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WILL GALLAGHER BE REPLACED AS AG?

Date: November 2, 2022 -

DUE TO a mixture of Fianna Fáil domination and coalition formation, Fine Gael legal eagles have provided just one attorney general in the last 25 years and then only for three years in the form of golfing enthusiast Séamus Woulfe. This perverse state of affairs has vexed those among the deep blue ranks in the… Read more »

THE NORTH IS A FAILED ENTITY

Date: November 2, 2022 -

SINCE JANUARY 2017 the executive and assembly of the supposed state of Northern Ireland have only functioned for 18 months. Before that, the system operated in fits and starts. The current hokey-cokey has caused deep frustration among other parties, especially the Alliance Party, which the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) classes as “other”, not being either… Read more »

MEDIAHUIS AWARDS NOMINATIONS SOAR

Date: November 2, 2022 -

WHAT A hugely enhanced performance has taken place in the standard of journalism at Mediahuis – the largest publishing stable in the country north and south, which includes the Sunday Independent, Irish Independent, Sunday Worst and other titles. At last year’s Newsbrands Ireland journalism awards, Mediahuis titles won just one gong between them and came… Read more »

IT V SF

Date: November 2, 2022 -

AMID THE welter of media hit jobs on Sinn Féin in the last fortnight, the most surprising such assault came from accomplished Irish Times journalist Simon Carswell, who was a contender for the IT’s editor’s post. Carswell referred to at least 10 anonymous politicians in either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael who complained to the… Read more »

PAUL BYRNE’S NEW NAG

Date: November 2, 2022 -

WHEN TRAINER Emmett Mullins teams up with owner pal Paul Byrne for a horse deal, punters tend to take notice. They pulled off an almighty coup last year when selling Noble Yeats to Robert and Sam Whaley Cohen for a high six-figure sum before that horse won last year’s Aintree Grand National. Presumably, the pair… Read more »

KEELING’S PLAN STUMBLES

Date: November 2, 2022 -

WHEN MONEYBAGS Joe Keeling and his ‘Friends of the Curragh’ proposed to boost the prize money to €600,000 for the Irish Cesarewitch at the track in September, the move was greeted with obvious enthusiasm by Curragh chief executive Brian Kavanagh. The former Horse Racing Ireland boss claimed such an injection for the two-mile contest would… Read more »

SHARK’S YANKEE DOLLARS

Date: November 2, 2022 -

NOT ONLY did John Shark Hanlon plunder America’s most prestigious jumps contest when his bargain buy, Hewick, landed the $250,000 American Grand National at Far Hills in New Jersey, but the increasingly high-profile trainer also bagged himself a few new clients while he was over there. A few days before the big race day across… Read more »

ANDREW HOGAN’S HEAVY GOING

Date: November 2, 2022 -

THE PROPOSED all-weather track development at Tipperary racecourse has suffered a potential setback in the form of a spanner lobbed into the planning works by two local residents. Having been given the green light by Tipperary County Council in August to proceed with the €18m project, an appeal has been lodged with An Bord Pleanála… Read more »

CATHERINE MARTIN’S SHORTLIST

Date: November 2, 2022 -

AS THE National Gallery of Ireland (NGI) hits the one-year mark for limping along with a board full of ministerial vacancies, the good news is that arts minister Catherine Martin has now received a shortlist of nine names selected by the expert panel from the 40 applicants. Given the assorted issues the NGI has had… Read more »

THE MORANS’ RETENTIONS AND LOSSES

Date: November 2, 2022 -

RACEHORSE-LOVING Noel and Valerie Moran have continued to splash their cash, with a new hotel in Co Meath their most recent undertaking. It turns out that the pair of moneybags had to apply for retention permission for some aspects of the multimillion-euro project but the good news is that all is now in order. The… Read more »

THE TALKING SHOP II

Date: November 2, 2022 -

WATCHING THE Oireachtas budget oversight committee at work on the Section 481 film industry tax credit last month, it looked a lot like a sequel to the contentious set of committee hearings held in 2018, which aired the serious grievances of some film and TV sector employees over working conditions. Once again, there was no… Read more »

RTE’S DIVERSITY

Date: November 2, 2022 -

CONGRATULATIONS TO the three writers of the 25-minute dramas being broadcast on RTÉ 2 under the ‘Storyland’ banner. Certainly, the selection represents a vote of confidence in female talent. The first of the three selected programmes to be broadcast was Mustard, written by Eva O’Connor and directed by Hildegarde Ryan. Next up was Balor Hall,… Read more »

