Category: Irish Politics
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Is McDowell taking the piss?
The Irish Times reports that Minister for Justice Michael McDowell presented the Criminal Justice (Mutual Assistance) Bill 2005 to the Seanad as Gaeilge. You can read his speech on the Oireachtas website here. If, like me, your cupla focal means you can’t make head nor tail of what he is saying, then you are with…
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Treasure Trove?
My trawl through government departments has been an interesting one thus far. For example, you might be interested in reading: The handbook for Government Ministers in Cabinet.(PDF) Or here is a request for tenders for Servers for the Department of the Taoiseach in 2002. (PDF). Or a recent Treaty between the US and Ireland. (PDF)…
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The government Robots.txt file
Does anyone notice anything strange about the Robots.txt file on irlgov.ie? Does the 13th of May 1999 ring a bell? The Public Accounts Committee of that date appears to be disallowed. Might be nothing. Just wondered. Update: Thanks to the commenters below for their efforts in relation to the PAC documents. I have been looking…
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Brain drain in Ireland
The latest issue of the the Atlantic has an interesting set of statistics concerning the percentage of physicians that leave their own country to practice elsewhere. According to a study by the New England Journal of Medicine Ireland loses 41.2% of its graduates to the four countries of US, UK, Australia or Canada. The actual…
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On outlawing mushrooms
Richard has a post discussing the absurdity of outlawing some types of mushrooms, prompted apparently by the death of a man who took his own life while ‘high’ on a substance. My sympathies go out to the family of the victim, but such an event does not warrant the banning of ‘magic’ mushrooms. And it…
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Questions and Answers
I made a decision last year that I would not be commenting on the events that happened in the town I live in. I did briefly discuss some of the issues in the podcast yesterday, but as a rule I have decided to refrain from commenting on the events – and will continue to do…
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PD vision of Dublin
Who else thinks it looks like shite?
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McDowell admits handing documents to Independent
It appears that just as I was posting my first weekly column, events have taken another twist. McDowell has admitted handing documents to the Irish Independent. The Irish Times breaking news notes: He maintained that his statement about Mr Connolly in the Dáil was “the unvarnished truth” and said the Official Secrets Act provided for…
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The Frank Connolly Controversy
Over the last week and intensely at the weekend, the ‘Colombia-gate’ saga again reared its ugly head. Readers might remember the tale of 3 Irish men finding themselves in Colombia, bird-watching we were told, but arrested and tried for training anti-government marxist FARC rebels. They later popped up in Ireland, and the Colombian authorities are…
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Solicitors hit by new double bills scandal
This was flagged back by myself and Anthony over on Irishcorruption.com back when the scandal first broke. It was again repeated by Anthony in a post last Thursday where he noted that there were likely millions stolen by solicitors. Be that as it may, the Sunday Independent report today that there are likely to be…