tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40180351011942731892012-01-28T12:09:55.395ZThe blog of an Irish journalistMark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.comBlogger481100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-76086586942188772312011-11-02T11:17:00.032Z2011-11-02T15:25:11.323Z

In the last month the Fine Gael/Labour government has appointed its first five judges; two to the High Court, three to the District Court.All five had strong links with either Fine Gael or Labour.Despite Alan Shatter, the Minister for Justice, previously attacking Fianna Fail for appointing its supporters to the bench the government seems happy to carry on in similar fashion. (See this Dail

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-60514765154478616732010-09-20T01:16:00.006+01:002010-09-20T13:21:35.741+01:00

Ivor Callely, the Senator who was recently thrown out of Fianna Fail, has refunded more money back to the state. The latest refund of €737.60 came after Callely reviewed his Oireachtas expense files last month.Callely has already refunded €2,879 in mobile phone expenses after he admitted that invoices he submitted were fake. The invoices he submitted from Business Communications in Fairview from

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-88571147070677508702010-09-19T21:58:00.009+01:002010-09-21T16:11:02.037+01:00

We published a story in The Sunday Times today about how Dick Roche, the Minister for Europe, had tried to get the board of the HSE to hold off from awarding tenders for taxi services after a Wicklow firm failed to secure a contract earlier this year.The Wicklow firm that Roche lobbied for is run by Pat and Irene Sweeney in Arklow. Pat Sweeney has been a town councillor in Arklow for Fianna Fail

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-29963302370652085672010-08-19T19:57:00.007+01:002010-08-19T22:18:58.546+01:00

Despite the recent floods in Pakistan the Irish Red Cross (IRC) has been relatively quiet in comparison to other Irish charities who have made numerous public appeals for donations.I only heard an IRC radio ad for its Pakistan appeal for the first time yesterday.One reason behind the IRC's quietness is its suspension of Noel Wardick, head of its International Department, who is now the subject of

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-52002967624268223762010-05-24T13:27:00.008+01:002010-05-24T14:08:34.819+01:00

Two weeks ago we published details of a secret €600,000 settlement the HSE agreed with Lifeline Ambulance in 2008.The settlement figure was released 14 months after a Freedom of Information request was made and required an order by Emily O'Reilly to the HSE to release the information. O'Reilly said she encountered "misleading and incomplete" responses from the HSE in her investigation. And that

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-46965715367036762162010-04-26T21:58:00.005+01:002010-04-27T19:53:07.462+01:00

Earlier this year we reported on the average €18,000 a month the National Consumer Agency is spending on PR with Q4 PR.There are NCA staff who are unhappy the agency is spending so much on PR especially at a time when it has low staff numbers and those staff are no longer encouraged to do field inspections. Instead of carrying out inspections the NCA sends retailers and others letters warning

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-84532975094636341852010-04-26T21:47:00.003+01:002010-04-26T21:57:09.348+01:00

The public won't be getting to hear most of the detail of the fall-out from last year's complaints about MCD concerts because MCD have settled a High Court action taken against it by Sophie Ridley, its event controller.Judge Mary Laffoy agreed to strike out the case on consent of both parties on Monday two weeks ago.I've been able to gather some details of what was at issue here and reported this

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-77676622257755732052010-03-31T18:42:00.012+01:002010-04-03T21:04:45.246+01:00

It was revealed that Frank McClintock, the head of the national ambulance service, resigned over expenses irregularities last week. The Health Service Executive forwarded its file on the irregularities to gardai to investigate further. There is still a good deal to emerge on this and I won't be closing my file on it yet.We did our first story about Mr McClintock last January after hearing

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-62847658411261349922010-03-31T17:57:00.009+01:002010-03-31T18:28:37.917+01:00

Just an update to let you know that The Sunday Times will not be appealing the OIC decision to refuse access to the two memos made of the September 2008 meetings between state officials and bankers hours before the government decided to guarantee all bank deposits.Thanks for the half-dozen offers of €50 each to support the case by-the way. But no newspaper wants to be in the High Court with all

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-10646662641657374522010-01-25T23:36:00.008Z2010-01-26T02:54:58.610Z

