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Tim McCutcheon

OVOCA BIO TRANSFORMATION WILL BOOST MARKET ACTIVITY

Date: June 12, 2025 - Moneybags

IN WHAT is still called Ovoca Bio, CEO (for the second time) Tim McCutcheon – who is also the largest shareholder with 22% – has shifted the focus of the failed biopharma business into, unsurprisingly, the mineral exploration business. What is clear is that this development will stimulate a jump in the market’s level of… Read more »

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Eamonn Rothwell

SMOOTH SAILING FOR ICG BOSS EAMONN ROTHWELL

Date: June 12, 2025 - Moneybags

PROBABLY THE most noteworthy aspect of the accounts for Irish Ferries owner Irish Continental Group (ICG) in recent times has been CEO Eamonn Rothwell’s very generous remuneration package in the face of underwhelming performance. Based on the latest figures for the first four months of this year, ICG is on course to improve on 2024… Read more »

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Eric Turner

WOLFPACK STUBBED OUT

Date: June 12, 2025 - Brief Cases

WITH VAPING very much on the rise here and around the world, Goldhawk was interested to see that a company called Wolfpack Wholesale Group Ltd (WWG) had come a cropper with the taxman. Established by a couple of former gamblers, it looks like this bet on vaping was made a little too early. WWG is… Read more »

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Stuart Switzer

TV PRODUCERS’ UNSCRIPTED CREDIT

Date: June 12, 2025 - Brief Cases

LAST WEEK the EU’s competition directorate approved the plan announced in Budget 2025 by then finance minister Jack Chambers to introduce a new tax break for “unscripted” TV productions. In case you’re wondering where your money is going, this includes reality TV shows and light-entertainment programming, and even covers formats such as chat shows and… Read more »

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Kevin Branigan

BRANIGAN’S UNCOMFORTABLE SEATS

Date: June 12, 2025 - Brief Cases

WITH THE deadline of June 16 for phase-one submissions to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, high-flying radio boss Kevin Branigan will be keeping his fingers crossed that there are no last-minute hiccups in relation to the bid by his Bay Broadcasting Ltd (BBL) operation to buy Galway Bay FM from the Connacht Tribune. The… Read more »

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PASCHAL DONOHOE’S JOB SEARCH

Date: June 12, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

IS FINANCE MINISTER Paschal Donohoe becoming the Yosser Hughes of the European plutocracy? ‘Gizza job’ appears to be his mantra as he mingles with finance technocrats in the Eurogroup of finance ministers that he heads or is he plea being made on Paschal’s behalf by his fans in the Irish media. In late 2023 a… Read more »

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Maria Walsh

FFG AND ISRAELI ARMS

Date: May 29, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

THE OUTRAGE of Tánaiste and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris as well as the loud shrieks from the party’s MEPs at the slaughter inflicted by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) on Palestinian civilians and children in Gaza were most welcome. They were also out of sync with the political positions the party’s MEPs had been… Read more »

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Ivana Bacik

PROFILE: IVANA BACIK

Date: May 29, 2025 - Pillars of Society

THREE YEARS ago, Ivana Bacik became the sixth leader of the Labour Party in 20 years and last November its members hoped that its electoral seat gains – from six TDs to 11 – meant that the party had turned a corner following its disastrous… Read more »

Eoghan Gilroy

YOUNG BLOOD: EOGHAN GILROY

Date: May 29, 2025 - The Young Bloods

EOGHAN GILROY has managed to climb the ladder of student politics almost to the very top and shows no sign of slowing down (even over a year after graduation). The Union of Students in Ireland’s (USI) newly elected vice-president for academic affairs has somehow managed to side-step both collegiate and national controversies but how has… Read more »

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Tailored Films Screen Ireland Perspectives DCCI Crescine Tarka Russell Lara Hickey Reality Check Sarah McInerney Irish Movies Paul Murray Arts Council Dublin Theatre Festival TWU Macdara Kelleher Richard Boyd Barrett DADC Cillian Murphy Terry McMahon Media Commission Ireland Kerlin Gallery Creative Ireland Section 481 Christine O’Donovan RTÉ Storyland NMI Board Vacancies IASCA Ossie Kilkenny RTÉ Original Programmes

COUNCIL ARCHIVED

Date: May 29, 2025 - Behind the Scenes

GOLDHAWK NOTED Orlaith McBride popping up in the media last week on foot of the Government’s plan for the 1926 census, the first of the Irish Free State, to be published online at an overall cost of €5m. While the National Archives of Ireland (NAI), where McBride is director, will obviously be centrally involved, there… Read more »

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Jack Chambers

JACK V JIM: SLOW MOTION CONTEST

Date: May 29, 2025 - Last Refuge

AN INTERESTING observation by Irish Times political editor Pat Leahy recently was to the effect that Jim O’Callaghan’s busy, public prominence is due to two reasons: the first is simply that Taoiseach Micheál Martin organised O’Callaghan’s elevation to the justice department (a logical step given… Read more »

