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July 2017 5
News Miscellany
Villager
Gratuitous Trump
Image Section
Nominative determinism
Pressman
Veteran journalist Gabe Pressman has died
at 93.
Reason
Sports Journalist Mark Reason of New Zealand’s
stuff.co.nz was never as mean about the Lions
as his colleagues and has been emollient about
the dismissal of Sonny Boy Williams for a mis-
conceived shoulder.
Doing Badley
Zeaphana Badley, who was engaged to Lord
Mountbatten’s Eton-educated great-grandson
Nicholas Knatchbull, ‘Lord Romsey’, a former
drug addict, for 18 months before the wedding
was called off in 2013, has been found guilty of
causing GBH with intent, to two Irish people in
London. Badley who has been sleeping rough
has 36 offences including arson, theft and a
string of assaults against members of the
public and police dating back to 1999.
Thrown to a Woulfe
A defamation action currently awaiting a deci-
sion in the High Court exposed some of the
tensions that have been apparent for many
years between members of Wicklow County
Council and its former county manager, Eddie
Sheehy, who was recently exonerated from
claims of corruption in another High Court case,
about waste.
Last year Sheehy, who is retired, spent sev
-
eral days in the witness box defending himself
from a claim that he defamed Councillor Tommy
Cullen and former Councillor, Barry Nevin, in a
press release issued by Wicklow County Council
in April 2013. The council is also a defendant in
the action.
The action arose from a claim in a press
release that, in 2011, the Councillors had made
“unfounded and misconceived” allegations in
relation to the compulsory purchase (CPO) of
lands close to the Three Trouts stream, at
Charlesland in Greystones. These allegations
were contained in a letter from the Councillors
and Councillor Jimmy O’Shaughnessy, to then
environment minister, Phil Hogan, who author-
ised an ‘Independent Review of the Compulsory
Acquisition of land at Charlesland, county Wick
-
low’ by Seamus Woulfe SC. As a result of the
review the department delayed the sanctioning
of a €3m loan to the council to allow it to pur-
chase the land under CPO.
The press release was issued by the council
under the headline:
‘WOULFE REPORT REJECTS COUNCILLORS’
ALLEGATIONS REGARDING THREE TROUTS CPO’
It went on to quote from the report it received
on that day, 23 April 2013, and stated that
“Woulfe rejects the very serious allegations
which were made by Councillors Cullen, Nevin
and O’Shaughnessy”.
The press release said that Woulfe concluded
that “almost all of the concerns” raised by the
three councillors “are not well founded or are
misconceived”. It said that Woulfe had con-
cluded that “there was no deviation by the
council from the relevant legal requirements
and administrative requirements or
practices”.
The press release then went on to state that
“the delay in sanctioning the loan to purchase
this site (caused by the need to carry out this
Independent Review of the unfounded and mis-
conceived allegations of Councillors Cullen,
Nevin and O’Shaughnessy) has resulted in a
loss to the Council of circa €200,000 in respect
of interest foregone and administrative costs.
This is in addition to the costs of the Independ
-
ent Review commissioned by the Minister”.
Although the defamation claim was first
rejected in the Circuit Court two years ago the
decision was appealed by the two councillors
to the High Court where it was heard by Judge
Marie Baker last year. Although the action
revolves around the claim by the councillors
that they were defamed in the press release, the
context of the case brings in the wider issue, as
reported in Village over recent years, of the
zoning and development of lands at Charles-
land by well-known developers, Sean Mulryan
and Sean Dunne through their company Zapi
Ltd, from the early 2000s. As Judge Baker said
during the hearing Zapi is “in the ether” of the
case.
The outcome of the case will have ramifica
-
tions for Seamus Woulfe, recently installed in
the never entirely comfortable role of Ireland’s
attorney general.
Will call anon
Meanwhile the most senior of legal ‘benchers’
are furious that Kenny loyalist and author of
several books of history and a thoughtful essay
in Village some years ago on Bertie Ahern,
Frank Callanan SC, was not shooed in to the
Why Melania stayed
so long in New York?
6 July 2017
NEWS
bauble of Attorney. A convocation of them
alighted in Callanan’s exquisitely refurbished
Fitzwilliam Square townhouse to moan about the
last-minute volte face by young Varadkar, seem-
ingly driven by the prejudices of Richard Bruton
and implausible concerns that Callanan’s role of
trustee of the Fine Gael party might constitute a
difficult conflict of interest for an Attorney
General.
Womend
A few months ago virtually all
of the key positions in the legal
world were occupied by
women. Villager has detected
a pattern that suggests that is
beginning to change.
