
The latest edition of Village Magazine, in shops now.
Via Village Magazine
Meanwhile…
Taoiseach says if he were to meet Trump he would “certainly” be happy to relay his previous concerns about ‘racist and dangerous’ comments
— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) June 10, 2016
Previously: ‘The People Of Doonbeg Have No Objection To Trump’s Visit’
Plenty.
The current issue of Village magazine, now monthly, in shops NOW
Village on the Seanad elections:
Village is a campaigning magazine. Two of its key agendas are equality and sustainability.
Two thoughtful and evidence-led champions of these issues are respectively Oisín Coghlan of Friends of the Earth and Rory Hearne of Tasc, standing for the Trinity and NUI panels.…In the same spirit NUI voters might want to avoid voting for Michael McDowell (strangely
endorsed recently by LGBTI campaigner, Katherine Zappone TD, who – if she had any interest
in Equality would know better)…….Just one of the three outgoing NUI senators, Ronan Mullen, is seeking reelection. The other two, Fergal Quinn and John Crown, are not running again.
Current Trinity Senators, Prof Ivana Bacik, David Norris and Prof Sean Barrett are all standing again in this election. Norris, a long-term campaigner on progressive issues, is the longest-serving senator on the panel, while Bacik is Reid Professor of Criminal Law in the Law School, and a former TCDSU President.
She is a solid and excellent candidate with an unimpeachable record on both equality and the environment; and she is a generous contributor to Village…
*cough*
FIGHT!
‘sup?
The latest issue of Village magazine, on shelves now.
Via Village editorial:
This edition of Village explores at length the extent to which the coalition government delivered on its Programme for Government. It’s a fair test and it shows that, beyond economic stability, the Government has been a disappointment.
Labour certainly does not have the Fine Gael appeal of consistency. It never does what its manifestos promise. Worse, a number of its senior TDs have allowed themselves to appear smug and ideologically jaded or even, in Alan Kelly’s case, dangerous. Because of the elasticity of its conscience Labour has long attracted the wrong type of representatives.
Fianna Fáil is tainted by its reckless past and the incoherence of its platform. It believes serving the people and business in equal measure is viable. It has learnt little beyond the need to regulate the banks.
Sinn Féin’s commitment to a Left agenda is unclear bearing in mind its defining preference for irredentist nationalism over ideology, its governing strategy in the North and its willingness to coalesce with Fianna Fáil. Its performance at local-authority level is not impressive or particularly leftist. It is cultist, and ambivalent about democracy and transparency, and its leaders lie casually about its, and particularly its leader Gerry Adams’, past.
Renua seems like a somehow unendearing chip off Fine Gael’s Christian Democratic block, with a penchant for propriety.
The Independent Alliance (dubbed Shane Féin) is utterly incoherent of policy and membership. If ex-stockbroker Mr Ross and turfcutter Michael Fitzmaurice ever breathed an atom of the same political air, Village cannot imagine where it was.
Village has a weakness for the Social Democrats, whose mild platform is essentially the same as Labour’s, though strangely more pro-business, but whose small membership is more prepossessing. Its antipathy to water taxes is expedient but regrettable.
The radical Left offers the huge appeal of integrity and seriousness but its opposition to property taxes is inexcusable, and its focus on opposition to water taxes rather than a broader anti-inequality platform, including opposition to the iniquities of Nama, corruption and the resurrection of the developer classes has sold its revolutionary ideology short.
The Green Party’s policies are often radical, and its agenda mature, but it is not hard-minded and it achieved so little in the last government that it is difficult to be enthusiastic.
The non-ideological, non-visionary parties of the pragmatic centre hold little appeal, even when mitigated by somewhat more thoughtful ones.
A coalition of the parties of the left, radical left and the Greens would, as always, best promote Village’s agenda, if no doubt imperfectly.
FIGHT!
You Go Girl
at
The new issue of Village magazine marking International Women’s Day on Sunday
These women (above) earn so little they are forced to wear 1990s boxy business suits.
Mmf.
Earlier: How Much?
Only the future of journalism as we know it.
Gulp.
We should embrace the concept of reverse publishing – where we tell our communities what we intend to publish before we publish it, in order that they can contribute and improve the final product.This is how we can build platforms that would allow communities to form around certain topics, without forgetting that the final product will still need to arrive with lots of surprises. We have to free ourselves of daily deadlines as much as humanly possible. That might mean less volume, but the less will be done better.
We have to identify the issues that people really care about. And concentrate on those. Every media outlet should immediately court and seek to protect whistleblowers big and small, because good sources are the lifeblood of agenda-setting journalism. Every outlet should construct databases of information that should rival national security agencies’. And we should apply that accumulated knowledge in every single piece of journalism that is produced. We should ensure that a sizable number of reporters in every newsroom be managed separately but intensely away from daily beats – employed to get stories that nobody else has.
The approach adopted should be about making judgements on what might be important several days or even months in advance. Where all the work you present is adding real value to the lives of the community you serve or is setting an agenda for that community.
The idea embraced by many not so long ago that an unfiltered Internet would create an information utopia has largely been proved wrong. The vastness of information is overwhelming and, more importantly, it is hard to know what to trust. The public actually needs gatekeepers. Being optimistic – in it self – will not suffice. And it is clear now that cutting costs and hoping that the hurricane will pass will not work either.
Let us be optimistic that we are indeed in a golden age of journalism… but let us agree now that journalists hold in our hands a legacy too important to be killed off by our own inaction.
Gerard Ryle, director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) whose collaboration with the Guardian and other news outlets recently helped break a massive off-shore tax scam.
More here: Eden not Apocalypse: a golden future for investigative journalism (Village)
Can they do that?
Oh, it’s on.
Village magazine’s DPP-challenging issue out tomorrow.
G’wan the Village people.