Last week we got the news that Emily O'Reilly, the Information Commissioner, had decided to rule against The Sunday Times on an important Freedom of Information request. A copy of the decision should be up on the Office of the Information Commissioner's (OIC) website soon but here is the copy I was sent.We were seeking the release of two documents which detailed what was said at the meetings of

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-19650262444711192592010-01-12T19:49:00.010Z2010-01-13T00:40:01.880Z

Almost every baby born in Ireland has a blood sample taken soon after birth which is then screened for five genetic diseases. Basically the only babies not to have the "heel-prick test" taken by a health worker would be those whose parents are ideologically opposed to "invasive procedures".A parent's right to withhold their baby from the heel-prick-test was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2001 but

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-54055577397466165082009-12-22T17:24:00.011Z2010-02-03T17:29:43.737Z

The level of public oversight on the Irish state's phone tapping and other intercept activities is a joke.Tapping the wrong phone happens more often then you'd like to think if Britain is anything to go by. There were 50 errors there in 2008 among the .5m intercepts recorded in the report (see pg 11) of the UK's Interception of Communications Commissioner. That's up from 24 mistakes detected in

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-26140602155348780432009-12-21T01:19:00.008Z2009-12-21T03:21:44.381Z

As well as getting a Freedom of Information request back last week about the judges, (more about that later) Revenue also responded to a request I made for information about what corporate hospitality its senior staff had accepted over the last year.I wasn't quite sure what we'd find or if there would be a story in it. But what we got back was fascinating.Full story here.It turns out that several

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-18781462114077295512009-12-10T23:49:00.006Z2009-12-17T19:59:00.188Z

I've previously posted here about Declan Maher, AIB's branch manager in Clifden, who also ran a side-business in developing land in Florida.Maher's side-job is small potatoes compared to John Hughes and Tommy Hopkins. We published a piece about their development interests a few weeks ago. It will be interesting to see if the regulator takes any action over this.It seems bizarre that two bank

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-53320697669450201732009-10-28T15:31:00.010Z2009-10-29T01:16:44.039Z

Earlier this year the Irish embassy in London decided to invest €26,000 in a people carrier to cut down on limo-hire costs. The man most affected by this is Terry Gallagher whose company, Cartel Direct, earned €580,000 from the embassy since 2003. We ran a story on this a couple of weeks ago. From the FOI we received and the PQ put in by Leo Varadkar we can see that of the €127,663 spent on

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-43613336875661726582009-10-21T20:28:00.004+01:002009-10-21T20:55:31.124+01:00

Last month Barry Andrews, the Minister for Children, announced that a decision on whether to continue negotiations with Vietnam over a new bi-lateral agreement on intercountry adoption would have to wait until the Irish government considered a new Unicef report.This report was carried out by the International Social Service (ISS) on behalf of the UN body and a draft report was circulated to

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-64347079639898811972009-09-07T11:15:00.006+01:002009-09-07T20:39:43.680+01:00

The two senior lawyers in the Moriarty Tribunal earned €2,500 per day up to March 2009 when they were affected by the government's decision to reduce the fees of all professionals contracted to the state by 8%.We've previously covered how the lawyers were paid this rate, which is more than is paid to lawyers in the Mahon Tribunal, by benefiting from a typo made in the Taoiseach's office.Freedom

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-11001958941338686372009-09-07T11:01:00.003+01:002009-09-07T11:15:11.115+01:00

As we published yesterday in The Sunday Times AIB was unable to answer any questions about the circumstances of the $60m loan guarantee letter. Instead the bank announced that since we published our first story on BMB and this letter the bank had begun its own investigation in to the matter. This story came about after we received a letter to The Sunday Times asking us to investigate alleged "

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-75664858334240907832009-09-03T21:30:00.010+01:002009-09-04T17:19:10.255+01:00

Irish banks have been criticised for being too close to some developers and property investors. I don't know if any banker was as intimately involved with a project as a certain Declan Maher, the manager of AIB's Clifden branch in Co Galway. We covered this story last week.In 2005 Maher and Kevin Barry, an accountant, were busy looking for investors for a land deal in which the BMB Partnership

