Monthly Archive: April 2009
Apr 17
Threat Level
Justice minister Dermot Ahern says membership of a criminal gang will become a scheduled offence, to be tried in the Special Criminal Court. In the last chapter of Chaos and Conspiracy, when I considered the lessons to be learned from what happened in Donegal a decade ago, I wrote this: “The Gardaí need effective oversight …
Apr 16
Spreading The Word
If you’re a local election candidate, or running in the European elections in June, you’ve probably been contacted once or twice by now with offers to add some Obama Magic to your campaign. Maybe you got an email from miCandidate, or a text message from Marty Dunleavy. If you did, delete it. True, Barack Obama …
Apr 15
Sign of the Times
Yesterday I posted edited extracts from a review of ‘Chaos and Conspiracy’ in a shameless bid to promote the book to anyone who happens to be reading out there. The review appeared in last Saturday’s edition of the Irish Independent, under the headline ‘The rumour-mill that tore the soul out of an Irish country town’. …
Apr 14
Independent Review
Gerard Cunningham, who covered every day of evidence at the Morris tribunal, has written a devastating new book. Chaos and Conspiracy is at its most powerful when it details the awful consequences of the wrongful arrests of twelve innocent people. Take for example, Roisin McConnell: accused of having an affair, called a slut and a …
Apr 09
Those Junior Ministers…
Biffo plans to cut back on junior ministers. So who’s for the chop? Barry Andrews, minister for Having a Famous Grandfather Billy Kelleher, minister for Getting Two Points on His Driving License Tony Killeen, minister for Putting Criminals on the Streets Seán Haughey, minister for Having a Famous Daddy Trevor Sargent, minister for Parsnips and …
Apr 07
Lest We Forget
Robert McCallion was 29 years old. He was born in Swinford, Co Mayo. He was a Guard, as was his father. His brother is also a member of the force. Robert was an active member of his local GAA club in Swinford. He won a county minor title in 1997, and played at minor and …
Apr 06
Doling Out The Blame
Dole minister Mary Hanafin is trumpeting the results of social welfare fraud investigations. In short, just over one in ten claims investigated were ‘suspended’ or ‘under continuing investigation.’ We are not told how many inquiries are continuing, and how many are completed. So much for presumed innocent. The majority of dodgy claims were from foreigners, …
Apr 03
Media Bites
News has never been more immediate, with twentyfour hour rolling news channels, talk radio, websites, instant feedback through email, blogging, even twitter. And yet, for many in the industry, things have never been as grim. It’s not just that media groups face the same problems as everyone else, be it debt leverage, shellshocked pension funds, …