Belfast Blogs.com

Last week, Minister for (in)Justice Dermot Ahern answered a parliamentary question in the Oireachtas about the inequality suffered by Irish fathers.His answer was that existing legislation was perfectly acceptable in ensuring the relationship of children with their fathers following parental separation and divorce.This is utter bollocks as everyone in the country knows. Unmarried fathers have to actually apply to be considered parents of their own children.Fathers who separate from their children's mothers, no matter what the reason (short of maternal drug abuse or imprisonment) can expect to lose their homes and children in the family law courts.All this inequality is based on two pillars of untruth - the outmoded prejudice that Mommy knows best, and the myth of the deadbeat dad.That's...

Okay, so the new national juvenile detention centre is to be located at Lusk (subscription required), a small North Dublin village near the coast and the M1.It will cost 145 million euro.Fair enough, if that's what it costs, though one wonders why not build it OUTSIDE of Dublin and away from picturesque coastal villages, where land is surely cheaper.One also wonders why this centre, like Thornton Hall before it, are being built in greater Dublin at all. We've already seen the obscene cost of Thornton Hall spiralling out of control like so many infrastructural projects before it.But surely one way to keep the price down would be to locate these facilities outside of where property and development land cost one of the highest prices per square foot in Europe?Locating prisons in remoter...

As I chow down on my lunchtime smoked salmon bagel, it's probably not immediately apparent how sympathetic I am towards people suffering very deprived circumstances.But I am. There have been times I've had little or nothing to my name except debt. There have been times between work when I had to get three days of meals out of a couple of quid and some old cans of beans.There's even been the odd night I've found myself with nowhere to stay, though I've only ever had to crash outdoors once.So in real ways, I can empathise with the sort of people you see in the centre of pretty much every sizeable Western European town, the bummed-out grubby faces crouched against a wall, clasping a paper cup.If I don't smell drink, I'll often hand over a bit of change to them, though I'm well aware that it...

... banging on about their achievements in Government, remind them of some of these little statistics that their party leader is responsible for presiding over.Thanks to KrayZpaving of Politics.ie for......

According to RTE, Justice Minister Michael McDowell launched another unwarranted attack on the media last night.Apparently, the Minister believes that truth is becoming a casualty in the reporting of politics in Ireland. He also warned other politicians against courting cheap headlines.Obviously the hypocrisy of the man has few limits, if any.Wasn't it McDowell, after all, who used Dail privilege to accuse prominent investigative reporter Frank Connolly of travelling to Colombia on a false passport, and being involved in a plot to provide FARC guerillas with IRA explosives?His accusation has been vociferously denied by Connolly and disregarded by the Gardai. But that did not prevent McDowell leaking his non-story to a pet hack at the Irish Independent.But the end result of this appalling...