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-57887576750409336722009-07-30T01:10:00.005+01:002009-08-18T23:26:40.923+01:00

This post has been in draft form for some time but only getting round to posting it now.Four weeks ago Denis O'Brien, the media and mobile phone tycoon, held a series of interviews with Sunday newspapers. It was a weird situation knowing this fella was talking to three other papers all coming out on same day. My brief was to make sure I got the best line (news angle) from him. "Don't get scooped,

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-89449159181990931842009-07-20T13:48:00.012+01:002009-07-20T20:32:16.735+01:00

Recently Jim Farrell, head of IRMS security, gave me a brief interview in Glengad, Co Mayo, where I got a chance to ask him what he knew about so many IRMS staff getting involved in the alleged Evo Morales assassination plot in Bolivia.Unfortunately he didn't shine too much light on this topic.Farrell told me that for command and control reasons his staff operated in groups of six. These teams

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-81918214113740307602009-07-16T17:18:00.009+01:002009-07-20T13:40:23.815+01:00

It's not quite a duck island but a lawyer working at the Moriarty Tribunal has claimed for a couple of Belgian Chocolates on her state expense account.Most of the tribunal's expense claims, released through Freedom of Information, were fairly run of the mill but there was another lawyer who claimed for a Toblerone bar. Strangely the Belgian Chocolates were approved but the Toblerone wasn't. A bit

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-25429907808522790072009-07-12T01:31:00.005+01:002009-07-12T01:43:05.365+01:00

I was down in Mayo last week for a focus piece. I got to give the much reviled pipeline a kick on Glengad beach. It's hard to imagine that the fairly thin metal tube coming up that beach is the focus of so much controversy.I also did an interview with Jim Farrell from IRMS security. Farrell spoke to me about Tibor Revesz, an interesting charachter who is linked with Michael Dwyer, the Tipperary

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-11550656099597954622009-07-01T23:51:00.007+01:002009-07-02T01:00:12.614+01:00

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests require journalists to be very careful with the question they ask if they want to get something useful back. If there is a hint of ambiguity in the request you'll get a load of bland policy documents and emails back but definitely not what you were looking for. FOIs are a useful tool for journalists but sometimes even asking the right question isn't enough.

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-24909283653784250102009-06-17T12:30:00.004+01:002009-06-17T13:13:08.523+01:00

The Moriarty Tribunal is investigating whether Michael Lowry, the then communications minister, interfered with the process to award Denis O'Brien's Esat consortium a mobile phone license in 1995/96. A negative finding against the state, Lowry and O'Brien means the state could be liable to pay out huge damages to the Persona consortium which lost out to Esat. It would also be a huge dent in the

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-40601100771548310282009-06-16T23:37:00.007+01:002009-06-17T12:30:33.934+01:00

From an FOI document we discovered that Mary Coughlan's Enterprise, Trade and Employment department has ordered a crack-down on Bulgarian and Romanian workers in Ireland who don't have work permits.Ger Deering, from the National Employment Rights Authority (Nera), told me there may be in excess of 5,000 workers from these two countries who don't have the right to work in Ireland.The maximum

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-21261224130238596482009-06-16T23:17:00.004+01:002009-06-16T23:37:41.340+01:00

Last year 22 children who arrived at Irish ports or airports unaccompanied by adults were taken in to care by the HSE but later vanished. This was the lowest number to go missing in 10 years. We've just passed the half way point of 2009 and already 23 foreign children are missing from HSE accommodation.All of those missing this year are Chinese according to the HSE. You can see some of them on

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-13329138140379067422009-06-08T12:39:00.005+01:002009-06-08T13:14:10.493+01:00

As the Bolivian police continue their investigation in to the group that are accused of planning to assassinate President Evo Morales we are learning of more Irish connections than just Tipperary man Michael Dwyer.There are two strands to the Bolivian investigation. One is looking at what happened in the Police raid when Dwyer, Eduardo Rosza Flores and Árpád Magyarosi were shot dead in their

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-58589288317096593552009-06-01T01:13:00.005+01:002009-06-01T13:43:54.673+01:00

A nurse I know was telling me she'd seen many a family squabbling at the bedside of an elderly family member over what they would be left in the old person's will. It's obviously a sensitive and potentially messy subject.Last week we discovered Reverend Kevin Dalton, a church of Ireland rector, got caught up in a dispute over the will of an elderly patient in Leopardstown Park Hospital. Dalton's

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-35337474755139314512009-05-31T23:45:00.011+01:002009-06-01T13:39:09.705+01:00

An update on one of my first posts here.Four months since we started asking questions about procurement procedures in the HSE's national ambulance service senior HSE managers have ordered an audit of all procurement made by the office over the last few years.That first story on this topic was followed up earlier this month after papers released through Freedom of Information (I love it when the

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-50249915766497718762009-05-26T21:05:00.006+01:002009-06-01T01:12:32.223+01:00

Last week Judge Sean Ryan released a report on child abuse in Irish industrial schools and other institutes that was 10 years in the making. Former industrial school children were at the launch in the Conrad hotel near St Stephen's Green but were barred from hearing the judge read a short statement. Considering the judge and the rest of the commission wouldn't answer questions it was a strange

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-30221199469138781472009-05-13T15:32:00.004+01:002009-05-13T21:43:03.321+01:00

There is huge outcry in the UK at the moment over the Telegraph's expose of what MPs have been using their expenses to pay for. My favourite one so far is the £2,000 claim for clearing a moat.Irish TDs are better paid than their British counterparts and don't have the same entitlement to claim for second-home expenses. TDs still run up huge expense bills though and some claim over €90,000 a year.

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-1735913323976518682009-04-24T20:37:00.005+01:002009-04-24T23:48:06.369+01:00

Last week Michael Dwyer, a 24 year Irish man from Tipperary, was killed by Bolivian special forces police in Santa Cruz. We covered the story on Sunday. As in so many cases now where people suddenly find themselves under attention a lot of the information about Dwyer (and photos) was instantly gleaned from his Bebo and Facebook pages.A week on from the shooting and Michael Dwyer's body has

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-35388194760821624222009-04-15T23:28:00.014+01:002009-04-20T18:43:03.274+01:00

Last week we published details of how Dermot McCarthy, the state's most senior civil servant, signed off on a daily €250 overpayment to two Moriarty tribunal lawyers which has cost the state over €1m in last seven years.This story was following up one we did back in February after a report from the Comptroller & Auditor General.The strangest thing that emerged from the Freedom of Information

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-54682823150171331032009-04-15T23:08:00.003+01:002009-04-15T23:28:49.903+01:00

From Brian Cowen's visit to America from St Patrick's day last month we got the announcement that Ireland would take a few Guantanamo prisoners for resettlement. Amnesty say the detainees who would come to Ireland aren't the hardened Al Qaeda types but guys that have been imprisoned because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and have suffered seven years of jail and interrogation as a

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-42390949429600905812009-03-25T20:13:00.011Z2009-03-26T17:58:12.574Z

The recession has left a lot of buyers who bought their homes off-plan at the height of the market in big financial trouble.Last year I did a story (t'isn't online) about how a raft of suppliers were suing the Hanly Group for unpaid debts. One of Hanly's building companies, Laragan Developments, have in turn tried to sue a lot of house buyers through the High Court. The builders were trying to

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-14773911293000345502009-03-14T01:52:00.010Z2009-03-23T03:58:37.841Z

The international adoption system in Ireland is going to be radically changed later this year when we pass a new adoption bill. This will finally ratify the Hague Convention on international adoptions which Ireland signed in 1993. (This convention is not to be confused, as I did, with an earlier Hague convention on child abduction as a reader and blogger pointed out). The Hague Convention

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-30430303658764550082009-03-04T21:00:00.009Z2009-03-05T00:50:40.621Z

John Rogers, the former attorney general, was back in the news last week. On the front page of the Irish Times he was quoted as having given a legal opinion that said part of the new Charties Bill may be unconstitutional.The story caught my eye as I've been trying to get in contact with Rogers for about a month now without success. I was hoping to chat with the barrister about a story we'd

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-55489998002568163702009-03-02T22:48:00.006Z2009-03-02T23:39:22.347Z

