2016 Drought plan would have ‘used drought situation’ to promote metering

Irish Water’s National Draught Plan from 2016 recommended focusing communications on ‘using drought situations’ to promote controversial policies like water metering, while no mention of climate change awareness was made.

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Politicians and their staff seek support for dealing with abuse from the public

First sitting Day of the 32nd Dail in Leinster House. Pic Maxwell’s

Increased pay to attract “high calibre” TDs and Senators, a room to gather and have “space”, and a confidential support service for politicians suffering abuse from the public are just some of the suggestions made in a survey of senior politicians in Leinster House.

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Clarion report on Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI)

For the record, here is the Clarion audit on QQI, as reported recently by the Sunday Times:

A quango that regulates further and higher education qualifications has an organisational structure that is “not fit for purpose”, abnormal levels of conflict and distrust among staff, and a management team that is lacking in expertise, an audit has found.

The highly critical assessment of Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) was made by Clarion, a consultancy firm commissioned by the Department of Education to review the regulator.

Thanks to the Sunday Times for sharing the document.

GSOC report on Clare Daly TD

GSOC investigated:

In January 2013, Deputy Clare Daly, TD for the Dublin North constituency, made a complaint to GSOC, arising from her arrest on 29 January. Significant aspects of her complaint concerned the alleged unlawful disclosure of information to the media, both about the fact of her arrest and about whom she requested to be called at the time.

GSOC concluded:

…while it is not possible to state that this information was released by a particular Garda or any other identifiable person, there does appear to be sufficient evidence to state, on the balance of probabilities, that some of the detail relating to Deputy Daly’s arrest emanated from within the Garda Síochána organisation and were made available to the media in an unauthorised manner.

The Ombudsman Commission is of the view that Deputy Daly was entitled to the presumption of innocence and that she had a right to privacy. These rights appear to have been infringed by the release of such information.

Gene Kerrigan opinion piece.

Here is the report in full: