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UNIPHAR’S PRESCRIPTION IS HARD TO READ

Date: March 20, 2025 -

UNIPHAR CHAIRMAN Maurice Pratt and CEO Ger Rabbette have overseen a major transformation of the company over the last 15 years and today it boasts sales of €2.77bn as well as a dominant 54% share of the wholesale pharmaceutical market and 60% of the hospital supply market in Ireland. Profitability, however, is a cause for… Read more »

LIGHTS, CAMERA, NO ACTION

Date: March 20, 2025 -

TROUBLING NEWS from across the water for the many promoters of new Irish film studios – or ‘media campuses’ as they are now styled. Pinewood Film Studios was given planning approval in 2023 for 1.4 million sq ft of new production space but has now announced that 78% of the space will be used to… Read more »

SWAN FRUIT CONTINUES TO ROT

Date: March 20, 2025 -

FANS OF The Phoenix will not have been surprised by the Sindo’s article last weekend headlined, “Fraud Squad probes fruit and veg firm that’s been liquidated for a decade”. This refers to Goldhawk’s old friend, John Swan, now a disqualified director. According to the Sindo, Carlow firm Swan Fruit Ltd (SFL) “is now under investigation… Read more »

TRUMP V MARTIN

Date: March 6, 2025 -

WHILE MANY columnists and ‘opinion formers’ have been generously dispensing advice to An Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, on how to evade a Zelenskyy-type thrashing when he meets Donald Trump at the White House, that incorrigible defender of Irish neutrality, Anthony Coughlan, has corresponded with the US president on germane matters. Coughlan has recently written twice to… Read more »

PROFILE: MAUREEN KENNELLY

Date: March 6, 2025 -

IT IS possible that Maureen Kennelly could be the last director of the €140m-a-year Arts Council in its current form as the vultures circle in light of the near €7m information and communications technology (ICT) project debacle. There is a real chance that the arts funding agency will be completely overhauled and that the Government… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: CIARÁN AHERN

Date: March 6, 2025 -

LABOUR’S TALLY of 11 Dáil seats in the recent election surprised commentators – and probably the party itself – but can it hold on to them? And can new TDs such as Ciarán Ahern in Dublin South West (DSW) rebuild a strong base where in 2011 the party held two seats or is it just… Read more »

SHARON SMURFIT’S DRIVE

Date: March 6, 2025 -

GOLF-MAD Sharon Smurfit must have been delighted with the big promotion for her latest adventure at the weekend – the purchase of a golfing free sheet called Talk Golf Ireland – which took up half of page five of the Sindo. Maybe daddy will consider investing? While a chunk of the article focused on Sharon’s… Read more »

MALIN SHARE OFFER 130% ABOVE ‘SERIOUSLY UNDERVALUED’ 2023 PRICE

Date: March 6, 2025 -

MALIN FLOATED off in 2015 on the back of bucket loads of Kelly Martin hype at €10 a share before hitting a high of €15 some 18 months later, but then it was all downhill, with the share price also depressed by controversy. The company, however, did have some interesting stakes and under Darragh Lyons… Read more »

DECLAN GANLEY’S RENEWED AMBITION

Date: March 6, 2025 -

DESPITE RECENT setbacks for Hermann Kelly and his Irish Freedom Party (IFP), the success of the party’s weekly X Space has brought a significant amount of attention to the IFP. Two shows last month saw Declan Ganley and Eddie Hobbs as high-profile guests, with regular contributors Kelly, Eoin Lenihan and Keira Connolly. Ganley’s contribution echoed… Read more »

‘SINDO’ EXODUS

Date: March 6, 2025 -

THE EXIT of senior hacks from Mediahuis, or more particularly the Sunday Independent, has left the Sindo bereft of experienced editors at the level of news and political coverage. The newspaper has lost editor Alan English, deputy editor Jody Corcoran, group political editor Hugh O’Connell and, most recently, political editor Philip Ryan, with the latter… Read more »

DOUG TAYLOR’S FORM BOOK

Date: March 6, 2025 -

GOLDHAWK’S OLD pal Doug Taylor must have been watching the action at Fairyhouse closely last month when Great Attitude landed a monumental Fairyhouse gamble for Athlone trainer Tom Cleary in the Connolly’s Red Mills Irish EBF Auction Maiden Hurdle. Backed at all rates from 200/1 on course and from 800/1 with Betfair, the German-bred Guiliani… Read more »

