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    Councillors need to orient away from representations that make no difference anyway.

    Educate and empower Councillors to exercise effective governance and compliance over the €5bn administered by local authorities annually; and to be public not private representatives. By Fiona McLoughlin Healy. The Report on the Role and Remuneration of Local Authority Elected Members written by Senior Counsel Sara Moorhead issued to Minister John Paul Phelan last year and recommended an increase […]

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    Meghan Markle and the ABC-Buckingham Palace sex-abuse scandal

    By Joseph de Burca Buckingham Palace has been sitting on a time-bomb since 2015: the ABC sex-abuse cover-up scandal. The Palace is currently engaged in a most undignified war of words with the Duchess of Sussex (Meghan Markle). The ABC scandal could erupt merely  if Markle decides to draw attention to it. The ABC scandal […]

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    The right-wing QAnon anti-vaccine cult has arrived in Ireland. They, and elements of Ireland’s extreme right, are threatening to reverse gains made by the lockdown. QAnon is a con. Here is the ABC-Q why.

    By David Burke. The madness and mayhem in Washington earlier this year was fuelled by thousands of so-called ‘patriots’ who believe the world is ruled by ‘swamp’ puppets of a reptilian race from outer space who murder and sexually abuse children. They see the various anti-Covid vaccines as integral parts of a plot against humanity. […]

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    Inequality is rising in Ireland.

    Important research from Unite shows Irish Times wrong on most important social issue of our time. By Suzie Mélange. In a report entitled, ‘Hungry bellies are not equal to full bellies’, to be launched on Monday 1 March, Unite Trade Union in the Republic of Ireland will provide lengthy research-based evidence of the growing inequality […]

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    Out of Time

    How the newspaper of reference dealt with correspondence challenging an important article it published about equality Brendan Ogle Of Unite submitted the following article to the Irish Times on 15 December 2020 Unite House Unite the Union 55/56 Middle Abbey Street                        Dublin 1 D01 X002 Republic of Ireland Republic of Ireland Head Office 15th December 2020 On 14 […]

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    NAMA Shrugs Again

    State’s bad bank fails to take responsibility for another inept hit to the public purse as it improperly sells to someone connected to the original debtor, blaming IT systems. By Frank Connolly (November edition, Village) NAMA Chief Executive, Brendan McDonagh, appearing before the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC), failed to deliver a credible explanation as […]

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    Garda Investigation Did Not Have FoI Material*

    Documents released to Village under FoI reveal false pretences behind €25,000 paid by Meath County Council to former employees of plant-hire company owed the money. By Frank Connolly Official documents obtained by Village have revealed in considerable detail the manner in which a County Meath businessman was defrauded by a former employee in 2008 and […]

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    Dag Hammarskjold

    The youngest and best UN Secretary General, 60 years after his assassination. By Chay Bowes Dag Hammarskjold was the second ever, and some say the greatest, Secretary General of the UN. When he died sixty years ago this year, President John F Kennedy suggested that Hammarskjold had been “the greatest statesman of our century”. At […]

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    The Death Spiral Of Trust In Capitalism

    In the US, UK and Ireland Trump, Johnson – and throttled SMEs – threaten a revolution By Gary McCarthy Ireland’s consumption collapsed by 20% in the first half of 2020 – the worst in Europe except Spain and the UK. The economy is on its knees and SMEs have only drawn on €180 million of […]

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    Covid Leaves Youth With Nothing To Waste

    As Covid takes everything from the Young, Society and the Media single them out for even rare breaches of the rules. By Zoë Jackson McGrath Youth is about the only thing worth having, and that is about the only thing youth has. Unfortunately a global pandemic has challenged even this iron law of cynicism and […]

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    Our Congested Transport System Needs an Era-Defining Reset, Now

    A recent EPA Report has highlighted how policy problems are interconnected, and need a whole-of-government response By Tadhg O’Mahony Transport and the environment are in the air. Recent weeks have brought debates on CETA and the evolving Climate Bill, and on radical moves by local authorities to facilitate pedestrians and cyclists. Far deeper EU targets […]

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    Mother and Baby Homes: A Crime against Humanity.

    By Christopher Stanley. [i] “Ireland was a cold harsh environment for many, probably the majority, of its residents during the earlier half of the period under remit. It was especially cold and harsh for women”. (page 1) The Irish government may have hoped in vain that the publication of The Report of the Mother and […]

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    THE ACCUSED AND THE ACCUSERS: CLOSED SESSION

    By Christopher Stanley Litigation Consultant KRW LAW LLP Belfast. Last year I wrote piece for Village called The Accused and the Accusers: If Not Now, When? There,I offered an analysis of the proceedings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse Inquiry (IICSA) in relation to its investigation into the allegations of child sexual abuse […]

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    Accelerating The Three-Billion-Year-Old Dance of Phages With Bacteria

    As Covid-19 and other diseases spawn resistance to over-used antibiotics, phages – viruses that naturally infect and kill bacteria – may be a long-term replacement By Shane Raymond Doctors Globally worry daily about fighting Covid-19. However, some doctors and medical experts now worry not just about the damage the virus can cause, but about the […]

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    Let Theresa May, Who Has Not Sinned, Cast the First Stone: the 32-year cover-up of the Finucane assassination, its link to Kincora and the hypocrisy of the former prime minister.

    By Joseph de Burca. This week marks the 32nd anniversary of the assassination of the Belfast solicitor Patrick Finucane. In 1989 he was shot dead by UDA killers controlled by MI5 in front of his young family at his home. The British government continues to resist a judicial inquiry into the murder despite castigation from […]

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    Nobody Won: debunking the myth the Provisionals were brought to their knees by British spies. Margaret Urwin reviews ‘The Intelligence War Against the IRA’ by Thomas Leahy.

    By Margaret Urwin. In ‘The Intelligence War against the IRA’, Thomas Leahy, Senior Lecturer in Politics in Cardiff University, challenges the growing dominant narrative that the IRA was brought to the negotiating table in the 1990s because they had been ‘brought to their knees’ by British intelligence. Since the outing of State agents, Stakeknife and […]

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    AstraZeneca

    A poem in the pandemic, by Kevin Higgins after Brian Patten  Now all the old gods have died or are on life support in the prison infirmary psychiatric wing we have a new name for the absolute: AstraZeneca. Even those who get  emotional at dinner parties about the state of the planet know there’s no […]

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    The public interest for sale in Kildare.

    Kildare Councillors flouted the public interest and perhaps the law in approving the sale of Council land without including its additional actual value to the purchaser as a “ransom strip” – following a valuation by a former Fine Gael Councillor By Fiona McLoughlin Healy. The role of Councillors in disposing of assets is an important […]

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    Apologies

    By Kevin Higgins Inspired by the apologies of British Labour Party leader Leader Keir Starmer for his party’s “anti-Semitism” and his recent appointment of a former Israeli intelligence officer as Labour’s head of social media. To any white South Africans hurt  by the anti-Apartheid movement. To any tobacco plantation owner’s son barred  by Emancipation from […]

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    So help me God

    Drafters of the US Constitution foresaw violent demagogues, and Presidential Inaugurations have mostly befitted the momentous transfers of power By John Vivian Cooke. Exactly on the stroke of noon on 20 January, Donald Trump will be out of office. There will be no more lies, frauds, outrages, or broken laws from President Trump.    His presidency […]

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