IssueM Articles

Archives: Articles

articles
Leo Varadkar

FINE GAEL LEADERSHIP CONTEST – LEO VARADKAR

Date: February 23, 2017 - Last Refuge

THE gay genie is out of the bottle in the Fine Gael leadership contest and two former Fine Gael operators-turned-hacks – ex-minister Ivan Yates and Gay Mitchell’s presidential campaign handler John Downing – who have a good understanding of the party were dancing around the subject last weekend. The Sindo’s Brendan O’Connor was, characteristically, a… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

RE-IMAGINING RTÉ

Date: February 23, 2017 - Fit to Print?

ON April Fool’s Day last year RTÉ board chair Moya Doherty announced the appointment of Dee Forbes as director general saying: “The appointment of Dee Forbes stands to mark a significant moment in the development of RTÉ…. one where the future shape and financing of public service broadcasting is being re-imagined.” Since that mission statement,… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

The Hot Air Brigade

Date: February 23, 2017 - The Hot Air Brigade

Everyone that’s worked in government knows that there’s such a thing as government bandwidth. Alastair Campbell interviewed on RTÉ Radio 1 Because this is where it gets even stranger. This is where it goes from eyebrow raising to pure WTF. Gene Kerrigan on the McCabe scandal, Sunday Independent In the fast-moving world of politics, where… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

irish-times

Irish Times inequality

Date: February 23, 2017 - Fit to Print?

JANUARY WAS undoubtedly a bad month for the paper of record, with its rivals gleefully seizing upon an admonishment by the Works Relations Commission for a breach of equality legislation at The Irish Times. There could be more trouble brewing, however. The IT was found to have discriminated against a female subeditor on the basis… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

‘(S)INDO’ WOMEN FOR CHARLETON TRIBUNAL

Date: February 23, 2017 - Fit to Print?

THE Sunday Independent took another swipe at the Sunday Business Post last weekend via the Zozimus (Liam Collins) column with another litany of barbs about the “little newspaper” and irony of ironies, accusing the hacks there of “teenage levels of testosterone”. This is because the Post published some impertinent and unflattering stories about Denis O’Brien… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Paul Reynolds

Date: February 23, 2017 - Pillars of Society

COMMISSIONER Nóirín O’Sullivan is the cop in the eye of the storm over Sgt Maurice McCabe but RTÉ crime correspondent Paul Reynolds is also on the rack. The media has begun to cannibalise itself over garda leaks about whistleblowers and Reynolds has become a target for some of his peers in the more esteemed investigative… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

NOT-SO-WISE FOOD PLAN

Date: February 23, 2017 - Fowl Emissions

CLIMATE DENIER Scott Pruitt was confirmed this month to head the US Environment Protection Agency. When working as Oklahoma’s attorney general, he took more than a dozen lawsuits against the agency he now heads. One of Pruitt’s letters blasting the EPA was revealed to have been written by an energy company, then copied-and-pasted directly onto… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Bog Cuttings

Bog Cuttings

Date: February 23, 2017 - Bog Cuttings

PENSIONER’S ‘amateurish’ GARDENING HOBBY A 74-YEAR-OLD South African man was handed down a three-year suspended sentence at Castlebar Central Criminal Court for growing cannabis with a potential street value of €40,000. Robin Jay of Ballinaclassa, Belcarra, Castlebar pleaded guilty to the cultivation of 50 plants following a search of his home in 2016. Mr Jay… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Second Captains

Date: February 23, 2017 - The Young Bloods

The Second Captains – journalists Eoin McDevitt (36), Ken Early (38), Ciaran Murphy (34), Simon Hick (41) and Mark Horgan (35) – took a major punt earlier this month by ending their profitable relationship with The Irish Times. Following their break from Newstalk, the sports guys have found themselves in uncharted waters after adopting a… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

LADY JANE’S RARE WIN

Date: February 23, 2017 - High Society

A RULING by the Bowler Hats of the Turf Club last month saw a horse trained by Noel Meade disqualified and the race awarded to the runner-up. This represented a rare win for one Lady Jane Gillespie a colourful trainer and owner who has managed to keep a very low profile this side of the… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

article default

CYRUS’S INDIAN BATTLE

Date: February 23, 2017 - High Society

A MEMBER of the family of the richest Irish citizens is embroiled in a bruising battle to regain control of the huge Indian Tata & Sons conglomerate. The biggest business story in the southern hemisphere in recent months has focused on the removal last October of 47-year-old Cyrus Mistry as chairman of the group by… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

