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Derek Mooney is a public affairs and communications adviser as well as a former adviser to the Irish government. He’s a columnist on Broadsheet.ie and Slugger O’Toole. 
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In the last podcast, I was talking to Tom Geraghty of the PSEU, that’s the union that represents higher level public sector workers. The interview was in the aftermath of the PSEU annual conference, where Tom was demanding a ~ read more ~
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Tom Geraghty is the General Secretary of the Public Service Executive Union. 
Tom disputed a couple of the references that I made during the interview. The report of MABS staff dealing with an average of two new cases per week here. The minister for justice has confirmed that there are gardaí suspended on pay for up to seven years. ~ read more ~
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Opposition parties have called for the Disclosures Tribunal to be expanded. The MacLochlainn Tribunal does exist, but the Boyle Tribunal does not. Yet. Honest.
Village magazine summarised the Morris Tribunal report in 2005 saying “the gardaí are in a state of disarray, with low morale, poor discipline, lack of oversight, and a culture of silence…”
The Moriarty Tribunal found as fact in 2011 that Michael Lowry had an “insidious and pervasive” influence over the awarding the 086 licence to Denis O’Brien’s company Digifone. Since then, on at least five separate occasions justice ministers have given the exact same answer – word for word – as an excuse for why no criminal investigations have begun yet, here, here, here, here and here. ~ read more ~
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Tony Groves writes the blog Trickstersworld, and we discussed this article which he wrote for Broadsheet.ie.
Tony Groves
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Lughan Deane is the Communications Executive for the IMPACT trade union, who are currently running the #ClockedOut campaign.
Lughan Deane
In the discussion I slightly overstated the dominance of women in Iran’s technical and engineering facilities, but the point stands. By contrast, women in Norway are remarkably reluctant to enter many male professions.
In Ireland it is illegal to pay someone less based on their gender. TheJournal.ie have prepared an excellent analysis of the raw Eurostat figures.
Eurostat also report that males suffer almost 80 per cent of workplace injuries and 95 per cent of workplace deaths.
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Bill Donoghue is the President and CEO of the Catholic League. The article that he wrote claiming that the Tuam babies story is a hoax is here. The report by the Mother And Baby Homes Commission Of Investigation which detailed the forensic findings is here.
Bill Donohue
The text of the letter by Terry Prone, pouring scorn on Catherine Corless’s work and denying the existence of a grave related to the home is here. A letter a year earlier from Prone’s client, Sr Marie Ryan country leader of the Bon Secours nuns confirms that, in fact, she was well aware that children from the homes were buried on the grounds of the home.
Part of Mary Merrit’s story detailing life in one of the homes is here. In response to the findings, the bishop of Limerick, Brendan Leahy said in reaction to the findings “we hang our heads in shame”.
The Bon Secours nuns own the profitable Bon Secours healthcare group, and finance minister Michael Noonan opened their new €21m hospital in Limerick last week.
The annual birth rate in Ireland is here, and information about the effects of malnutrition were found by the Laffoy Commission.
Wages in Ireland in the 1940s (see table 9) were typically between £2 and £4 per week; in the 1920s, wages for agricultural workers were less than 15s (£0.75) per week. In 1928 the Connaught Tribune reported that local politicians thought that the payment to the Tuam home of 10s (£0.50) per week was excessive. It is clear that the Bon Secours nuns had a far more generous budget to feed and clothe the children than many families, before taking into account the profits from their businesses that used the slave labour of their mothers, or the profits of selling adoptive babies to American couples.
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Brendan O’Neill is the editor of Spiked Online. His 2014 article that we discussed is here, and the interim report of the Mother And Baby Homes Commission Of Investigations is here.
The second part of my coverage of this topic will be published next week.
Brendan O Neill
The global infant mortality statistics that I mentioned are here, and the historical Irish data is here. ~ read more ~
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This is the link to Episode 41 where I originally interviewed RTÉ’s news planner, Donal Byrne, and this is the original of the set-up interview with Paul Reynolds where he gave what he said were details of the contents of the O’Higgins report, which was published two days later.
Paul Reynolds of RTÉ
That report, and the possibility that it was made in collusion with the embattled Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan, has since become one of the terms of reference (item g) of the Commission of Investigation announced by An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, into the affair.
Reynolds’ report was the unspoken target of another report by Philip Boucher Hayes the next day, which rebutted many of his claims. A transcript of Boucher Hayes’ report is here, but the audio of it seems to have been removed from the RTÉ website. Edit: the audio of this report now seems to have been restored by RTÉ.
Ruth Coustick-Deal
Ruth Coustick-Deal of Open Media was talking to me about EU proposals for a ‘Link Tax‘ which would require websites to pay for links with snippets to news articles, and require websites to filter posted content to suit rights-holders.
John McGuinness is 61 years of age. He was first elected to the Dáil 20 years ago. He’s been a minister for state and chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). He’s a strong media performer and he’s no fool.
John McGuinness TD
He was summonsed to a meeting by the now-disgraced then-garda commissioner Martin Callinan in the car park of Bewley’s Hotel in Dublin. The meeting took place in January 2014 and lasted about half an hour. It happened just before McGuinness was due to chair the PAC’s hearing of garda whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe’s evidence. ~ read more ~
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Peter Lilley is the Conservative party MP for Hitchin and Harpenden, and the former Secretary of State for Social Security, and the former President of the Board of Trade.