Sharon Collins

PADDY POWER’S TARGET

Date: May 29, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

NEW YORK-listed Flutter Entertainment plc – owners of gambling giant Paddy Power – has launched High Court proceedings in Dublin against an Irish property company called Waymill Ltd. The name of the principal here should ring a few bells, given that he found himself in the middle of the high-profile ‘Lying Eyes’ murder plot a… Read more »

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Atalanta Pollock

A LOAD OF POLLOCKS

Date: May 29, 2025 - High Society

THE IMPRESSIVE early 18th-century Mountainstown House on 121 acres outside Navan, Co Meath, will be auctioned on June 12, having been in the ownership of the Pollock family for well over 200 years. Previous attempts to sell fell flat but the auction is expected to throw up a buyer. Mountainstown is described as being “in… Read more »

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Gary Mullan

GARY MULLAN’S BAD VIBE

Date: May 29, 2025 - Brief Cases

GOLDHAWK SPIES that the company behind the lauded Prosperity recruitment firm is being liquidated this week. The good news is that it looks like the multi-talented founder of the firm – actor-turned-executive-turned-DJ Gary Mullan – has landed on his (dancing) feet. This week a creditors’ meeting is to be held in D2, at which number-cruncher… Read more »

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DANIEL O’DONNELL’S DUCATS

Date: May 29, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

AS THE fans of Donegal crooner Daniel O’Donnell come to terms with the fact that he is to take an extended break from touring, the good news for the man himself is that there is plenty of moolah in the coffers to tide him over for quite some time. A month after Wee Daniel took… Read more »

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Ivan Yates Nell McCafferty RTÉ Lord Laird Intro Matchmaking NewsBrands Martin McGuinness Dún Laoghaire Pat Leahy Cormac Lucey John Cooney Irish Journalism Awards Steve Aiken Anton Savage John Downing Lucinda Creighton Marina Sologub Eilis O'Hanlon Ian Kehoe Danny McConnell Sindo O'Connor Mediahuis Stephen Collins Book Justine McCarthy Rewriting the Troubles Lynn Ruane Sinn Féin

MICHAEL GAINE MURDER ‘SUSPECT’

Date: May 29, 2025 - Fit to Print?

KERRY-BASED American Michael Kelley, who was arrested on suspicion of murdering Kenmare farmer Michael Gaine and who gave an interview to the Irish Mirror last weekend about his arrest, ought to follow the advice of his own solicitor and watch his mouth. Due to Kelley’s remarks to reporter Paul Healy, the newspaper felt able to… Read more »

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4311-FP

VOL 43 NO 11

Date: May 29, 2025 -

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PETER SHANLEY’S LEGAL SQUAD

Date: May 29, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

CONGRATULATIONS to senior counsel Peter Shanley, who was quick off the mark to take advantage of a key provision in the Legal Services Regulation Act, which allows direct access to barristers by the public – ie bypassing those pesky solicitors. Shanley has hired a PR company to oversee the launch of new venture Barristers Direct… Read more »

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MERRION SQUARE FIRING SQUAD

Date: May 29, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

IT SHOULD be standing room only at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting this week as the Arts Council, National Gallery of Ireland (NGI) and arts and culture mandarins come before John Brady’s firing squad. Among the politicians lining up to take a swipe and some easy-looking targets will be the likes of Catherine Connolly,… Read more »

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LEO’S LINE

Date: May 29, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

THE NEW political editor of the Irish and Sunday Independent, Mary Regan is a most accomplished journalist as her work at RTÉ, the Irish Examiner and Business Post proves. So her startling failure to even mention the most significant current initiative by far of former taoiseach Leo Varadkar, in her analysis of his current trajectory,… Read more »

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Jim O'Callaghan

SPOOKY SWISS CLUB DE BERNE

Date: May 29, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

IRELAND MAY not be able to conduct immigration security screening – necessary for the implementation of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum – according to a Government report. This is because we are denied access to a “key European security data base” as we are not a member of the Schengen area of Europe… Read more »

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Barry Doyle

JIMMY FENNELLY’S FINALE

Date: May 29, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

TENACIOUS ACCOUNTANT Jimmy Fennelly will feel he balanced the books somewhat at last week’s AGM of the Chartered Accountants of Ireland (CAI), with whom he has been having a long-running battle (see The Phoenix 13/12/24). While the world of number crunchers is a boring one at the best of times, Fennelly’s stand-off with the profession’s… Read more »

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Margaret Thatcher

KINCORA SECRETS STILL TUMBLING OUT

Date: May 29, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

Sir Anthony Hart’s derided 2017 report into the Kincora abuse scandal was meant to quash interest in the story but served only to fuel a spate of reports in The Phoenix and Village, The Lost Boys documentary and a book on Lord Louis Mountbatten’s complicity by Andrew Lownie. The latest rebuttal is a book by… Read more »

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Martin Sellner

RIGHT-WING ULTRAS

Date: May 29, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

THAT SIX members of the National Party’s (NP) anti-Barrett faction travelled to Milan, Italy, for the recent Remigration Summit indicates how far the party’s brand of hardline ethnonationalism is from the right-wing populism espoused by most of Ireland’s anti-immigration movement. The conference was organised principally by Austria’s Martin Sellner and Dries Van Langenhove from Belgium,… Read more »