WESTPORT HOUSE’S €2M CHARGE

Date: February 23, 2017 - High Society

THE PURCHASE for a reported €10m of Westport House by Cathal Hughes and the rest of the Hughes clan has been welcomed in Co Mayo. But there is one small matter to be cleared up – €2m in grants that may be repayable to the Heritage Council. Westport House has been one of the bigger… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

NO €40K HIKE FOR RAINBIRD

Date: February 23, 2017 - Behind the Scenes

Sean Rainbird (Left) WHILE THE National Gallery of Ireland (NGI) has been generating plenty of publicity courtesy of the touring Caravaggio exhibition, a quieter story is unfolding behind the scenes on the next head of the institution. The Department of Public Enterprise and Reform has shot down a request for a €40,000 pay rise for… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Heather Humphreys

HEATHER’S POT OF GOLD

Date: February 23, 2017 - Behind the Scenes

WITH THE economy throwing off more cash, arts minister Heather Humphreys was able to dish out millions of euro to assorted arts and culture centres earlier this month. The three biggest winners were in counties Kildare, Wexford and Cavan. Although the latter is in the Minister’s own constituency, the board was leaving nothing to chance… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

SOS FROM ARDMORE SAS

Date: February 23, 2017 - Behind the Scenes

LAST WEEKEND, there were 3,314 signatories to the Save Ardmore Studios (SAS) online petition, the numbers slowing to a trickle over the last month, despite a well-attended meeting in Bray on January 25. That the country’s established producers were absent from that meeting will not have gone unnoticed, suggesting that Ardmore is not critical, at… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

ROCKADOON SHORE – RORY GLEESON (JOHN MURRAY)

Date: February 23, 2017 - BooksReviews

AS A new wave of writers continues to energise Irish fiction, Rory Gleeson (son of Brendan) makes his literary debut with a novel about disenchanted youth. The writer’s celebrity pedigree explains the extensive publicity attached to this debut novel and, presumably, the positive reviews. Set in a remote holiday house, the story centres around a… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

THE DEAD – PAVILION THEATRE

Date: February 23, 2017 - ReviewsTheatre

SINCE James Joyce’s work came out of copyright five years ago, Irish theatre producers have spun his work in all manner of ways, with erratic success. This quirky opera hits the right notes. The sad tale of Gabriel and Gretta Conroy’s marriage falling apart at his aunts’ sumptuous Christmas party is Joyce’s most famous short… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

MULLINS STILL The FAVOURITE

Date: February 23, 2017 - Sport of Kings

IN RECENT years, Willie Mullins has made the Cheltenham Festival his own and bookmakers seem to think this year will be no different for the Closutton maestro as he is currently on an 8/13 chance to end the week as leading trainer. This is despite news of the latest setback to his squad. Rich Ricci’s… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

TAMMY’S NEW ROLE

Date: February 23, 2017 - Sport of Kings

TAMMY O’BRIEN (Right) TAMMY O’BRIEN, for 20 years a star of the Coolmore and Ballydoyle operation, is moving on to take up a job with Newmarket-based bloodstock sales company Tattersalls. Married to trainer, Charles O’Brien, son of the legendary Vincent, Tammy (née Twomey) has been ingrained in the fabric of Coolmore and Ballydoyle, so her… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

BRYAN COOPER’S PR

Date: February 23, 2017 - Sport of Kings

IT LOOKS like Gigginstown jockey, Bryan Cooper, is preparing for a career out of the saddle. The Kerryman has launched a new public relations venture called Ballyseedy Racing Company, where he and one Geralidine O’Brien, with an address in Farmer’s Bridge, Co Kerry, are listed as the directors. According to its website, the company is… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

WALSH RIDING HIGH

Date: February 23, 2017 - Sport of Kings

WHEN RIDER Barry Geraghty got the nod to take over the coveted position of retained jockey to JP McManus following the retirement of Tony “Sir Anthony” McCoy, many people in Ireland were surprised that Mark Walsh was not given the chance in the number one role. Walsh had put in a solid stint as number… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Aidan Heavey’s costly legacy at Tullow Oil

Date: February 23, 2017 - Moneybags

THIS APRIL, after Tullow Oil’s annual meeting, Aidan Heavey will officially step down after 30 years as chief executive and hand over to chief organising officer Paul McDade. Unfortunately, he is making the mistake of moving upstairs to settle in as chairman. This contravenes recommended corporate governance guidelines where a chief executive should ideally exit… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Michael O'Leary

Mick O’Leary’s over expansion at Ryanair

Date: February 23, 2017 - Moneybags

IT LOOKS like Mick O’Leary is up to his old tricks again with predictable turbulence for his shareholders. The business model that works so well for Ryanair is simple enough to grasp but unfortunately O’Leary can get carried away and then seems surprised when things don’t quite work out. His latest move to increase capacity… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Harry Lorton