Peter Lilley MP
I mentioned George Eustace’s speech at the Farmers Club, where he talked about restoring powers over farming to Westminster, not to the Northern Ireland, Scottish and Welsh devolved governments.
EU rules don’t allow individual countries to enter into trade deals with countries outside the EU. Tweets sent by David Davis MP seem to indicate that he didn’t understand this. Peter Lilley, in the interview, disputed this interpretation of the tweets. You can read them for yourself and decide: ~ read more ~
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Happy New Year, and a short message from the podcast host.
Happy 2017
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Fiona O’Leary is the mother of five children, two of whom are on the autistic spectrum. She was a witness in the prosecution that led to the conviction of Patrick Merlehan for selling unlicensed and dangerous medicines.
Fiona O’Leary
Riko Muranaka is a Japanese journalist and medical doctor. She is a specialist in infectious diseases. Her work has appeared in many publications including the Wall Street Journal.
Dr Riko Muranaka
This is RTÉ’s Prime Time programme on REGRET, and the Irish Times’ report on the likely effects of the vaccine scare.
This is the form on the HPRA website where anyone can report an adverse reaction for any drug of vaccine. This is the claim on Regret’s GoFundMe page that their group represents 200 girls who are on 24-hour suicide watch.
There are examples here, here and here of abusive comments on social media against Fiona O’Leary in the names of Regret activists. I have contacted the people identified as having written the comments to ask if they were indeed the authors; they have not responded.
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Smári McCarthy is a programmer, a writer and one of the founders of the Pirate Party of Iceland. This interview was recorded shortly before his recent election to the Icelandic parliament.
Smári McCarthy
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This is the document that I was pointed to while searching for the source for Anna Cannon’s claim that one in 30 or one in 40 people are struck with an autoimmune disease after receiving the Gardasil vaccine. In fact, what the table on page 8 shows is that 2.3 per cent (one in 43) develop illnesses on a list which is potentially indicative of a systemic autoimmune disorder. This doesn’t mean that they have a systemic autoimmune disorder; that is one of the potential explanations.
It is also evident that, whatever their illness, it is not caused by Gardasil, because the incidence is identical in the groups that did and did not get Gardasil.
Arbaeen Procession poster
Waqar Haider is a spokesman for the Hussaini Islamic Trust UK, a Shi’ite organisation that organises the annual Arbaeen UK procession, marking dates in the Islamic calendar. The event is used to express disapproval of terrorism in the name of Islam.
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These are R.E.G.R.E.T.‘s website, Facebook page (Update: the page’s content seems now to be hidden) and Twitter. This is the US Food & Drug Administration page that gives Gardasil information, which references 772 serious adverse events following administration of Gardasil, out of 23,000,000 doses administered. There is no requirement for proof that the adverse event be connected to Gardasil to be included.
Anna Cannon
Dr Brenda Corcoran, MB, MPH, FFPHMI, holds a diploma in leadership and quality in healthcare, and is a consultant in public health medicine responsible for the coordination of all national immunisation programmes. She is a member of the National Immunisation Advisory Committee. ~ read more ~
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Niamh Uí Bhriain is a founder of the Life Institute, and previously of Youth Defence. We discussed the Roe v Wade decision of the US Supreme Court and the McGee v Attorney General decision of the Irish Supreme Court, and how they led to the Pro-Life Amendment Campaign and ultimately the Eighth Amendment of the Irish Constitution.
Niamh Uí Bhriain
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Francis Duffy is a Green Party Councillor on South Dublin County Council. We talked about his proposal to ban election posters and replace them with hoardings at council-sponsored sites.
Francis Duffy
The use of election posters is already highly regulated in Ireland, with the dates and locations of posters set in law; posters can be up for about a month before the election and must be removed within seven days of polling; they can’t obstruct road signs or cause other hazards; they must identify the person responsible for them, who can be fined €150 per poster for infringements.
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AJ Noonan is the chairman of the Small Firms Association.
AJ Noonan
The SFA’s pre-budget submission is here. AJ queried my assertion that building land around Dublin was concentrated in a small number of hands. Business & Finance magazine reported in 2000 that the bulk of the development land in Dublin was owned by just eight speculators – Gerry Gannon, Michael Cotter, Mickey Whelan, Tom and Mick Bailey, Joe O’Reilly and Brian Wallace, David Daly, Joe Moran and Liam Carroll.
I also mentioned that Ireland is the only exception to the Europe-wide trend that land prices broadly match population density. This graph shows the pattern clearly. Apart from Sweden and Finland which have huge unpopulated Arctic regions, Ireland has the lowest population density in the EU 15.
European Land Prices
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Mick Fealty is the founding editor of Slugger O’Toole, Northern Ireland’s foremost political blog.
Mick Fealty
Voting for the Blog Awards Ireland will open soon, and I will add a link as soon as it does. Here’s How has been longlisted in two categories, Best Innovation Blog and, strangely, Best Vlog.
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James Behan is a PhD candidate at Trinity College Dublin, and a spokesperson for Men’s Voices Ireland. He is also a staff writer for Trinity’s University Times.
James Behan
In our discussion, James referred to a study by Dr Roisin O’Shea which indicates a poor quality of decision-making in custody cases in Irish Circuit Courts.
James has written for the University Times about men suffering from domestic violence (be it from male or female partners) and the lack of services for them. ~ read more ~