Woulfe has taken over from
Máire Whelan at the Attorney-
General’s office. Whelan has gone to the Court
of Appeal where she is one of only two female
judges among a gaggle of men.
Frances Fitzgerald is no longer Minister for Jus-
tice having been replaced by the manly Charlie
Flanagan.
Susan Denham, the Chief Justice, is due to
retire shortly and the shortlist for her successor
appears - at the moment at least - to consist only
of men.
Eileen Creedon, who served as Chief State
Solicitor, has been elevated to the bench of the
High Court.
The prospects for Nóirin O’Sullivan, the incum-
bent Garda Commissioner, are precipitous.
Otherwise the last women standing include
Judge Mary Ellen Ring, who serves the Nation
under the unintentionally sexist Scandanavian-
derived tile of Garda Ombudsman; the DPP Claire
Loftus; the Chief Prosecution Solicitor Helena
Kiely; and the Head of the Directing Division in
the DPP’s office, Elizabeth Howlin.
Jobwelldonestown
Aided by the tail wind that the prosecution chose
a charge that did not stand up to scrutiny, false
imprisonment when egress was clearly and rea
-
sonably possible, the lawyers acting for the
Jobstown water protesters accused of falsely
imprisoning Joan Burton managed to turn the
table on the DPP in several ways.
By putting Joan Burton’s political record under
the microscope. The inconsistencies between
the promises she had made in Opposition and
her record in office were exploited to the hilt. In
addition, the conduct of the gardaí was put on
trial. It didn’t harm the defendants’ prospects
either that their lawyers were able to drop a few
tinctures of humour into the mix every so often;
just the tonic for those labouring through the
gruelling marathon ten-week trial.
Ray Comyn SC, a courtroom maestro, drew a
few smirks when he likened the management
skills of the Garda to those of the “Keystone
Cops”.
Gentle sarcasm was deployed at another
remove to undermine Burton’s claims that she
had been unable to hear the chanting of political
slogans while she was sitting inside her car. The
point at issue was how much of the noise made
by the protesters was political
and how much vulgar abuse.
She claimed to only have
heard abuse. When pressed
to explain why this was so,
she divulged that she had
struggled with hearing diffi
-
culties since childhood. This,
no doubt, could have engen-
dered not a little sympathy
from the jury. Then, with
rapier-like speed, the
redoubtable Roisin Lacey SC (an international
fencer begod) asked how this rather curious
impairment managed to blot out political chant-
ing only but not vulgar abuse. This deft parry
drew blood, causing the public gallery to erupt
in laughter.
Self-deprecation was there too. The urbane
Kerida Naidoo SC found himself denying he was
trying to butter up the females on the jury; point-
ing out that he was actually hoping to butter up
everyone on it.
Ridicule was evident too during the closing
speeches, led by the feisty Ms Lacey again. Her
client, Scott Masterson, had been arrested in
front of his children while he was preparing their
school lunches in the family kitchen early one
morning. There was a dispute over whether he
had been handcuffed in front of the children or
not. During her closing remarks to the jury, Lacey
insisted he had been and stated that it was ridic-
ulous to suggest that he needed to be
handcuffed. “What was he going to do? Stab
himself with a butter knife? Run off with the
school lunches and survive on cheese strings
while on the run?”.
On a more serious level she asked: “Is this
heavy handedness indicative of why we are
here? Is it cracking a nut with a sledgehammer?
Is it all over the top and indicative that this inves-
tigation and this prosecution is unnecessary and
unjustified?”.
Dank, shookbut innocent
It comes as no real surprise to Villager that the
former Labour MP and anti-paedophile cam-
paigner, Simon Danczuk was not re-elected
during the recent British general election. During
the campaign the British media reported that an
unnamed woman claimed he had raped her
during a visit to Westminster. This story - coming
after years of tittle tattle in the red tops about
his private life - was more than enough to derail
his campaign. A few years earlier a man had
made a separate claim that he had been raped
by Danczuk, something the politician denied
with vehemence. It would appear some of the
mud stuck.
What a surprise it is then to learn that the Brit-
ish police will not now be following up the
anonymous woman’s Westminster rape allega-
tion and that the case has been closed.
The real losers here are the sex-abuse victims
for whom Danczuk campaigned so vigorously
and effectively. It was he who did most to expose
Sir Cyril Smith MP and - just as important - the
protection he had received from the British spe
-
cial branch acting on orders from MI5. His book,
‘Smile For The Camera’, is well worth the read.
MI5 officers are reported to be still dancing the
conga in the basement of their Orwellian HQ at
Thames House at the election result in Danczuk’s
Rochdale constituency. Danczuk, who had to run
as an independent, instead of under his old
Labour banner, polled only 883 votes compared
to his tally of 20,961 in 2015.
