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ONE Dáil candidate who cannot be described as a token female selected to fulfill the gender quota is Fine Gael’s Fiona McLoughlin Healy in Kildare South. Fiona is sitting TD Martin Heydon’s running mate, selected at convention, which was directed to nominate one man (Heydon) and one woman (McLoughlin Healy). But Fiona has declined to… Read more »

LORD Ross’s Independent Alliance becomes more exotic and eclectic by the hour and the latest target for his parliamentary grouping is Sinn Féin TD, Sandra McLellan. Sandra is a bruised politician after her crucifixion at the hands, firstly, of Cork East party critics and then the SF national leadership, who abandoned her when the local… Read more »

EVEN though the Irish Daily Mail’s flamboyant MD Paul Henderson hasn’t previously been shy about putting journalists’ noses out of joint, it appears that he may have finally overstepped the mark. Staff were incensed earlier this year when it emerged that the company directors, including Henderson, were paid massively inflated fees at the same time… Read more »

A LITTLE late in the day, the Taxman has registered a judgment of €236,000 against ‘delinquent director’ Simon Stokes, whose restaurateur family previously ran the well-known Unicorn restaurant in Dublin 2 and nearby Bang restaurant. The judgment was registered last month, a few days after Stokes and his twin brother, Christian, were adjudicated bankrupt in… Read more »

WHAT an unusually moderate and discreet stance Leo Varadkar took during Fine Gael’s abortion row last week. That row was triggered by James Reilly’s dramatic interview but it was Frances Fitzgerald and Paschal Donohoe that pushed Enda Kenny into a compromise (although they both disagreed with Reilly’s public solo run on the issue). Varadkar, meanwhile,… Read more »

DERMOT DESMOND is digging in his heels in an attempt to stymie the proposed merger of betting giants Ladbrokes and GalaCoral. Behind his public anger is the fact that Dermo’s own bet on Ladbrokes has come up well short. Current developments also make an eventual takeover of Ladbrokes by DD and his pals far less… Read more »

  THINGS are looking bleak for poor David Agar, the auctioneer and property developer who hit the headlines following a prescient interview in 2012, in which he complained that Nama was treating property developers “like dirt” and moaned that the agency “will not be happy until every developer in this country is living in a… Read more »

THAT disavowal of coalition government by Fianna Fáil’s Billy Kelleher is as devious as it is amusing. FF talking about rebuilding the party from the opposition benches and spurning power is rich. And rejection of both Fine Gael and Sinn Féin is disingenuous. One of Micheál Martin’s problems is the clever strategy of Enda Kenny… Read more »