Harry Lorton’s timely exit

Date: February 23, 2017 - The Hot Water Brigade

THE scheme of arrangement for Cork advertising company H&A Marketing was agreed last month and it makes bleak reading for its many creditors, including the Revenue. Happily, top banker Harry Lorton, had resigned from the board and avoided the negative publicity. The controlling shareholder at H&A is Brian Healy who set up the company in… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Michael Martin’s closure order

Date: February 23, 2017 - The Hot Water Brigade

SPARE a thought for Dublin restaurant Pacino’s, which recently featured on the Food Safety Authority’s naughty list after being served a closure order in January. The Suffolk Street establishment, which also houses the Blind Pig – a speakeasy themed bar and nightclub – is owned by Dublin restaurateur Michael Martin who told The Irish Times… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

End of an era for high-flying Fitzpatrick

Date: February 23, 2017 -

DUBLIN solicitor and developer Ivor Fitzpatrick has finally moved to wind up one of his most extravagant companies, Atlantic Helicopters Ltd. Fans of Goldhawk will recall that Fitzpatrick set up Atlantic with developer Paddy McKillen in 2000 and through it the pair purchased the ultimate Celtic Tiger era status symbol, a Eurocopter EC120B. The two… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

article default

Bad Karma at Maharishi University

Date: February 23, 2017 - The Hot Water Brigade

GOLDHAWK spotted an intriguing little company called Maharishi International University Ltd (MIU), which seems to have been the victim of some bad karma. The company filed accounts recently, reporting that accumulated losses of u190,000 had built up there by the end of 2015. MIU – where Derek Crampton and Joseph Hayden are in situ as… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

John Condon’s bad record

Date: February 23, 2017 - The Hot Water Brigade

DUBLIN solicitor John F Condon still can’t catch a break. The hapless legal eagle had a bad day in the Court of Appeal recently, finding himself on the receiving end of some stern words from a beak not even a month after having High Court proceedings lodged against him by the dreaded taxman (see The… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Pure results for Kathryn Thomas

Date: February 23, 2017 - The Hot Water Brigade

GOOD to see that accounts recently filed for Aquarius Productions Ltd, the company owned by RTÉ presenter Kathryn Thomas and her brother David Thomas, reported a profit of just over €60,000 for the financial year. This brought accumulated profits at the company to a healthy €290,000 by the end of February 2016. Thomas has her… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Vol.35 No.03

Date: February 9, 2017 -

February 10 – February 23, 2017

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Martin Fraser.

TAKING BREXIT SERIOUSLY

Date: February 9, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

IF, as we are constantly reminded, the consequences of Brexit will create the greatest challenge to the Irish body politic since the foundation of the state why are we not recruiting and empowering every resource of the state to face this oncoming crisis? Although the government has been issuing assurances about what is going on… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

O’BRIEN’S KERINS PRECEDENT

Date: February 9, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

IS IT fear of serial litigant Denis O’Brien that has produced the media understatement about Angela Kerins’s adverse judgment, namely that it might have “some bearing” on his case against members of the Dáil Committee on Procedure and Privileges (CPP)? The High Court ruling had a legal bearing of several tonnage and renders O’Brien’s case… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

BUSY LIZZY’S ROUGH RIDE

Date: February 9, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

THERE WAS surely plenty of uncomfortable shuffling in the saddle by players in the horseracing industry after TD Clare Daly let fly at the sector in the Dáil last week, when asking Enda Kenny to initiate a wide-ranging investigation into practises. She also (indirectly) highlighted the recent appointment to Horse Racing Ireland (HRI), of Fine… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

CHRISTIAN CARTER’S CHARITY WORK

Date: February 9, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

IT HAS been a bad start to 2017 for Christian Carter (brother of Marissa “Cocoa Brown” Carter, see p18), who ended up in the Circuit Court last month as a result of a high profile legal action. This had been initiated on foot of revelations that a house in south County Dublin was packed to… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Ian Hyland

IAN HYLAND’S STATE SUPPORT

Date: February 9, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

IAN HYLAND must have been delighted with the puff piece in The Irish Times last week singing the praises of his latest wheeze, the Dublin Tech Summit (DTS), which is seeking to fill the void left by the departure to Portugal of Paddy Cosgrave’s Dublin Web Summit. Happily, Hyland has been able to rely on… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

GOING FOR GOLD AT THE OCI

Date: February 9, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

THE ELECTION of Pat Hickey’s successor as president of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) takes pace at the end of this week but there are other positions to be filled, including the influential one of honorary secretary general, where a legal eagle is attracting a lot of interest, and that of vice-president, where a… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber