Question: “Why is it that developers who are so keen to support a political party don’t leave money to them in their will?
Answer: “Because they want their rewards in this life, and not in the next one.”
That has to be the quote of the day from “It says in the Papers” on RTE. Afraid I don’t know which paper it was in…
What with the various tribunals, there were all sorts of ethics regulations brought in to limit the likelihood of money corrupting politics. Naturally they included a few flaws to ensure that they were entirely ineffective, such as;
1) On expenditure, the regulations don’t apply to money spent more than three weeks before the election
2) Dick Roche had the powers without consultation to raise the spending limit for a 3-seat constituency to €30,150, an increase of €4,750. That’s what you can spend in the last three weeks!
3) On income, while limiting the amount an individual or company could donate, the regs didn’t limit the amount each director of a company could make. Ten directors @ €2,500 plus another donation from the company, and you’re up to a very generous package - one that entitles you to access to the Minister should you have something on your mind.
So when farmers objected to efforts by local builders Murnane & O’Shea to run overhead powerlines through their land, the Minister for Agriculture made representations to the Council - not on behalf of the farmers of course, but on behalf of Murnane & O’Shea who were once listed in the top ten donors to Fianna Fail. (shame I can’t put a fada on the A in FAIL…).
Hi S.W. Greens,
April 15th, 2007, at 8:11 pm #Hope the campaigning is going full welt, I look on your progress from the distance of another Continent:Loveland, Colorado where i have moved to be with my girlfriend Claire, unfortuately the heart rules supreme even in election season!I have got reports from my Dad in Dunmanway that the fianna Fail literature is almost 100% recycled green policy, so after 25 years they have are rapidly stealing Trevors clothes.Im now living at the foothills of the Majestic Rockies which is quickly becoming the second home to Hoards of Texans,East Coasters,Califorians and er..Irishmen!That John Denver has a lot to answer for.
I must tell U about some journalism that has piqued me!
That great bastion of impartial agricultural reportage(The Irish Farmers Journal) has in its latest issue been so kind to insert an opinion piece on behalf of one Dr. Con O’Rourke; Scientist who proceeds to extoil the limitless applications of genetically engineered food production in Ireland while informing the readership that organic production is a shortsighted costly fad.I wonder what the odds are of the editor of the journal giving a pro-organic scientist an open column to rebuke the aformentioned Bias?I’ll take bets at 1000/01.
Well its good to exercise my displeasure with people who care about such matters and in the writing “A trouble shared is a trouble halved”
Mise le meas
Fintan D.
P.S. drive on now lads for the next few weeks, im with yee in spirit!