Affairs, 6 May 2021

SPARE A thought for Fine Gael’s Bernard Durkan among the many government TDs now scrambling to distance themselves from the dreaded vultures. With his own constituency in the headlines, the deputy for Kildare North features in several of today’s papers after making his concerns known at this week’s parliamentary party meeting. The Examiner reports that… Read more »

Affairs, 6 May 2021

SLEEPY JOE Biden delivered another headache for the auld sod on Wednesday with the White House announcing that the US will support a waiver of intellectual property protections on COVID-19 vaccines. This decision raised many eyebrows, was this America of all places abandoning good old fashioned corporate values? Shares in the major manufacturers swiftly tumbled… Read more »

Affairs, 5 May 2021

NOTHING EXPOSES Fianna Fáil’s malaise better than a would-be party leader unable to break from the hallmark polices of Fine Gael. Government politicians have been unnerved by the headlines about so-called cuckoo funds buying up large amounts of property to the detriment of young families, or rather the reaction to it. A particularly stark if… Read more »

Affairs, 5 May 2021

ENVIRONMENTAL COVERAGE has been among the weakest points on RTÉ for several years. For many years it appeared as if Dee’s Forbe’s operation did not understand how it was supposed to approach the subject of climate change, if at all. The RTÉ boss has spent twelve months telling interviewers that “when the nation came together… Read more »

Affairs, 29 April 2021

IN THE case of Eoghan Murphy it is wearisome almost to the point of parody to see the former housing minister’s early exit spun as another tragedy of the bile suffered by those in public life. Prompted twice by Claire Byrne during a farewell interview on RTÉ Radio, Murphy told of the “heckling” and “abuse”… Read more »

Affairs, 28 April 2021

FANS OF Goldhawk will have been aware that Arlene Foster has not been in charge of her own party for quite some time. For all the talk about the real power behind Sinn Féin, there has been scant comment about who, if anyone, is calling the shots in the DUP. The RHI scandal, while uncomfortable,… Read more »

Affairs, 27 April 2021

WAS THE Irish Times a little wounded by how quickly the suggestion of prioritising 18-30-year-olds for vaccination was slapped down last week? The story first floated in the Saturday edition on April 17 appeared to offer the paper a path back to its own sense of normality. In an article written by the bulk of… Read more »

Affairs, 27 April 2021

THE GOVERNMENT can sleep easier as it looks like Paul Treyvaud’s rebellion has been postponed once again. Not since Easter 1916 have those willing to strike a blow for freedom been issued with such a raft of conflicting orders. Cutting an uncharacteristically despondent figure on social media Monday evening, the outspoken chef conceded that “so… Read more »

Affairs, 27 April 2021

THIS WEEK’S headlines about plans to introduce minimum unit pricing (MUP) on alcohol off-sales is a clever piece of political deflection. This policy has been on the agenda for over a decade and imminent since the passage of the Public Health Alcohol Act in 2018. More importantly for cowering government TDs, a cabinet memo leaked… Read more »

Affairs, 23 April 2021

TWO WEEKS worth of media probing has uncovered little of substance regarding the dreaded Sinn Féin database. Phillip Ryan has led the charge from the Irish Independent, hyping each minor development as if Mary Lou McDonald will be toppled any minute, and yet all that has been exposed is the differences organisationally between SF and… Read more »

Affairs, 22 April 2021

UNITED STATES presidents and globe-trotting super models are not often among the protagonists down at the Four Goldmines, but that could be about change in an interesting dispute involving members of the band U2 and a California based songwriter. In a case lodged at the Los Angeles District Court in 2019, Irish writer and film… Read more »

Affairs, 22 April 2021

HEARINGS ONGOING at the Undercover Policing Inquiry in Britain continue to expose the methods of Special Branch in the period since 1968. A Metropolitan Police unit known as the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) was established in the late 1960s with a focus on monitoring and disrupting protests against America’s war in Vietnam. This quickly grew… Read more »

Affairs, 21 April 2021

CONGRATULATIONS are in order for the marketing team at Lidl after a stellar promotion of the supermarket’s new smartphone app. The German multinational chain, which does not file public accounts in Ireland, generated plenty of valuable headlines on Monday proclaiming itself to be “the first major retailer in the world to offer free period products… Read more »

Affairs, 21 April 2021

WITH PLANS for the new National Maternity Hospital (NMH) due before the Government in the coming days, the solemn commitments offered by a number of politicians are set to be tested. Fine Gael were blindsided in 2017 following an enormous public backlash as it emerged that, despite the state bearing the full costs of the… Read more »

Affairs, 19 April 2021

SIMMERING TENSIONS in the Workers’ Party have resulted in the expulsion of its only elected representative. A section of the membership spent last week rallying for an extraordinary Ard Fheis, votes of no confidence in the Party President, Michael Donnelly, as well as the current Ard Comhairle, after Cork City Councillor, Ted Tynan, found himself… Read more »

Affairs, 19 April 2021

GOVERNMENT EFFORTS to enlist social media celebrities and reach a younger cohort with public health advice may have overlooked one of the country’s long standing and most successful influencers. From the House of Prayer in Mayo, trading as Our Lady Queen of Peace House of Prayer (Achill) LTD, self-proclaimed “prophet”, Christina Gallagher, has not been… Read more »

Affairs, 17 April 2021

PERHAPS THE most interesting thing about Brian and Domhnall Gleeson’s car crash Channel 4 comedy, Frank Of Ireland, is what it inadvertently says about the domestic TV industry. After a decade that has seen a streaming boom, and a concurrent explosion of interest in original comedy and drama, RTÉ – almost uniquely amongst European state broadcasters… Read more »

Affairs, 17 April 2021

PLANS TO develop a “co-living complex” at the site of the Phibsborough Shopping Centre has proved as divisive as the local love-hate relationship with Dublin’s brutalist heritage. Derek Poppinga, managing director of developers, MM Capital, has spoken of what he claims is a “huge” and presumably extremely lucrative demand for co-living “that has not been… Read more »

Affairs, 16 April 2021

FOLLOWING A turbulent period inside Scouting Ireland, matters came to a head at a January board meeting at which three volunteers were expelled from the organisation. Rather than drawing a line under the affair, however, the legal eagles have been dragged into the affair. Back in 2018, a review was carried out by child protection… Read more »

Affairs, 15 April 2021

GOLDHAWK WAS amused to see David Trimble’s stance on a border poll form the basis of the latest Unionist perspective in the Irish Times. Joining the debate this week, commentator and former political advisor, Peter Cardwell, runs through the now well-rehearsed gamut of Unionist apprehension. Cardwell points to a contribution during a recent debate on… Read more »

Affairs, 14 April 2021

SLEEPY JOE Biden delivered a rude awakening to his fellow Irishmen and women with plans for a global minimum tax rate. The White House intends to fund an enormous post-pandemic investment programme with a slew of tax increases on corporations, in what is being presented as one of the most radical shake ups in global… Read more »