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Theresa May

NEVER IN A POLITICAL LIFETIME

Date: January 11, 2018 - Bird's Eye View

HERE WE go again. You could write the script. The new northern secretary invites the parties to Stormont. Desultory talks ensue. An artificial deadline – the end of February for departmental budgets – is imposed. The parties ignore the deadline. The talks run into the sand. Why is this happening and why has it been… Read more »

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Eoghan Murphy

NIMBY: NOT IN MURPHY’S BACK YARD

Date: January 11, 2018 - Last Refuge

FRESH from the PR blunder of Conor Skehan’s reappointment as chair of the Housing Agency, the minister for housing, Eoghan ‘Tory Boy’ Murphy, has revealed a set of priorities that will further enrage the homeless and those engaged in combatting it with his attack on the Local Property Tax (LPT). In Murphy’s world, there are… Read more »

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James Collins

MICHAEL NOONAN’S LEGACY

Date: January 11, 2018 - Last Refuge

DESPITE Fine Gael’s national poll lead, Fianna Fáil apparatchiks claim that polls on the ground in various constituencies show seat gains for the party all around the country. An interesting case in point is Limerick City and surrounding constituencies. Former finance minister Michael Noonan’s retirement will see party colleague Kieran O’Donnell replace him and return… Read more »

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Barry Cowen

MARTIN TO PULL PLUG?

Date: January 11, 2018 - Last Refuge

THE chances of an early election have been dismissed by all and sundry in the media/political bubble, but the debate inside Fianna Fáil still rages with one faction arguing that an early election is still the best option. And by early, they mean before the June recess. The demoralisation inside FF at the continuing lead… Read more »

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Sean Gallagher

Miriam’s Fans

Date: January 11, 2018 - Fit to Print?

FAILED presidential candidate Seán Gallagher’s six-figure sum in compensation for the ‘Tweetgate’ incident on RTÉ’s 2011 Presidential debate programme shows what a small world the media/political bubble really is. The O’Callaghan clan was conspicuous in the matter, with Fianna Fáil frontbencher Jim O’Callaghan being the successful senior counsel representing Gallagher. This followed a review co-authored… Read more »

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dystopian visions

Date: January 11, 2018 - Fit to Print?

PERCEIVED wisdom among whining liberals – you know the type – is that the root cause of Garda scandals is more cultural than structural. A warning from the Garda Review’s regular columnist, Tom Prendeville, in its latest edition of the mag, organ of the Garda Representative Association, gives a flavour of this culture clash. Prendeville… Read more »

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Jim Daly

COASTING TO DISASTER

Date: January 11, 2018 - Fowl Emissions

AT 1km long, Donald Trump’s Irish wall doesn’t enjoy quite as much global infamy as his Mexican wall. However, Clare County Council’s decision on December 21 to grant permission to the Trump Doonbeg golf resort to build a 38,000-tonne wall to keep out the raging sea did provoke a storm of outrage from environmentalists. The… Read more »

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Bog Cuttings

Bog Cuttings

Date: January 11, 2018 - Bog Cuttings

“I Think I Killed your Mother” A YOUNG Kerrywoman who suffered post traumatic stress disorder after being told her mother had been killed has been awarded €27,750 at Tralee District Court. Aislinn O’Rourke, Ballyconry, Lisselton brought a civil action against her uncle-in-law, Tony Hussey, and Kimok Developer Ltd claiming distress following the 2012 incident. O’Rourke… Read more »

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Patrick Annesley

Patrick Annesley’s “gift”

Date: January 11, 2018 - High Society

INTERESTING TO read an interview in The Irish Times at the end of last month with the UK-bound Patrick Annesley. It was noted that the Squire of Annes Grove demesne in north Cork “has offered his library of horticultural books, photographs and records to the Office of Public Works (OPW) when he and [his wife]… Read more »

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Ingrid & Markus Jooste

Magnier and Jooste

Date: January 11, 2018 - High Society

THE DRAMATIC fall from grace of South African billionaire Markus Jooste should come as no surprise to fans of Goldhawk, who were previously made aware of the moneybags’s tax troubles (see The Phoenix 26/2/16). Of interest now, however, is the fate of various horses trained at Ballydoyle and owned in conjunction with the Coolmore personalities…. Read more »

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Dominick Chilcott

ARISE SIR DOMINICK

Date: January 11, 2018 - High Society

CONGRATULATIONS are due to former British ambassador to Ireland Dominick Chilcott, who was given a gong in the New Year’s honours list last month. Chilcott landed the Knight Commander Order of St Michael and St George for “services to British foreign policy” and, in the past, the career diplomat has certainly earned his stripes. Before… Read more »

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MRS OSMOND -JOHN BANVILLE (VIKING)

MRS OSMOND -JOHN BANVILLE (VIKING)

Date: January 11, 2018 - BooksReviews

IN HIS latest novel, John Banville picks up where Henry James left off at the close of The Portrait of a Lady (1881). James’s story concluded with the young American heroine, Isabel Archer, realising that Gilbert Osmond had only married her for her money. Readers were left with an ambiguous ending. Would Isabel return to… Read more »