LANIGAN’S BALL ON THE RIGHT

Date: March 6, 2025 -

THE CONTRAST between the surge in support for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in last month’s German election and the calamitous fortunes of Ireland’s new right-wing parties in recent weeks could not be starker. In the last six months Ireland First (IF) has lacked any coherent direction from the top (see The Phoenix 21/2/25)… Read more »

MAKHLOUF’S ISRAEL WAR BONDS

Date: March 6, 2025 -

FLYING UNDER the radar, thanks to a most responsible media, is the arresting issue of the Central Bank of Ireland’s (CBI) enabling the sale of Israeli war bond to EU investors. Ironically, the UK was initially chosen by Israel to be the “home member state within the EU” to facilitate the sale of the war… Read more »

VOL 43 NO 05

Date: March 6, 2025 -

OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR!

Date: March 6, 2025 -

GOLDHAWK CANNOT recall any political campaign more hysterical, ill-informed and downright dishonest than that which in recent years has sought to drag Ireland into a hugely expensive and highly dangerous scenario. This would also bury our reputable tradition of non-aligned neutrality. Normally grounded Irish journalists and academics have aped the war hysteria engulfing London, Bonn… Read more »

A DOG’S LIFE

Date: March 6, 2025 -

THE TIMING of last week’s High Court win for the six animal charities that have opposed the ban on the dangerous XL bully breed of dog could hardly have been worse, given a tragic death just 24 hours earlier across the Irish Sea. Having obtained an initial temporary stay on the seizure and euthanasia of… Read more »

LARA MARLOWE’S MESSAGE

Date: March 6, 2025 -

LARA MARLOWE is the doyen of Irish foreign correspondents so her utterances on world matters of the moment must be taken seriously, yes? In a column in last Saturday’s Irish Times, she gave credence to the claim that the KGB recruited Donald Trump in 1987. She added: “No evidence was offered for the allegation but… Read more »

IRELAND’S MEGA CLIMATE DEBT

Date: March 6, 2025 -

This week’s bombshell report from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (IFAC) shows Ireland to be the worst-performing EU country per capita in terms of emissions reductions. The state now faces up to €26bn in EU fines for failing to meet our mandated targets. This is potentially double the entire massive Apple tax windfall and amounts… Read more »

JAMES BROWNE’S KILLARNEY HOUSE

Date: March 6, 2025 -

THE NEWLY appointed housing and heritage minister, James Browne, has bigger fish to fry but there are begrudging noises coming from Killarney with the appointment of Shane Treacy – son of Marcus Treacy, Killarney accountant and a member of the town’s leading hotel families – to the top management job at Muckross House, where last… Read more »

MI5/6 AND THE DUB-MON BOMBS

Date: March 6, 2025 -

DESPITE GOVERNMENT pledges to assist the Omagh Bombing Inquiry, two UK-based inquiries into the UVF’s Glenanne gang – Operation Denton and that of the Police Ombudsman NI – are still waiting for the Irish Government to hand over files that the gardaí hold on them. The Glenanne gang carried out the 1974 Dublin-Monaghan (D-M) bomb… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: March 6, 2025 -

I’m lucky enough to have a job in a workplace that prizes flexibility and understands that its employees are humans, with full lives and obligations beyond the workload. Tanya Sweeney, on the challenges for working women, makes an exception for her wonderful employers, Mediahuis, Irish Independent A party. I can’t say that… I was approached…. Read more »

CLIMATE: NEW ERA

Date: March 6, 2025 -

WITH COLOSSAL EU fines of €26bn coming down the tracks, it is at least comforting to look across the Atlantic at Elon Musk’s maniacal assault on government and to give thanks that profit-hungry tech billionaires aren’t dictating national policy over here. Or are they? The capture of Ireland’s state agencies and advisory bodies by Big… Read more »

JOHN WILSON’S TOAST

Date: March 6, 2025 -

In 2019 Leo Varadkar was rightly mocked for saying climate change had “benefits” as well as “downsides”. An early contender for this year’s Varadkar Award for a Glass-half-full Approach to Climate Change is Irish Times wine critic John Wilson. Under the headline “Could climate change see wine being produced in Ireland?”, Wilson brought us the… Read more »

PARAMILITARIES RULE OK?