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Helen McEntee

FREEDOM OF HATE SPEECH

Date: May 29, 2025 - Hush Hush

When the European Commission issued a statement in early May outlining the sanctions Ireland will face for failing to implement legislation criminalising hate speech, the response of some ‘centre-right’ politicians and supporters was predictable. Last September the then justice minister Helen McEntee had effectively kicked the can down the road on the implementation of the… Read more »

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Bono

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: May 29, 2025 - The Hot Air Brigade

I took that medal on behalf of all those people who don’t get medals – the activists, the people who are getting killed now in Gaza. Bono on his much-criticised acceptance of the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Joe Biden, RTÉ Radio 1 We’ve been going through so much hysterical climate catastrophism for the last… Read more »

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Ronan Galwey

GREAT GAS

Date: May 29, 2025 - Fowl Emissions

It must be a head-spinning time to work for Gas Networks Ireland (GNI), the semi-state company responsible for operating Ireland’s fossil gas grid. On the one hand, the Government announced in March that GNI would own a controversial new liquid natural gas (LNG) terminal in Kerry – an abrupt about-face on previous government policy that… Read more »

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Climate Disinformation Coillte Climate Action EU Livestock NDC Claude Etchelamendy Ed Brophy Richard Boyd-Barrett Kish Dale Crammond Frank Mitloehner Shell Greenwashing Meta Data Centres Ireland

WATERED DOWN

Date: May 29, 2025 - Fowl Emissions

Today 33 Irish rivers are classified as “heavily modified water bodies” (HMWBs), meaning they are of minimal ecological value and so don’t need to be counted against our EU targets on improving the ecological quality of our waterways. New Government plans will see an almost 15-fold increase, to 466, in the number of declared HMWBs…. Read more »

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John Finucane

NORTH HOUSING CRISIS: DÉJÀ VU

Date: May 29, 2025 - Northwind

There are about 13,000 people on the waiting list for social housing in Belfast. Those on the list are overwhelmingly concentrated in north and west Belfast and they are overwhelmingly nationalist. There are obvious reasons for this. North and west Belfast have more concentrations of poverty and deprivation than elsewhere, with people unable to buy… Read more »

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Mary Hanafin

STAR-STUDDED ÁRAS HOPEFULS

Date: May 29, 2025 - Last Refuge

THE LATEST Fianna Fáil no-hoper for the FF presidential nomination whose name is being floated (this time by the aspirant herself, not party handlers) is former minister Mary Hanafin. On paper Mary’s political career was stellar, including as it did her appointment by Micheál Martin as party deputy leader for a few weeks in 2011… Read more »

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Gillian Toole

TOOLE’S TRACK RECORD

Date: May 29, 2025 - Last Refuge

THE LONE TD that remained sitting next to Michael Lowry, ‘chairman’ of the Regional Independent Group (RIG) – after Barry Heneghan had abandoned him – was Gillian Toole, Independent TD in Meath East, according to a recent report. This may be because Gillian is made of sterner stuff than Barry. Like Lowry, Toole was a… Read more »

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Duncan Smith

INSECURE SECURITY COMMITTEE (CH. II)

Date: May 29, 2025 - Last Refuge

READERS WILL remember that there was consternation at the Dáil reform committee meeting to organise draft orders of reference for Oireachtas committees when Government members realised that the newly expanded defence committee now bore the more hazardous title of “defence and national security” (see The Phoenix 16/5/25). This, along with the appointment of Sinn Féin’s… Read more »

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Kevin Bakhurst

RTÉ BLANKS GAZA PROTESTS

Date: May 29, 2025 - Fit to Print?

THE ANGUISH of RTÉ luvvies over a private firm being hired to produce an advert for RTÉ News in a simulated newsroom – ‘fake news,’ they cried – is nothing compared to how most viewers would feel if they knew how RTÉ News really works. A good example is RTÉ’s refusal to broadcast the recent… Read more »

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Alison O'Connor

GAZA REVISITED

Date: May 29, 2025 - Fit to Print?

IT’S HARD to single out the most brazen U-turn on Gaza by those who might now be anxious about having endorsed – by word or even silence – the Government’s failure to translate words into action in the face of Israeli carnage. But Sunday Times columnist Alison O’Connor’s belated lament last weekend – headlined: “World… Read more »

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Bog-Cuttings-Defaul

BOG CUTTINGS

Date: May 29, 2025 - Bog Cuttings

THREAT, NOT PROMISE Sligo District Court heard the case of a man accused of verbally abusing gardaí on two occasions. On January 17 officers received reports of an intoxicated and argumentative individual at the Clayton Hotel in Sligo. They arrived to find Declan Cunnane (48) being asked by staff to leave the hotel. Cunnane, of… Read more »

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Maura McGrath

THE BIG GIG

Date: May 29, 2025 - Behind the Scenes

AN ADVERT for one of the more prestigious jobs in the arts sector has just been posted by the National Concert Hall (NCH) on its website. It turns out that the well-regarded institution is seeking applications for the role of chief executive, the position held since 2021 by Robert Read. Given the massive redevelopment project… Read more »

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