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Tommy Bowe and Vogue Williams

GETAWAYS – RTÉ 1

Date: January 11, 2018 - ReviewsTV

IT BEING January, holiday shows are a TV staple along with the get-fit programmes. RTÉ’s offering is Getaways, produced by Waddell Media, which is guilty of such treats as Francis Brennan’s Grand Tour and the ubiquitous celebrity hotelier’s makeover show, At Your Service. A new presenter for Getaways this series is Tommy Bowe, the Ulster,… Read more »

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HERE AND GONE - HAYLEN BECK (HARVILL SECKER)

HERE AND GONE – HAYLEN BECK (HARVILL SECKER)

Date: January 11, 2018 - BooksReviews

HAYLEN BECK is the pen name of Northern Irish crime writer Stuart Neville, who has been capturing the mean streets of Belfast in a series of thrillers since 2009. His latest book is set in America and has all the ingredients of the genre – distraught mother, missing children, crooked police officers and an emotionally… Read more »

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Sheila Pratschke

ARTS COUNCIL’S ART ATTACK

Date: January 11, 2018 - Behind the Scenes

THE 2016 annual report of the Arts Council was published recently and includes some rather interesting figures, especially regarding the multi-million euro art collection. Given the tensions that have been so evident between the Merrion Square Mafia and the Department of Culture, it is perhaps no surprise that neither the chair of the Arts Council,… Read more »

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Pálás Programmes

Date: January 11, 2018 - Behind the Scenes

GOLDHAWK has reported on the tortuous (torturous?) development of Galway’s bijou art-house cinema, Cinema Palace. It was originally promoted by Lelia Doolan’s Solas group, now in liquidation. Like Windscale, the toxic project has now been renamed ahead of its long-overdue opening. Some five years in development before Michael Twee Higgins turned the sod on the… Read more »

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John Hales

BIG MONEY MISTAKES

Date: January 11, 2018 - Sport of Kings

GIVEN THE eye-watering sums being lashed out at auction houses in Ireland and England for the perceived cream of the racing crop, it can be well worth charting the progress – or lack thereof – of some of these big ticket lots. Two recent examples were Madison To Monroe and Marie Banrigh. Both were purchased… Read more »

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Ross Doyle

BAD NEWS FOR THE DOYLE BOYS

Date: January 11, 2018 - Sport of Kings

THE PUBLIC fall from grace of South African business tycoon Markus Jooste was bad news for many of his countrymen who had their pension funds invested in Steinhoff, but it was also a blow for the Irish bloodstock agency team of Peter and Ross Doyle. The father and son duo have acted as bloodstock selectors… Read more »

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article default

SHORT ODDS AT THE TOTE

Date: January 11, 2018 - Sport of Kings

WHEN Killahara Castle popped up at 200/1 in a mares hurdle at Thurles before Christmas, her connections – the Burke family (trained, ridden and owned by siblings John, Martin and Elaine respectively) – may have been celebrating the victory. However, spare a thought for anyone lucky enough to back Killahara Castle but unlucky enough to… Read more »

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Rich Ricci

RICCI’S LEOPARDSTOWN WOES

Date: January 11, 2018 - Sport of Kings

LEOPARDSTOWN’S 2017 Christmas Festival will be remembered for many of the wrong reasons. The four-day festival threw up some downright bizarre results and provided a series of dramatic thrills and spills. There were also some concerns about the attendance figures. Chief among the vanquished was Willie Mullins and, more so, his chief patron, Rich Ricci…. Read more »

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Bernard Byrne

AIB’s high share rating will be hard to maintain

Date: January 11, 2018 - Moneybags

AGAINST THE background of a successful IPO in June last year, which raised €3.4bn for the state through the sale of a 29% stake in AIB, there have been plenty of optimistic statements from the bank since. The latest came on December 5 last with AIB reporting, “We are well progressed with our work on… Read more »

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Bertrand Gautier

Taxpayer piles into Greencoat Renewables

Date: January 11, 2018 - Moneybags

AN IPO last year that broke new ground was Greencoat Renewables, which raised €270m in July 2017 and launched the first quoted Irish vehicle in the renewable energy sector. The Irish company was formed to give investors exposure to the renewable energy sector, with the infrastructure assets held by Greencoat Renewables in its investment portfolio…. Read more »

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Dervla Kenny

Dervla Kenny’s planning win

Date: January 11, 2018 - The Hot Water Brigade

HARD LUCK to Caroline and Veitch McCombs who have had a planning appeal rejected by An Bord Pleanála (ABP), despite the inspector giving a thumbs-up for the development to go ahead. Fans of Goldhawk will recall that the couple were embroiled in a scrap with the neighbours – who happen to be the family of… Read more »

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Greg Kavanagh

Greg Kavanagh’s Globe hangover

Date: January 11, 2018 - The Hot Water Brigade

INTERESTING to see that one of Arklow developer Greg Kavanagh’s pub companies was taken to the High Court by the dreaded taxman just before Christmas. Isotonic Taverns Ltd – where Greg and big bro Hugh Kavanagh are listed as directors – fell foul of the Revenue but, happily, Greg claimed last weekend that the debt… Read more »