Date: March 6, 2025 -

The north’s Independent Reporting Commission (IRC) published its seventh report on February 25. It said the same as it has done every year since Dublin and London set it up in 2017 to monitor paramilitaries. “Paramilitary groups continue to exist and exert coercive control over some communities… including intimidation, financial extortion, sexual exploitation.” Everyone knows… Read more »

CATHAL CROWE’S STEPPING STONE

Date: March 6, 2025 -

WHAT A dramatic speech, full of resonance with modern Irish history, Clare Fianna Fáil TD Cathal Crowe made last week during a Dáil session to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Crowe described how “800 years of invading forces and plantations” was followed by the War of Independence, civil war and creation… Read more »

IRON LADY’S GAME PLAN

Date: March 6, 2025 -

IRISH TIMES diarist Miriam Lord must have good sources in the health department or perhaps in health minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill’s retinue. Last week Lord wrote in some detail about Thatcher MacNeill’s visits, past and present, to various hospitals around the country – some of them unannounced. The article also told how Independent Ireland TD… Read more »

NASON BYRNE’S DIPLOMATIC GAFFE

Date: March 6, 2025 -

A RECENT Sunday Times article on Alex Nason, son of top Irish diplomat Geraldine Byrne Nason – Irish ambassador to Washington – debated the pros and cons of young Nason’s strong political ties and activism on behalf of the Democrats. The newspaper did this from the viewpoint of Irish diplomacy and in particular Nason Byrne’s… Read more »

MARTIN’S NON-NORTHERN POLICY

Date: March 6, 2025 -

THE SPLENDIDLY titled Ireland and Britain editor of the Irish Times, Mark Hennessy, told readers last November that Irish unity would occupy much greater attention from politicians in the new Dáil. Writing under the headline, “Irish unity quietly becoming more significant for Dáil parties”, Hennessy wrote that “voters are not talking about it, but it’s… Read more »

GLOBAL TITLES FIGHT

Date: March 6, 2025 -

THE HEAVYWEIGHT title contest between various media combatants will take place in London next month at the 2025 Newspaper Awards – open to UK and Irish print titles – and Mediahuis management, CEO Peter Vandermeersch in particular, will see this as a return bout after some disappointing verdicts in past contests. So vexed was Vandermeersch… Read more »

GARY MURPHY’S HISTORY LESSON

Date: March 6, 2025 -

AMIDST AN avalanche of war cries from otherwise sober columnists and academics about the need for Ireland to tool up and join the big boys in EU rearmament, some pretty ludicrous rhetoric has been disgorged. One stand-out comment was the derision heaped on Irish neutrality by the eminent DCU professor of politics, Gary Murphy, who… Read more »

PAMPERED POOCHES

Date: March 6, 2025 -

IT TURNS out that some people spend an eye-watering amount of money on their pets these days, including, for example, €9,000 to have your dog sit alongside you when travelling on UK-based K9 Jets. Closer to home, one of those who has targeted this burgeoning market is Coralee Freeney, who in 2022 founded The Paw… Read more »

SLEVOIR’S LOW-KEY OWNERS

Date: March 6, 2025 -

A RECENT update to the Land Registry records show that the impressive listed Slevoir House near Terryglass, Co Tipperary – which featured on Selling Ireland’s Dream Homes on RTÉ 2 back in December 2022 – was purchased by low-profile couple Robert and Scharleen Ramsden. The UK-based new owners are well known in equestrian circles and… Read more »

ACTING THE MAGGOT

Date: March 6, 2025 -

AS ALWAYS, the Oscars garnered plenty of media attention for the stars and producers but on this side of the Atlantic, at least, there was little to be said about the unfair remuneration policies so often applied to performers. There has been something of a plot twist, however, although just how significant remains unclear. For… Read more »

SCANNER? WHAT SCANNER?

Date: March 6, 2025 -

GOLDHAWK IS struck by the way the annual reports of the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI) – like those of the Arts Council – managed to avoid any reference to its X-ray machine debacle. Certainly, both the director and chair of the heavily publicly funded national cultural institution had sod all to say in their… Read more »

ICY’S INSIGHTS

Date: March 6, 2025 -

ONLINE PUNDIT Icy – aka Gearoid Norris – recently held court through his Point Blank Sunday podcast with on-course bookmaker Colm White. Thousands of punters signed in to hear their opinions on topics of interest but were no doubt surprised to hear discussions on horses allegedly not being allowed to run on their merits both… Read more »

SMURFIT WESTROCK ON ROCKY GROUND

Date: March 6, 2025 -

It looks like a case of steady as she goes if you judge Tony Smurfit’s performance based on the share price of Smurfit Westrock (SWR) since it migrated its listing to New York. In reality, the company is entering choppy waters with increased competition in Europe, tariffs in the US, and a price/earnings multiple so… Read more »