ORIGIN SHARE PRICE FAILS TO REFLECT PERFORMANCE

Date: November 2, 2022 -

ORIGIN ENTERPRISES doesn’t often make headlines. As a supplier of agronomy services and agricultural inputs such as fertiliser and seed, the significant inflation in raw material prices has put the whole sector under strain. There has been a major increase in fertiliser prices, for example, along with increased restrictions demanded by the EU Nitrates Directive,… Read more »

DIAGEO’S MENEZES NEEDS TO EARN HIS BIG BUCKS

Date: November 2, 2022 -

READING THE analysis of Diageo’s very well paid CEO, Ivan Menezes, investors could imagine that the group had a fantastic year in the 12 months to the end of June 2022, with volume sales up 10.3%, combined with 6%-plus increase in prices, pushing up total group sales by 17% to a whopping £22.4bn. After excise… Read more »

EVENT ARMY SUFFERS DEFEAT

Date: November 2, 2022 -

THE DEFICIT at the online talent sourcing operation Event Army Ltd (EAL), which had traded as Mustard, could turn out to be pretty hefty judging by the figures revealed in last year’s accounts. The collapse of Gavin Fogarty’s company will be a blow to its various backers, which include Enterprise Ireland and assorted venture funds…. Read more »

JOHN MOORE SPLASHES THE CASH

Date: November 2, 2022 -

NOW BASED in sunny Lisbon in Portugal, self-described “rebel entrepreneur” and “concerned citizen” John Moore has been chucking his money around here, as evidenced by some interesting filings last month. Certainly, Moore has a fair few bob to throw around, having offloaded his 3D4 Medical operation in 2019 to Elsevier for a reported $50m. Given… Read more »

COLIN MCKINLAY’S ASBESTOS PROBLEM

Date: November 2, 2022 -

IT’S BEEN a difficult few years for Center Parcs Ireland (CPI). No sooner had the group opened its expensive holiday village in Co Longford than it was shut down thanks to the pandemic. It has bounced back judging by the €7.4m profit recorded in the 12 months to April this year but now CPI is… Read more »

GORDON ELLIOTT’S NEW WINNER

Date: November 2, 2022 -

HIGH-PROFILE horseracing trainer Gordon Elliott has just filed some figures for his latest corporate entity. The Master of Cullentra remains the most likely jumps handler to take the champion trainer’s title off the undisputed king, Willie Mullins. At the moment, Elliott is leading (just) the field of contenders, boasting total prize money won of €1.07m… Read more »

NOONAN FAMILY CLEANS UP

Date: November 2, 2022 -

A COMPANY with the rather boring name of NNF Services Ltd has just been wound up and it turns out there is quite a lot of moolah sloshing around. This should not be too surprising given that NNF is the company that started out back in 1977 as Noonan Services, before going on to become… Read more »

MARY LOU CHILLS OUT MARTIN

Date: October 19, 2022 -

MICHEÁL MARTIN, Shane Ross and other journalists have accused Sinn Féin, and Mary Lou McDonald in particular, of having a “chilling… spooked” effect on the media and politicians by suing them in a calculated campaign “to shut down political debate” (Martin) and that RTÉ has been “terrified” by this campaign (Ross). The reason for this… Read more »

PROFILE: CHRISTOPHER HEATON-HARRIS

Date: October 19, 2022 -

LIZ TRUSS appointed Christopher Heaton-Harris, an arch eurosceptic, as her secretary of state for Northern Ireland, after others turned down the post. His number two at the Northern Ireland Office is his long-standing ally, Stephen Baker, another eurosceptic talisman. Even before her current humiliating ordeal, the new prime minister had a lot on her plate… Read more »

YOUNG BLOODS: EOGHAN MCNEILL & ROMAN SHORTALL

Date: October 19, 2022 -

“All killer, no filler” is how The Ditch’s editorial team of Roman Shortall and Eoghan McNeill describe their modus operandi of publishing stories that “mainstream outlets don’t want to or can’t publish”. While their claims may be bumptious, The Ditch has hit the back of the net on a few occasions. Its investigation into discrepancies and… Read more »

‘IRISH TIMES’ EDITORIAL WINS OUT

Date: October 19, 2022 -

FOR MANY years the commercial side of the house in Tara Street tended to win out over the lofty editorial staff with their crusading self-image. As far back as Douglas Gageby’s successor in the 1980s, Conor Brady – whose understanding of the market and the readership won out over the journalists’ favourite, Jim Downey –… Read more »