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Westbourne Direct Provision Centre

Kenny group’s asylum centre

Date: January 11, 2018 - The Hot Water Brigade

A RAFT of companies in Limerick developer Martin Kenny’s property group have had receivers appointed to them by Howard Stanley Marks’s Oaktree Capital in the last few weeks. Once upon a time, Kenny Developments was a heavy hitter in the west of Ireland, with fingers in many pies including a direct provision centre for asylum… Read more »

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Declan Ryan

Declan Ryan’s tough medicine

Date: January 11, 2018 - The Hot Water Brigade

JUST BEFORE Christmas, the directors of a company called Growcorp Group voted to wind up the company and appointed Bryan O’Neill as liquidator. It looks like moneybags Declan Ryan may have had to take a hit here, although he can easily afford to drop the odd million or 10. Growcorp was established in 2000 and… Read more »

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Joan Rowland

Joan Rowland’s roof collapse

Date: January 11, 2018 - The Hot Water Brigade

IT’S BEEN a bad start to 2018 for Castlebar couple Joan and Paul Rowland, who were landed with matching judgments for nearly €1.4m just before Christmas. KBC Bank registered the judgments against the business couple, who have had a tough time of it since the crash. The trouble started when Paul Rowland’s group of roofing… Read more »

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Roger Woolman

Koger over and out

Date: January 11, 2018 - The Hot Water Brigade

THE FINAL chapter in the winding up of software company Koger (Dublin) Ltd has now been written with the High Court greenlighting the discharge of liquidator Declan Taite and ordering the dissolving of the company. The demise of Koger (Dublin) relates to a very costly trip to the Four Goldmines that backfired rather badly. It… Read more »

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Mary Donnelly’s fraudulent payments

Date: January 11, 2018 - The Hot Water Brigade

A 71-YEAR-OLD former company director in Limerick pleaded guilty recently to generating false invoices after an investigation by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE). Limerick woman Mary Donnelly, the largest shareholder in Shannonside Audio/Visual Ltd (in liquidation since 2013), pleaded guilty to the offences, which resulted in fraudulent payments of over €600,000… Read more »

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Tax ‘Alignment’

Date: January 11, 2018 - The Hot Water Brigade

A DUNDALK soft drink wholesaler has been slapped with a €1.4m tax judgment for his part in a VAT fraud scheme. Michael Martin had previously pleaded guilty to involvement in “carousel” fraud, which was described by Judge Michael O’Shea as “an elaborate and carefully designed attack” on state revenue. In May 2015, Martin was jailed… Read more »

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Simon Coveney

Simon Coveney’s stance on Palestine

Date: December 14, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

FOREIGN MINISTER Simon Coveney made a stirring statement on Donald Trump’s universally condemned decision to situate the US Embassy to Israel in Jerusalem. But he made no mention of the obvious diplomatic riposte to the US declaration – recognition by Ireland of a Palestinian state. The EU states are generally appalled by Trump’s belligerent and… Read more »

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Taoiseach Leo Varadkar

Leo Varadkar’s Twitter Spin

Date: December 14, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar took a bit of a thumping from a prominent LGBT advocacy group over what it called a “misleading tweet” on the occasion of World Aids Day. During a busy day of meetings with Donald Tusk on December 1 ahead of the Brexit negotiations, Ireland’s first gay Taoiseach took to Twitter to announce… Read more »

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MacDara Kelleher

Profile: MacDara Kelleher

Date: December 14, 2017 - Pillars of Society

THE IRISH movie business is characterised by huge levels of public lolly being poured into productions either via tax breaks or ‘loans’ from the Irish Film Board (IFB). Producer MacDara Kelleher (41), who has proved particularly capable at tapping these sources, has just landed a juicy looking gig for a sci-fi series penned by the… Read more »

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Fintan Warfield

Young Blood: Fintan Warfield

Date: December 14, 2017 - The Young Bloods

IN A party that boasts an embarrassment of riches when it comes to young talent, Fintan Warfield (25) stands out as one of Sinn Féin’s (SF) brightest young things. He is one of a new breed of Shinner politicians – but with an already stacked candidate list in the Dublin area, can the party find… Read more »

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Students target Aramark

Date: December 14, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

STUDENTS in Trinity and UCD are getting testy about the on campus presence of food services multinational Aramark over its links to the direct provision system. Boycott campaigns have been launched in the two Dublin universities where the US outfit runs restaurants and cafes and the early signs suggest they’re having some success. Philadelphia-anchored Aramark… Read more »

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IPA Diary 2018

A date for your diary

Date: December 14, 2017 - The Hot Water Brigade

GOLDHAWK looks forward to this time of year, when the Institute of Public Administration’s Ireland – A Directory hits the desk, jammed full of useful information about a whopping 9,000 public and private sector bodies. The 2018 edition contains the usual info, statistics and contact details for local councillors, civil service departments and state bodies…. Read more »

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