On March 1st Mary Harney brought whistleblower laws in to effect for health workers. This is obviously a good thing. The problem I hear from some health workers is that they are raising fears about patient safety with superiors but because of tight budgets nothing is done.I wrote about a case last weekend where health workers in Dun Laoghaire were concerned that the eyesight of young 100 school

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-70005347222804826872009-03-01T18:13:00.005Z2009-03-09T19:27:47.797Z

Ireland has 13 MEPs. With the European elections coming up this summer and recent public outcry over the Galvin report on abuses of MEPs' secretarial allowances we decided to see how many of the Irish MEPs employ family members. Out of the ten MEPs I contacted six said they employed family members. The next five year term of the parliament will be the last in which MEPs will be allowed to employ

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-66466968344949428682009-02-26T20:59:00.002Z2009-02-26T21:33:44.115Z

The Supreme Court sat last week to hear a case in Irish. While the state has battled for the Irish language in Europe it's not as keen to give it equality when it comes to the hundreds of statutory instruments that are published each year in English only.Article eight of the constitution clearly says that Irish is the first language of the state. The government doesn't believe this means the

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-49212324972391938402009-02-16T23:29:00.014Z2009-02-18T17:48:45.405Z

A lot of papers use "EXCLUSIVE" tags on stories to highlight a yarn they believe no one else has. My paper doesn't. I think most broadsheets in Ireland don't. I think the reasoning against using the tag is that every story, in theory, should be somewhat exclusive and there should be no need to shout about it.It can also look daft putting an exclusive tag on a story if five other papers published

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-55782200514287298422009-02-14T01:08:00.014Z2009-02-17T21:32:57.970Z

There is no doubt that finding the Irish edition of the Sunday Times online is a bit of a struggle. It's http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/ by the way. It doesn't really roll off the tongue. We are looking to get a simple timesonline.ie address but I don't know if that will happen any time soon.One yarn from last week that didn't go up on the site was about Gama. Remember them?

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-4997368379212222002009-02-02T22:47:00.007Z2009-02-07T02:51:40.887Z

Things are getting very interesting with the Moriarty Tribunal which has spent over a decade investigating the award of the state's second mobile phone license to Denis O'Brien's Esat consortium. It's difficult to get people interested in this but it is going to be a huge story later this year. We've already reported that the provisional findings are critical of the civil servants involved in the

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-32085878438671880012009-01-27T19:54:00.008Z2009-01-27T23:13:15.112Z

One other yarn I had last week was about the residents of Creighton Street in Dublin agreeing to withdraw a planning objection for the tidy sum of 1.6m euro.Understandably a lot of people don't like reporters calling them up. In this case one resident who I asked about the deal to withdraw the appeal from An Bord Pleanala was particularly belligerent on the phone. "I'm not talking to a person who

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-19382146019256708972009-01-26T10:48:00.011Z2009-01-27T19:53:53.977Z

Last week's incest and neglect case in Roscommon is the most disturbing case I've covered. Barry Andrews, minister for children, was quick to react and by Saturday the HSE announced it was to hold an "independent" inquiry with a report due in six months. How the HSE allowed the six children to remain in that house when social workers were visiting them regularly is difficult to believe and a full

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-35963083405721707292009-01-21T22:30:00.001Z2009-05-31T23:59:36.738+01:00

Last week I spent most of my time looking in to the HSE's purchase of stretchers valued at ¤850,000 which turned out to be unsuitable and had to be replaced or modified almost straight away. The company which makes the stretchers are a company called Ferno.The stretchers were part of a deal that the HSE made with WAS, a German company, who have supplied the HSE's new ambulances - three of which

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4018035101194273189.post-63677029957952751252009-01-13T23:21:00.000Z2009-01-21T23:37:06.739Z

Hi.I've been meaning to start a proper blog for some time now.My first attempt, robohack.journals.ie, is lying in a state of disrepair and neglect and I can't figure out how to pull the damn thing down. I began that blog in 2006 after John Breslin, boards.ie founder and lecturer, gave a talk to my postgraduate journalism course in NUI Galway on the merits of blogging.Enthused by John's passion

Mark Tighehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882501577346617270noreply@blogger.com0