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Brendan Duke Adrian Murray Mick Bailey

TESTING TIMES AT THE TOTE

Date: August 23, 2018 - Sport of Kings

When Horse Racing Ireland announced its half-year statistics last month, it did so before the Galway festival – a week that serves as a bellwether for the health of some sectors of the industry. While the agricultural or production side of racing is in reasonable shape (and by that we mean the breeding and selling… Read more »

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Rich Ricci

ANYONE FOR KOREA?

Date: August 23, 2018 - Sport of Kings

Willie Mullins has never been afraid to push the boundaries. He famously sent Blackstairmountain to Japan to plunder over €½m by winning the Nakayama Grand Jump in 2013 and he has also hit the crossbar on a few occasions in the Melbourne Cup. It now appears the perennial champion jumps trainer has his sights set… Read more »

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Bernard Byrne

BERNARD BYRNE NEEDS TO STOP THE ROT AT AIB

Date: August 23, 2018 - Moneybags

THERE HAS been a lot of change at AIB in recent years, but the bank is currently in a sticky situation despite the apparently booming economy. Earnings are falling and competition is intensifying. Unless the loan book can be grown significantly over the next few years, there is little in prospect for the shareholders other… Read more »

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Walton Court

PAUL RAFFERTY’S MARINA MIGRAINES

Date: August 23, 2018 - Briefcases

GOLDHAWK spotted a €78,000 judgment registered recently against Walton Court Ltd by the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources. This turns out to be the company behind the 18th century Walton Court estate, a swish holiday cottage complex overlooking Oysterhaven Bay in West Cork. Owned by Paul and Janis Rafferty, the couple have been… Read more »

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DOM CARNEY’S BANKRUPTCY SUMMONS

Date: August 23, 2018 - Briefcases

MORE hard cheese for Rebel County entrepreneur Dom Carney, whose scrap with a vulture fund was back in the High Court recently. Ennis Property Finance, a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs, is petitioning the High Court to have Carney declared bankrupt on foot of an unpaid judgment. Brother and sister duo Dom and Niamh Carney are… Read more »

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Ken McMoreland

KEN MCMORELAND’S DEBT PILE

Date: August 23, 2018 - Briefcases

IT’S the end of the line for hapless accountant and property speculator Ken McMoreland, who has just been declared bankrupt in the High Court. McMoreland had his eye wiped during the crash and, according to his statement of affairs, he owed a stomach-churning €38m to unsecured creditors. The former high-flier had just €5,000 in the… Read more »

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DECLAN DOYLE’S TAXING MATTERS

Date: August 23, 2018 - Briefcases

SPARE a thought for North County Dublin businessman Declan Doyle, who has just been whacked by the taxman for €72,000. This probably relates to the €70,000 that his company, Comlee Ltd, owed in tax – according to its 2014 accounts – when the Revenue successfully petitioned the High Court to have the entity wound up… Read more »

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WATERFORD: NO-FLY ZONE

Date: August 23, 2018 - Briefcases

TURBULENCE abounds in the latest accounts filed by Waterford Regional Airport plc. The future of the troubled airport is still in jeopardy, despite receiving €375,000 in emergency funding courtesy of transport minister Shane Ross, whose Independent Alliance colleague, local TD John Halligan, has been particularly exercised about the saga. Waterford has been without commercial flights… Read more »

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DROGHEDA LEISURE’S HEAVY LOSSES

Date: August 23, 2018 - Briefcases

GOLDHAWK spotted a set of accounts filed by Drogheda Leisure Facilities (DLF) Ltd recently. This is the troubled property vehicle that owned the Drogheda Leisure Centre and Broadcasting House, where radio station LMFM is headquartered and where AIB appointed receivers last year. Shareholders here include high-fliers like former Fyffes director Eugene Caulfield, ex Bord na… Read more »

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Judge Marie Baker

BAKERS BRUISE THE VULTURE

Date: August 23, 2018 - Briefcases

CONGRATULATIONS are in order to Cork brothers Michael and Tony Harrington, who had a win of sorts in the High Court against a vulture fund recently. The retired bakers were each awarded E20,000 in damages in their case against Gulland Property Finance – a vulture fund subsidiary of US giants CarVal – and Stephen Tennant,… Read more »

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Click.ie website

RAY NORTON’S NEW VENTURE

Date: August 23, 2018 - Briefcases

INTERESTING to see Goldhawk’s old pal Ray Norton’s name pop up in relation to the ongoing saga of Cantec Office Solutions Ltd. This is the tech retailer that traded as Click.ie before it suddenly collapsed into liquidation last April, leaving hundreds of angry customers empty handed and creditors out of pocket to the tune of… Read more »

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Drew Harris

DREW HARRIS: OMERTA

Date: August 9, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

A MOTION from Donegal County Council urged the government last week to cancel the appointment of Drew Harris as garda commissioner because of his “close working relationship with the British security service, MI5”. The motion also referred to last year’s Belfast High Court judgment (that is under appeal) stating that the then PSNI assistant chief… Read more »

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Alan Kelly

AK47 SALVO AGAINST HOWLIN

Date: August 9, 2018 - Last Refuge

BRENDAN HOWLIN fought back against a flurry of statements from various councillors and other Labour Party members demanding his replacement as party leader last week. And he will have clocked the sequencing involved as well as the encouragement of Alan ‘AK47’ Kelly’s speech writer and handler, Declan Walsh. On July 31 Kelly launched a tirade… Read more »

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Michael O'Leary

PROFILE: MICHAEL O’LEARY

Date: August 9, 2018 - Pillars of Society

THIS WEEK, strike action has been scheduled at Ryanair bases in Ireland, Germany, Belgium, Sweden and The Netherlands. This represents the apex in the current industrial relations turmoil at the troubled airline and the man experiencing the most turbulence is loaded chief executive Michael O’Leary. Much of the blame for the current uneasy state of… Read more »

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Emmet Kirwan

YOUNG BLOOD: EMMET KIRWAN

Date: August 9, 2018 - The Young Bloods

Opinionated actor and writer Emmett Kirwan (38) is fast becoming one of the most recognisable faces in Irish theatre. Making his silver screen debut as a leading man this summer with Dublin Oldschool, an adaptation of his award-winning play of the same name, the outspoken artist has proved to be a minor success at the… Read more »

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Noel Whelan

WHELAN SPURNS PRESIDENCY

Date: August 9, 2018 - Fit to Print?

WHAT an interesting sequence of statements emanated from barrister, Irish Times columnist, ex-Fianna Fáil election candidate and putative presidential candidate Noel Whelan in the last month or so. On June 29 Whelan told IT readers that Micheál Martin’s statement of support for Michael D Higgins’s return to the Áras had cleverly blocked off a Fianna… Read more »

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Rachel Allen

RACHEL ALLEN’S SURPRISE DISH

Date: August 9, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

WHILE CELEBRITY chef Rachel Allen is off to Italy next month to film with the BBC Good Food Channel, back in Cork ‘Rachel’s’ restaurant has served up a surprise dish. The restaurant, called Rachel’s, on Washington Street opened to a blaze of local publicity on Paddy’s Day last year, with Allen very much to the… Read more »

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Keiran Mulvey

KIERAN MULVEY’S JOURNEY

Date: August 9, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

FORMER Workers’ Party member and trade union leader Kieran Mulvey may be a little embarrassed at the tardiness of INM in accepting his appointment to join the board. INM’s board has argued that Mulvey’s appointment as Denis O’Brien’s nominee must be balanced by the appointment of an independent director. From the WP and teachers’ union… Read more »

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Paul Blanchfield

PAUL BLANCHFIELD’S CLOSED VAULTS

Date: August 9, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

THE APPOINTMENT of an examiner to Frontier Entertainment Ltd must come as a shock to the company’s founder – broadcaster-turned-investor Paul Blanchfield – who recently announced that his €5m tourist attraction in Dublin’s Liberties, The Vaults, was preparing to open its doors. The project has been heavily backed with public funds, but its creditors are… Read more »

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Keith Spencer

KEITH SPENCER’S COURT DATE

Date: August 9, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

HIGH-FLYING barrister Keith Spencer BL will have to wait until October to see what Judge Seamus Noonan has in store for him after some document alterations at the High Court last month left the beak rather nonplussed. Spencer has been plying his wares in the courts for over a decade and has been doing rather… Read more »

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Susan Bergin Marlowe Mullingar Film Studio RTÉ Self-Employment

MICHAEL STARRETT’S SUCCESSOR

Date: August 9, 2018 - Behind the Scenes

WITH HERITAGE Council chief executive Michael Starrett retiring after a whopping 22 years in situ, the search is on for a new candidate to fill the job. Mazars, the management consultants of choice for the culture sector, has been hired to source Starrett’s successor and so there is plenty of management speak on offer. Apparently,… Read more »

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3616-FP

Vol 36 No 16

Date: August 9, 2018 -

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MACGILL SCHOOL’S ANTI-NEUTRALITY LINE-UP

Date: August 9, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

THE UPROAR over the male-dominated panel of speakers at Joe Mulholland’s MacGill Summer School was not replicated when the gender-neutral but anti-neutrality list of speakers on “Making Europe More Secure” was revealed. The UCD Centre for War Studies lists Ben Tonra as Professor of International Relations, which says as much as one needs to know… Read more »

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Finian McGrath

GRANNY GRANT ROW

Date: August 9, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

THE REACTION to Shane Ross’s granny grant budgetary demand was a classic re-run of the usual Fine Gael inspired media onslaught depicting the Alliance minister as some spoilt, political delinquent. This partly reflects the media-FG consensus on the obstreperous Ross, but it is also another example of Leo Varadkar’s quest to provoke somebody, anybody, into… Read more »

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Sophie Toscan du Plantier

IAN BAILEY ‘STING’