FRANCES RUANE’S NEW DRAMA

Date: October 19, 2022 -

GOLDHAWK WAS interested to see a tender notice has been published by the Abbey Theatre, seeking applications from consultants to carry out what should prove a most interesting review of the national theatre. It marks a challenging start to the second term of chairwoman Frances Ruane. It will be recalled (see The Phoenix 12/8/22) that… Read more »

ENOCH BURKE PROTESTERS

Date: October 19, 2022 -

ENOCH BURKE is now well into his second month in prison after he breached an injunction instructing him to stay away from Wilson’s Hospital School, where he works as a secondary school teacher. One imagines that Burke, whose family are no strangers to national controversy, is embarrassed at the protests that have taken place outside… Read more »

OUT OF AFRICA

Date: October 19, 2022 -

IRISH WOMAN Lynn Sheehan has just been appointed head of operations of the EU’s advisory mission in Ukraine. This follows her service as chief of staff at the European Union’s European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP) Sahel Niger. There, the mission’s mandate had been extended by two years with a budget of €72m and… Read more »

AOIFE GALLAGHER’S INSTITUTE

Date: October 19, 2022 -

CONGRATULATIONS TO journalist-turned-analyst Aoife Gallagher, who has managed to generate a huge amount of publicity for her new book, Web of Lies (The Lure and Danger of Conspiracy Theories). She also finds time to do her day job, researching at the intriguing Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). Gallagher’s book (published by Gill) covers various familiar… Read more »

DANIELLE RYAN’S LATEST FOUNDATION

Date: October 19, 2022 -

GOLDHAWK was interested to come across an outfit called The Form Foundation, which turns out to be the latest arty incarnation for busy actor, businesswoman, philanthropist and multimillionaire Danielle Ryan (granddaughter of Tony). The Form Foundation describes itself as “an organisation conceived to enrich Ireland’s public art offering”, which will collaborate with institutions “to bring… Read more »

RTÉ’S NEW CHAIR

Date: October 19, 2022 -

THE SHORTLIST of applicants to replace the chair of the RTÉ board, Moya Doherty, is down to three: super successful broadcaster and digital innovator Mark Little; highly effective tax avoidance expert, PWC managing partner and scion of the Fianna Fáil O’Rourke dynasty, Feargal O’Rourke; and long-time RTÉ broadcaster, Tommie Gorman. O’Rourke is ‘credited’, if that’s… Read more »

VOL 40 NO 21

Date: October 19, 2022 -

BERTIE MOVING BACK CENTRE STAGE?

Date: October 19, 2022 -

WHY HAS the question of Bertie Ahern re-joining Fianna Fáil suddenly become an issue and why does the former taoiseach appear willing to return to the fold? More to the point, why does the party leadership, Micheál Martin and his advisors seem even more anxious than Bertie and his admirers for such a reconciliation? The… Read more »

RANDOX’S RAP ON THE KNUCKLES

Date: October 19, 2022 -

THE Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland (ASAI) has issued its latest findings into alleged breaches of its code, including complaints about the seriously profitable Randox operation. After a significant wait, Peter Fitzgerald’s firms got the thumbs down. A major player in the medical devices sector, Randox’s testing business, here and in the UK, exploded during… Read more »

CULTURE CLUB

Date: October 19, 2022 -

THERE HAS been a flurry of letter writing activity in the Irish Times this month relating to the little-known Irish Banking Culture Board (IBCB), with the main question being, what on earth is its purpose. It will probably come as little surprise that it turns out to be funded by the banking sector itself, with… Read more »

TEVIAN’S TRAVAILS

Date: October 19, 2022 -

A JUDGMENT has just been registered by PR queen Caroline Kennedy against the fabulously named Tevian Mirrelson, who previously came to the attention of the taxman. Mirrelson has an interesting track record, having established himself as a player in the animal charity world, helping to raise funds through lottery ticket sales etc. He established a… Read more »

LAW SOCIETY ABSTENTIONISTS

Date: October 19, 2022 -

HOW EMBARRASSING. With elections pending to the Law Society Council, members have been informed there will be no such election as not enough solicitors have gone forward for the council. And so it appears that apathy has been installed among the legal eagles of the nation. With 15 places waiting to be filled on the… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: October 19, 2022 -

I don’t say “Up the ‘RA” because I think it diminishes and collapses complex things into an edgy soundbite. Una Mullally, Irish Times I am good at getting focused and working really hard when I put my mind to it. But I’m an architect which means I’m a dreamer. Dermot Bannon, VIP Magazine Offering some… Read more »