Keith Vaz, another anti-paedophile cam-
paigner, however, managed to retain his seat in
Leicester East with a whopping 35,116 votes.
Kohl family ununified
Helmut Kohl, architect of German reunification,
has died and received a fractious, non-State
funeral reflecting his resentment at Angela
Merkel whom he blamed for his fall from politi-
cal grace; and the fact that his first wife
committed suicide and he remarried, to Maike
Kohl-Richter, who was 35 years his junior, divid-
ing his family. Kohl had some issues with
corruption but was a big charmer.
Only with Margaret Thatcher did it not work.
When she came to his favourite resort, St Gilgen,
where he was holidaying he cut short their meet-
ing, citing “unbreakable commitments”. Walking
down the street later, Britain’s leader saw Mr
Kohl in a café, gorging himself on a large cream
cake. Their relationship never recovered. A book
published against his will and culled from 600
hours of taped conversations revealed that
Thatcher would “doze off” during international
summits. Kohl said the Iron Lady “would then
nearly fall off her chair, clutching her handbag”
during meetings.
Kohl also savaged the “blockhead” Duke of
Edinburgh and the “idiotic”marriage of Prince
Charles to Princess Diana, though he added that
had Diana become queen she “would have done
her bit in bed”.
Tricky Hickey (don’t translate
into Portuguese)
Independent-group reporter, Paul Williams,
interviewed former president of the Olympic
Judge Mary Ellen Ring
July 2017 7
Council of Ireland Pat Hickey, on his podcast.
It was odd that Williams failed to ask any
questions about Hickey’s ongoing issues with
the Brazilian judicial system over his involve-
ment in the ticket sale scandal last year. They
were ruled out of bounds for legal reasons.
Odder still was Hickey’s claim that Vladimir
Putin, a long-time mate apparently and fellow
judo black belt, tried to secure his release from
the “notorious Bangu prison” in Rio de Janeiro
where he was held for ten days before being
forced to hang out in the tourist area of the city
for many weeks. Venturing any further risked
being “murdered” or “slaughtered”, he told lis-
teners. Hickey managed to pack in a veiled threat
to anyone in the media who says anything that
might be used by Brazilian prosecutors in the
case they are building against him for allegedly
illegally reselling tickets for the games. Oddest
was not the shock for the listener of learning that
policemen with dark gear, masks and machine
guns arrived at his room in the Hotel Windsor
Marapendi where he immediately suffered a
heart attack as he was being taken away. No,
what was really peculiar was that the heavy gang
were accompanied by “members of the media”:
“The policeman thought he was in a movie. The
media pay for everything over there. They paid
the police when they arrested me in the morning,
so that they could have the cameras up front and
everybody saw me opening the door in my dress-
ing gown”.
Williams will have required calming medica-
tion to get over the notion that the police and
media would act in such a collaboratively preda-
tory fashion, anywhere.
Old Ideas for New Market
Planning permission “is in the process of being
lodged” for a €2oom development in the New
-
market area of Dublin’s Liberties. The scheme
will “regenerate part of the liberties” and will
extend to over 400,000sq ft when completed.
The regeneration element of the project includes
the demolition of the hideous 1970s enterprise
centre as well as work on Mill Street. “We believe
now is the time to transform the old enterprise
centre into a residential and retail hub, with an
iconic hotel and other attractions”, rehashed a
spokesman for Newmarket Partnership, the
company behind the development, determined
to use both the hub and icon clichés in one sen
-
tence. To Villager it looks like another clumsy
lost opportunity to resurrect the artisan spirit of
a city of markets.
Captaen Spéirling
Jack Fennell politely admonishes Village for
having no readers’ letters page and in return Vil-
lager has agreed to print his concern that the
report by Richard Howard of his views on Cathal
Ó Sándair’s heroic sci-fi spaceman Captaen Spé-
irling, that he is “nothing more than a Gaelgeóir
Buck Rogers or Dan Dare” constituted a poor
choice of words on his part and sounds more dis-
missive than he meant it to be. “In fact I argue
that this was a positive thing, demonstrating to
Irish children of the time that there was no
reason why Ireland should be excluded from the
thrilling, techno-utopian future of those
serials”.
Lying liars tell lies
Writing in the Mail on Sunday Ken Foxe revealed
that a Freedom of Information Request showed
that Simon Coveney and his officials knew that
Departmental figures on housing completions
were out, by up two thirds as it turns out,
because they relied unduly on ESB-connection
figures. Minutes of a meeting betewen the Hous-
ing Department and CSO shows the parties knew
the figures were debased in February, though
they used them up until May, confirming Vil-
lage’s nasty April cover alleging Coveney was
lying about housing completions.