Date: August 9, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

PERHAPS the most serious allegation made by Ian Bailey, soon to be tried in France in his absence, on the charge of murdering Sophie Toscan du Plantier, is that gardaí induced a known drug user – with offers of drugs and cash – to entrap Bailey and prise a confession out of him. The recent… Read more »

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DECLAN DOOLEY’S NEW MOVE

Date: August 9, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

INTERESTING to see Declan Dooley popping up as a player in the Enda O’Coineen vehicle set up to buy the Sunday Business Post from Conor Killeen. Dooley will be known to fans of Goldhawk as a force in the free-sheet media market outside Dublin courtesy of the likes of the Cork Independent and Galway Independent…. Read more »

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Jeffrey Donaldson

DUP FOREIGN POLICY

Date: August 9, 2018 - Hush Hush

AN INDIGNANT letter to The Irish Times this week from the London Embassy of the Kingdom of Bahrain defended its human rights record and the deployment of “northern Irish experts” in justice reform in the Kingdom. In January 2017, the Kingdom of Bahrain executed three men arrested in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring… Read more »

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SIMON COVENEY’S HEADACHE

Date: August 9, 2018 - Hush Hush

CANADA’S militant pursuit of human rights in Saudi Arabia will have left foreign minister Simon Coveney at a loss as he watches the Canadians steal a march on Ireland. Canada is our main competitor in Ireland’s much-hyped race for a seat at the UN Security Council and it is argued that one of our strong… Read more »

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Micheál Martin

FIANNA FÁIL TO DEVOUR SDLP?

Date: August 9, 2018 - Bird's Eye View

For more than a decade the Fianna Fáil vulture has been hovering over the stricken SDLP as the party stumbles and falls across what for it are the electoral deserts of West Belfast, Tyrone and Fermanagh, weaker after every election. In September 2007 following Sinn Féin’s triumph in that year’s assembly elections and Martin McGuinness… Read more »

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Mary-Lou McDonald

SF BORDER POLL ‘U-TURN’

Date: August 9, 2018 - Last Refuge

SINN FÉIN has done a U-turn of sorts on the timing of a border poll, but its political opponents as well as some media, a frenzied Irish Times in particular, seemed to have entirely missed this development when it actually happened – well over a year ago. Within hours of the UK vote for Brexit… Read more »

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Anne Marie McNally

SOC DEMS: STALE BUT NOT MALE

Date: August 9, 2018 - Last Refuge

CONGRATS to the Social Democrats, whose political ambition belies their effete image as cuddly, social justice champions and who recently eclipsed their left-wing rivals at the Danielle Carroll Summer School in Dublin’s south inner city. The school was named in memory of Ms Carroll, a homeless mother of two who died in emergency accommodation last… Read more »

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Willie O'Dea

O’DEA SLAPS IT UP TO MARTIN

Date: August 9, 2018 - Last Refuge

REPORTS claiming that Willie O’Dea is part of a simmering revolt against Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin are well wide of the mark. But his demand for a ‘fiver-for-all’ social welfare increase is not something that Martin and the party can afford to ignore for a variety of reasons. Bertie Ahern once said he was… Read more »

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Diageo Dana An Garda Síochána IT Trust No Stone Unturned Irish Times Black Friday Vicky Conway

SUSAN MITCHELL’S DISGRUNTLED DOCTORS

Date: August 9, 2018 - Fit to Print?

TWO radically different takes on the CervicalCheck crisis were published last weekend by Sunday Times journalist Justine McCarthy and Sunday Business Post health editor Susan Mitchell. McCarthy described how well-known cervical cancer victim and campaigner Vicky Phelan was taking a sabbatical from campaigning because of a “sinister” backlash from medical professionals. These, McCarthy argued, had… Read more »

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Leslie Buckley

DON’T MENTION THE WAR

Date: August 9, 2018 - Fit to Print?

DENIS O’BRIEN will be pleased to know that RTÉ is watching his back as he contends with various begrudgers in some parts of the media. Marian Finucane’s summer hols substitute on her weekend RTÉ Radio 1 slot, Brendan O’Connor, gave a comprehensive round up of the morning’s newspaper stories last Sunday. Well, almost comprehensive. O’Connor… Read more »

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PEAT BOG SOLDIERS

Date: August 9, 2018 - Fowl Emissions

IT HAS been a cruel summer for Irish agriculture. This follows hot on the heels of what was one of the coldest springs in decades. Grass growth in March and into April was practically non-existent. It had only barely started to recover when the heatwave and drought took hold in June, which has persisted into… Read more »

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Michael Creed

MICHAEL CREED’S COAXING

Date: August 9, 2018 - Fowl Emissions

WHILE THE gardens of south Dublin may have been wilting as the hosepipe ban took effect, there is little public awareness of just how devastating this year’s extreme weather events have been for the ill-prepared and largely climate-sceptic agri sector. Teagasc reckons the dairy sector alone is facing a whopping €800m drop in income this… Read more »

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