During the economic crisis we were led by a barrister and solicitor. With the two Brians now gone, that’s a problem the new government has fixed, right?
Not quite. Michael Noonan and Brendan Howlin, the joint ministers for finance, are both teachers. So are Enda Kenny and Jimmy Deenihan, and Phil Hogan has a Higher Diploma. That makes five teachers in the new cabinet. Had the taoiseach wanted to put qualified people in finance, they were available. Richard Bruton is a research economist, and Joan Burton is an accountant.
There is a dearth of private sector experience, though. We have two union officials (Eamon Gilmore and Pat Rabbitte), two doctors (Leo Varadkar and James Reilly), a social worker (Frances Fitzgerald) and a full-time public representative (Simon Coveney has been a TD since he was 26). Ruairi Quinn, an architect, worked in the public sector. Two lawyers per cabinet seems to be the quota now (Alan Shatter and Willie Penrose). There’s no shortage of the old school tie either: five ministers went to fee-paying schools.
HSE caught out once more as its own lawyer sues
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The poor old Health Service Executive — nothing ever goes right for it. Now a man it hired as an adviser in its new legal services department . . . is suing it.
Donall King, a solicitor who was paid €1.2m for work at the planning tribunal in Dublin Castle, was employed last year by the HSE as a commercial and corporate legal specialist. King was one of four lawyers recruited by the HSE’s new Office of Legal Services through an open competition. As far as it was concerned, King’s first 12 months of employment were a probationary period. An HSE source tells us management decided not to offer him full-time employment once his probationary period ended.
King has filed for a High Court injunction against the HSE, and is being represented by William Fry. King, a member of the Law Society’s 2010 committee for in-house and public sector solicitors. He has not returned calls. The HSE said it did not comment on any individual employee’s status.
Not that the property seller is desperate . . .
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In a depressed property market, sellers are searching for every little difference. On the DoneDeal website, for example, they are offering a house four miles from Limerick that was built in 1850 and “in need of renovation”. So far, so unpromising, you might think. But “there are a number of local myths associated with this property, such as Biddy Early, and a supposed Marian apparition”, according to the blurb. Now you’re talking. “A local man said he saw an apparition in one of the [adjoining] fields, and Eamon de Valera passed through it during the civil war.” Sold!
Just for a change, A Man Whose Name Does Not Suit His Job. The state’s standards watchdog is investigating a Fine Gael councillor from Donegal who claimed full expenses for attending two conferences, one in Killarney and one 100km away in Clonakilty, which were held on the same weekend. And the name of the fleet-footed politician who mastered this feat? Terence Slowey.
Galway giants hit a high five in the newly elected Dail
Galway walked tall in the Dail last week, with four of their six deputies being over six feet tall, the Connacht Tribune boasts. The more “vertically challenged outgoing deputies” — Frank Fahey, Padraic McCormack and Michael D Higgins have been replaced by Derek Nolan, Seán Kyne (both 6ft 3in) and six-foot Brian Walsh. In Galway East, Colm Keaveney is 6ft 2in, and newbie Paul Connaughton Jnr is 6ft 4in. Sadly the diminutive Ciarán Cannon exposes as a tall story the notion that Galway is reaching for the political heights.
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Which of you naughty people was winding up the property editor of The Irish Times last week? The newspaper has a weekly question and answer section, and among the latest queries was: “As aliens having a holiday home in Ireland, are we liable for non-principal private residence levy?” Good news: they are. We do hope the forthcoming census form can be tweaked so we get an exact figure on the number of Martians in our midst.
The ghastly business of hauling the “relics” of dead people around Ireland continues. More than 1,000 people turned up in Co Donegal last weekend to be “blessed” by a lock of Mother Teresa’s hair. Many brought religious objects with them to touch the relic, supposedly rendering these objects “third-class relics”. Anyway, the priest who organised the visit says he witnessed a miracle, so who are we to sneer? Fr Eamonn McLaughlin told DonegalDaily.com that he saw a family who had not spoken for more than 20 years patch up their differences during the mass for Mother Teresa. “That in my book is a miracle in itself,” he said.
The relic remains on show at St Bridget’s church in Lettermacaward. Tell you what: we’ll send Linda Martin and Twink there. If they kiss and make up, it really is a miracle.
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Grass Roots
A bronze statue of the goddess Danú has been stolen from the entrance to Rathmore village, the latest in a series of metal thefts in Kerry. It is believed the life-sized €30,000 sculpture may have been stolen to melt down and sell. Danú is the ancient Celtic goddess of fertility and prosperity. “It is an awful reflection of our society,” said Diarmuid McCarthy, the chairman of Rathmore Community Council. “It’s the copper they wanted and the speculation is it has been melted down by now.”
— Kerry’s Eye
Toons Bridge in the Lee Valley is set to become Ireland’s Little Italy, with plans to produce mozzarella cheese from buffalo milk well under way. Toby Simmons, a food distributor, and his neighbour Johnny Lynch, a farmer, have invested in a herd of 47 water buffalo. They are wonderfully placid creatures and have proved much easier to care for than their bovine cousins, the Friesian dairy cow.
The buffalo — no relation to their wild American cousins — eat 10-20% less but give 2,000 to 2,500 litres of milk in comparison to 6,000 from a dairy cow. They are thriving in Toons Bridge, putting on 60kg-80kg a year.
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— The Corkman
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