A cabinet minster is unable to say whether or not public funds have been awarded to An Smaoineamh Mór, the company behind Your Country Your Call (YCYC), or on what basis they might receive such funds.
YCYC, a competition to come up with Ideas To Save Ireland, has previously been mentioned here, mostly because I’m fascinated by the Springfield Monorail nature of some of the ideas.
But since public monies may be spent on the project, there is a serious issue behind the ribbing. Tuppenceworth has written about YCYC in detail.
Today, I attended the Green Party press conference following their “think in” and asked if Smaoineamh Mór should be registered with SIPO, if it would receive any public monies as it claims, and on what legislative basis these funds would be handed over.
Communications minister Eamon Ryan answered the question. His answer was to the point. “I don’t know whether any money has been given and I in regard to what the legislative change or requirements are,” Mr Ryan said. “I’d have to look into the details of that and come back to you.”
SIPO wasn’t mentioned.
The minister then went on to praise the ideas submitted to YCYC. Audio below:
[audio:https://faduda.ie/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/GREENS003.mp3]
Acccording to the Department of Enterprise, no money has been paid. It has so far avoided answering the question of whether monies will be paid, when, on what basis, and with whose authorisation.
Well done on getting the audio from the press conference. And also…way to waffle without actually answering a question, Eamon Ryan.
Since Eamon Ryan said he “would get back” to me, I have emailed the following questions to the Dept of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, asking for a reply by close of business today at 5pm.
(1) Given that one of the stated aims of An Smaoineamh Mór, the company behind “Your Country, Your Call”, is to lobby the Government for legislative change, has it registered with the Standards in Public Office Commission?
(2) Why has An Smaoineamh Mór apparently accepted donations which exceed the limit allowed in respect of donations for political purposes?
(3) As a “mechanism” has been put in place to pay public funds to An
smaoineamh Mór – as reported here as reported here – what is the legislative basis on which such a payment was or will be made?
@Elaine, I have to say I’m impressed with the sound quality on the Zoom H4n. I bought it a couple of months ago, but this is the first opportunity I’ve had to field test it.
I bought a Sony Bloggie camera some months back but haven’t been able to road-test it properly. Need a decent new laptop that can handle the HD.
One major flaw is that it can’t handle an external mic. The Kodak Zi8 sounds better, for many reasons.
On the audio front, there are some Edirol devices around the office which could certainly get more use.
What is SIPO?
@Yvonne, SIPO=Standards in Public Office commission.
Update: 5pm, no reply to questions to Dept of Communications Office
The Dept of
CommunicationsTrade Enterprise and innovation have emailed me a response to question #3:“The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation is examining a suitable mechanism to make the payment and we are working through a number of other related issues. We hope to be in a position to have these issues resolved very shortly.”
No answers to questions #1 and #2 yet.
In response to a question asking when I could expect answers to Question #1 and Question #2, I received the following reply:
“The Department has nothing further to add to the earlier statement.”
Article in thejournal.ie: Your Country Your Call denies breaking political lobbying laws
http://home.thejournal.ie/your-country-your-call-denies-breaking-lobby-laws-2010-09/#comment-327
I’m sure Eamon Ryan is loving the idea of using wind turbines to power data centres. Pity for him the idea is as daft as Ireland building a 6 man rocket made out of cardboard and sending it to Pluto.