Hopsters tire
Anheuser Busch has acknowledged for the first
time that the market for craft beer has slowed
down in the US. There are now more than 4656
breweries in the US more than at its high point
in innocent 1873. However, the volume of beer
produced is growing at less than half the 18 per-
cent rate it boasted two years ago, according to
the US Brewers Assocation. Hipsters’ natural
position is brewing their own.
Hipsters tour
The main appeal of Leo Varadkar was that he
always appeared to be fresher and more honest
than politicians, an outsider really. He’s man-
aged to retain that sense though partly through
reprising Enda Kenny’s silly hand gestures and
awkwardly finding inspiration in
trashy and foppish movies, on visits
to our poe-faced international
partners.
Though he’s historically not been a
great deliverer, and insists on all that
stuff about early rising, whose sincer
-
ity we’ve yet to see tested, he has
been striking a modern tone on cli
-
mate change, corruption, buyers’
“Idiotic marriage”
and Village called it a lie!
No, I’m younger
Newmarket, USA
8 July 2017
NEWS
grants and the health
service.
We’ll see how he gets on in
the youth-off with Justin
Trudeau. It’s a balance
between hipster humility and
the aggrandised rhetoric of a
New Generation and not
every pop leader should try
to pull off the thirty-some-
thing stuff about
Renaissances, favoured by
the admittedly more intellec-
tualised, Emmanuel Macron.
Something about
Fine Gael
Meanwhile, Simon Harris’s
eyebrows are on permanent
turbo-arch, even for a Fine Gaeler. He
is also nineteen going on fifty-nine.
Inconvenient
Ireland’s welfare and tax system is
the third most redistributive in the
OECD while its Personal tax and PRSI
systems are the second. While this is
certainly inconvenient for the Left,
many of whom are evidence-immune,
it doesn’t rule out the reality that in
this society there are pockets of bla
-
tant and avoidable inequality, and
scandalous poverty.
Limerickity planning
The proposal for a €150m scheme for
Limerick City’s misnamed Georgian
‘Opera Site’ proposes “regeneration”
of the 500,000 square-metre historic
site, bringing three tall office build-
ings, the highest towering up to 14
storeys, and a vast amount of retail.
The scheme incorporates zero resi-
dential use – no affordable, no
key-worker, no executive rental, no
student residential, no social, no
elderly, none, just offices and retail
and token cultural in the old Town
Hall, and a gated central plaza. It’s
been designed by engineers. Archi
-
tects were presumably too costly. As
was community stakeholder
consultation.
It will be interesting to see what the
dynamic ‘Liveable Limerick’ cam-
paign which includes all Limerick
humanity from the Rubberbandits to
John Moran and which stands against
car-driven development and mediocrity have
to say about this acontextual behemoth
which fails to recognise that the point, the
selling-point, of Limerick is its history. Sev-
eral Georgian buildings face the wrecking
ball and the car-parking allocation at 150 is
a multiple what planners in Dublin are now
allowing for similar schemes. Some residen-
tial use on the site might generate activity
after dark, and help plug a serious mismatch
between a rising demand and a lag in supply
in the city. Meanwhile the Limerick Leader is
scraping about the scheme being Limerick’s
‘Silicon Valley’. No Silicon. No Valley. No
homes. No architects. No imagination. Yes-
terday’s mistakes today. Like the Terry
Wogan Statue.
100% mono-use (commercial/office) in the
pursuit of the City’s revitalisation Zone.
My enemy’s enemy: my
enemy
Environmental activists Friends of the Irish
Environment are objecting to Ryanair’s intro-
duction into its (climate) case against the
third runway at Dublin airport, which is
focused on the inadequacy of the Environ-
mental Impact Statement.
Screenygreenyproducery
things
Generous Village contributor and former
Green Party leader, John Gormley, who is
managing director of ‘ScreenGreening’ has
just been made chairman of Screenproduc
-
ers Ireland, the voice of independent film,
television, animation and digital producers
in Ireland, whose CEO Elaine Geraghty is
married to Tom Vavasour who worked for Vil
-
lage under editors Michael Smith and
Vincent Browne, whose right-hand man he
is.
Summer shadows
Villager reads that Vincent Browne is giving
up his cacophonous TV show. He’s also
bought back the title to Magill magazine
through which he made quite some noise
some decades back. Could we be looking at
an exciting relaunch in the autumn? Village’s
editor says he’s looking forward to the holi-
days. Back in September, if we’re lucky.
Existing ‘Opera’ Site
14 storey tower: acontextual
Gated: yesterday’s mistakes
