Villager

Just shut up Villager is interested in the notion of ‘guest’ as applied to the ‘Tonight with Vincent Browne’ show. The status seems to be precarious. Tom Cooney, a pro-Israeli former advisor to Alan Shatter, was told to leave after interrupting, Jerry Beades was ejected after being invited to ‘shut up’ (“just leave if you’re not going to stop talking”) and now SIPTU’s Jack O’Connor whose departure admittedly was his own idea has suffered the ignominy of being followed out of the studio by an unhostly invitation to ‘Hit the Road Jack’ and raucous studio laughter. After the ignominy, journalist Colette Browne feared that – much worse – O’Connor might be stuck for an invidious half hour watching the gaiety while a taxi was called to TV3’s studio in far-flung Ballymount. All of this is fine when you don’t like the victim; and Israel, and the New Land League, certainly need robust criticism.  SIPTU, the Labour Party and the issue of TV3 not being unionised deserve it less. The problem with the ‘Tonight  Show’ is that – uniquely – the dignity of all the  guests is in play. As well of course as that of the presenter. And sometimes that of the issue. No one-horse towns The latest statistics show that 80% of journeys made in Ireland (outside Dublin) in 2013 were by car – driving (74%) or driven (6%). Ideolo-something Joan Burton is proposing a cap on the property tax when the freeze on increases registers at the end of the year. Villager can’t remember where that fits in the socialist handbook. Karl Marx of course wanted to abolish private property, so  just crucifying it with taxes should be allowed. In similar spirit, the coalition government was happy to abolish the 80% tax on windfall profits to land speculators, which had been introduced at Green insistence, without a solitary murmur from anyone in the Labour Party. Ya can’t eat planning Minister for the Environment, Alan Kelly, isn’t really a man for any of that old leftie stuff relating to land, planning or anything really. According to the Irish Times. Mr Kelly is considering allowing builders of one-off houses to “opt out” of the usual certification requirements. It’s of a piece with recent news that the inspection regime for the country’s 500,000 septic tanks – agreed with the increasingly pliable EU, would take 500 years to complete, even though nearly three quarters of them are “high risk”. Kelly and his Minister of state Paudie Coffey have announced a review of the Building Control (Amendment) Regulations 2014 “to consider in particular the impact of S.I. No. 9 of 2014 on single dwellings and extensions to existing dwellings having regard to specific concerns which have been raised in relation to the cost burden of the regulations and the level of certification required for this sector”. This is code for a nod to planning-control anarchy. Unlawful Society Villager returns to the case of Kenmare-based solicitor, Colm Murphy, who was struck off from the Roll of Solicitors in 2009 on foot on foot of complaints from another solicitor, Fergus Appelbe. Murphy took a case against the Law Society which failed to investigate Appelbe until very recently when he was finally restricted as to how he can practise. Appelbe is a former member of the Law Society Conveyancing Committee and was the subject of two ‘Today Tonight’ investigations in 1997/8 into his conduct. He and his various companies are now also in overwhelming debt – to a sum in excess of €100m much of which will have to be borne by the state. Allegations of “repeated skulduggery on the part of officials of the Law Society” were aired in the Supreme Court last year as part of Murphy’s claim of breach of duty, negligence, defamation and misfeasance of public office against them. Murphy claimed that his striking off was based on spurious and inaccurate information provided by the Law Society to its Disciplinary Tribunal and the High Court ten years ago. Key to the decision to strike him from the roll had been a claim by a law society official, Linda Kirwan, that Murphy had breached an undertaking he had given to the President of the High Court. Kirwan insisted at various hearings against Murphy that she had been in the High Court on the day the undertaking was made. It was only after the unfortunate Murphy was struck off that she admitted that she was not in fact in the court when the supposed undertaking was made. No such undertaking is recorded in the order from the court issued on the day in question. The three judges of the Supreme Court decided in March that the Law Society had misled Judge Hanna in the High Court. They were critical of Ken Murphy, the Society’s Director General and suggested that Colm Murphy could resume practicing as a solicitor and that there would be a full hearing in respect of his compensation claim. The judges awarded costs for the Supreme Court hearing and all costs of the High Court to Murphy (Colm not Ken). Constantly keen Ken Last year Ronán Lynch, formerly of the Centre for Public Inquiry and now of the Westport-based Lafferty Financial Group, broke some icons in this magazine to analyse the guests on Marian Finucane’s weekend radio show. He found of 255 guests over the year no less than 26 were legal professionals – somewhat fewer than politicians (36), academics (25) and businesspeople (18). In the last two months this same Ken Murphy, the moustachioed head Law Society honcho, appeared twice including once (February 10) to give an enthusiastic endorsement of Magna Carta – as if that has anything to do with the way the legal profession runs today; and on April 5 to wax uncontroversially about the print media, Fianna Fáil and the issues of the day. Ok, Marian show: you’re not fulfilling your obligation to broadcasting having so many lawyers on your show. They don’t need people like you

