I would love to be a fly on the wall in Fianna Fail or PD central this evening. Things haven’t gone exactly well on the PR front today.
Tricky issues in the High Court.
A 17 year old girl who is pregnant with a child who has been diagnosed with an ailment that means they will not survive outside the womb has had to go to the High Court to try and get the State Agency whose care she is in to let her make her own decisions about how to proceed with the pregnancy. Tricky legal and moral issues… very hard for a politician to give answers about their view on the situation without alienating either extreme in Irish political life.
Little spin to be spun on that one.
Prisoner phones prominent talk show using a mobile phone smuggled into their cell
Please note I’ve avoided using the phrase “cell-phone” (American readers will just need to put up with my quaint Oirish ways).
A prisoner banged up for armed robbery in one of Ireland’s main prisons managed to phone in to one of Irelands most popular afternoon radio shows today using a mobile phone that had been smuggled into his cell. The segment of the show in question featured Paul McWilliams, a well known criminal reporter. The lads in the cell knew his work well but apparently didn’t think too highly of it. (Of course, by criminal reporter I mean a reporter on criminal activities).
Apparently the Prisoner is not a number, he’s a human being.
The Minister for Justice is a bit peeved – apparently “somebody has to take accountability for all of this”.
Wrap the spin-doctor in copper wire and stick a magnet by his head…. we’re makin’ electricity now!
UPDATE: The Podcast for this liveline show is available HERE about 52 minutes in. Paul McWilliams reaction when he realises that the guy he is talking to is in a maximum security prison is priceless.
After years insisting there were no unfound significant archaelogical finds on the route of the M3 Motor way…
..and not 3 weeks after our Heritage body An Taisce was denied a Judicial review of aspects of the proposed motorway through one of the former seat of the High Kings of Ireland and (it gets better) only ONE DAY after the flashbulbs popped and soundbites bit at the turning of the first sod on the road by Martin Cullen TD, our Minister for Road Building Transport, an archaelogical site the size of THREE football fields is found. It could only be funnier if Cullen’s spadework had uncovered the danged thing on camera.
To cap it all off, Minister Cullen was quoted yesterday as saying that the project was not gamble. I wonder if this new and significant archaelogical find will strengthen or weaken An Taisce’s case in their upcoming Supreme Court challenge to the route of the Motorway?
Nurses Talks collapse (may be stuck on a trolley in a corridor for a while)
Our nurses are revolting. And they’ve been going on strike. Talks that have been kicked off to try and stop hospitals being shut during the election campaign have collapsed again. Unfortunately the hospitals have run out of beds so the talks have been left on a trolley in the hallway until they are feeling well enough to be sent either home or to a respite care home.
Things to do after the election – get sick.
Things to do before the election – not get sick.
Commuter heaven
Actually no. Can’t find a link to a source for this one, but it appears that due to roadworks in Co.Dublin a tailback occured this morning that stretched from a roundabout on the outskirts of Dublin city all the way back to Naas in Co. Kildare. That’s a fair stretch of road for a tailback.
This one could be hearsay, an urban myth. However just in case it isn’t it is lucky the election will be on a Thursday so commuters can’t vote (well not easily – polls are open to 10:30 it seems. As we only had 2 days notice, postal voting is a red herring for most of us).
An Finally… Bertie pays stamp duty (?) on a house he is renting but the money winds up with his then girlfriend who he wasn’t renting from
This just gets weirder and weirder. A large cash sum (£30k) is paid (in cash) to the girlfriend of the prime-minister. His explanation is that it is a “stamp duty matter” – but stamp duty isn’t payable to the renter of a property (how i wish it was) and related to ‘refurbishments’ to a house that was, at the time only 3 years old.
Brain hurting trying to figure it out… the bods over at irishelection.com seem to share my confusion.
So all in all a busy day for the outgoing Government’s spin teams.
Pingback: Tuppenceworth.ie blog » Events, dear boy, Events
Over on Tuppenceworth Simon has been giving his thoughts on yesterday’s news.
It is indeed curious and also very lucky (as in “do the euromillions mildred – I’ve got a good feeling” lucky) that the large national monument was only discovered after Martin Cullen waggled his shovel around for the cameras.
Perhaps he should abandon politics and team up with Tony Robinson on Channel 4’s Time Team? They’re always “not-quite-finding-the-big-thing-we-think-is-here” but Martin has a knack.
Then again, large, previously undiscovered, national heritage sites are always either hidden in plain view or turn up in the last place you look. Only last weekend I found an original gold bound manuscript of the Annals of the Four Masters stuck down between the cushions on the sofa along with a furry malteser, the remote for the DVD player and some loose change.
I was also glad to see that at the first whiff of a crisis brewing Dick “Zapp Brannigan” Roche leapt to the defence of our heritage. That man deserves a cape, boots and a theme song.
Because, as Simon says, it would be highly unlikely for this government to have kept the discovery of an impediment to the road building under wraps until after the scheduled photocall that was required to tap electoral headlines. That would be so very unlike this government.