Mates of Yates Under this heading in the last edition Villager made reference to Leo Varadkar. The intention of the piece was to imply that sexuality is workaday and of no particular interest but Village accepts that the reference was offensive and a mistake. In general, Village does not support the outing of the sexual orientation of anyone. Villager and Village apologise to all concerned. Saving trees from themselves In keeping with its general philosophy of doing more to achieve less Dublin City Council has erected signs in Merrion Square signalling that it is about to begin cutting down 300 trees there in accordance with a Conservation Management Plan. The idea is… well actually Villager couldn’t really see the idea at all. But it’s dressed up as facilitating more visitors and of course deterring ‘anti-social’ and something about freeing up the lucky 700 trees that will be spared. Then-Lord Mayor Oisín Quinn told the Herald in 2013 that officials wanted to remove trees to protect older tree species. “And a sizeable number will be removed in order to revitalise it”. The foolish, busybody idea is to reinstate the park closer to the way it was originally intended, with views of the architecture beyond. No importance is afforded those of us who just want to get away from the city (and its Council) for a while. Merrion Square was laid out after 1762 and was largely complete by the beginning of the 19th century. The government of Éamon de Valera proposed plans to demolish the “un-natural” ie tree-filled Merrion Square. These plans were only prevented from going ahead by the Nazi invasion of Poland. Villager looks forward to a similar philosophy of weeding out excessive buildings on the square that surrounds the park. Inevitably a shop and “amphitheatre” are also on the way. Obedientia-civium-urbis-felicitas: Give it back to the Archbishopric.   Inishbuffoon More than €9m was spent in the five years up to 2009 constructing airstrips on Inishbofin that have never been used and are dilapidating. The entire annual budget for the islands for Department of Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht’s is now only €600,000. Éamon Ó Cuív was Minister for Community, Gaeltacht and the Islands from 2002-2010, so the usual rules did not apply.   DoEing very little Village has now asked the Department of the Environment Press Office twice in the last three months if there is any progress on the advice from the AG received in August 2014. Or on the independent report into the other six planning authorities that was expected in June 2014 to “be concluded soon”; or on the possible extension of the independent report into other counties, notably Wicklow. To no avail. The Department won’t reply to emails.   Villager gets good story “Exclusive: Irish VIP in Sex Tape Scandal. Naked hotel romp with escort”. So ran the cover of the Irish Sun in early January. But it wasn’t an exclusive, for Villager in his modest way had scooped the Sun in the last edition and even named Ben Dunne (“Zip it upstairs and down, Big Man”). Meanwhile the editor’s been assailed by emails from Dunne’s escort promising cash for “XXX videos, dates and room numbers”. He says the magazine can’t afford it. Other Celebrity Sex Stories to Villager c/o far corner, Village office, Ormond Quay. Exclusives only, please.   Silence from Law Library on defamation proceedings Meanwhile the proceedings drafted by Michael McDowell last year rest on the Village mantelpiece. They seek “damages, punitive damages, aggravated damages and an order prohibiting the further publication” of unspecified statements the subject of the proceedings. The proceedings relate, if it even matters, to evidence given in the High Court by Gerard Convie, who worked in Donegal County Council as a senior planner for nearly 24 years and has claimed, in an affidavit opened in court, and reported in Village, that during his tenure in the Council there was bullying and intimidation of planners who sought to make decisions based exclusively on the planning merits of particular applications and that planning irregularities were perpetrated by named officials at the highest level in the Council including former Manager McLoone, as well as named county councillors.The action has not proceeded to court.   Curry my yogurt can coca coalyer The Ceann Comhairle was beaten to the Village Idiot spot by Isis this February, so the editor gave him to Villager. Seán Barrett comes from the John O’Donoghue school of discreet speakery. He reminds Villager of urchins who, in the 1970s, used to stop him in the street and ask him if he was starting. To which there is no good answer. Talking to Miriam O’Callaghan about the Opposition, Barrett said they were “out to get him” but withdrew the comments in the Dáil. He said he made the comments in the heat of the moment. Speakers are only really supposed to have cool moments. Barrett has now told the Dáil the Committee on Procedure and Privileges will consider if the ambiguous standing order, under which he ruled out a debate on a motion setting up a commission of inquiry into alleged Garda malpractice in Cavan-Monaghan, is susceptible to another interpretation. In December Barrett accused Sinn Féin of using him as a “pawn to deflect attention” from their own political difficulties, such as the Maíria Cahill controversy. “If there is one thing I take grave exception to, (it is) accusing me in the wrong and . . . briefing people outside. Morally, it’s wrong”, he fulminated. Of course: but you’re the Speaker, man, you’re not allowed to whinge. You’re supposed to be the sort of guy who dreams in the third person, not someone who goes on the media making personal comments. In 2006 Barrett told the Mahon Tribunal he had been offered an £80,000 consultancy to lobby for a land swap involving the movement of either Killiney or Dún Laoghaire golf course to lands at Cherrywood near Loughlinstown in County Dublin. In 2000 Barrett, who stood strongly against the