Tony Lawlor. Also answers to Oscar

Photography, wildlife, birdwatching boating woodworking. Tá beagán gaeilge agam. I travel by motorbike. I detest racists, bigots and corruption.

[Tony Lawlor. Also answers to Oscar @_TonyLawlor]

https://t.co/1HhpGMiARP

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

The Department of Defence has admitted it’s agreed to keep its interactions with lobbyists for international arms manufacturers 'confidential'.

Lobby group the Irish Defence and Security Association's members include Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems.

https://t.co/kVwzdEcTXY

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

Vault

A senior US diplomat warned of ‘consequences’ if the Occupied Territories Bill passed, offering to ‘connect’ the attorney general with DC for ‘best outcome’

Less than 90 minutes later Martin announced the bill would merely undergo a ‘review’

https://t.co/561UgT2CDg

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

The airline the Department of Transport is probing over illegal weapons flights has resumed transporting munitions to Israel through Irish sovereign airspace.

The Ditch first reported Challenge Airlines' illegal flights last August – they've recommenced.

https://t.co/wgC82LBtB8

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

The Housing Agency won’t release records to at least 13 homeowners affected by the defective block crisis because the publication of these records, the agency claims, could “endanger the life or safety” of Housing Agency staff.

https://t.co/K0U8iGst7d

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

Fine Gael MEP Regina Doherty claimed in private messages that “Israeli settlements were conducted under international law” and expressed frustration that Hamas had asked the UN to look after Palestinian refugees instead of “their own bloody government”.

https://t.co/pLNeqo45Jz

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

Comment: 'The ongoing efforts to restrict aid in Dublin stretch back to the Famine and beyond. Then as now authorities respond to poverty first by regulating it, next by moving it indoors and finally by criminalising those who resist.'

https://t.co/ySmaKS4fEL

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

'There is a very sinister and unethical impulse to what they are doing.’

- Unnamed Fianna Fáil minister

'No one is likely to describe its approach as anything other than aggressively combative.’

- Irish Independent

‘The institutional political contempt for The Ditch.’

- Irish Examiner

That’s 2024 for us.

A year when we reported:

The attorney general’s private advice to government on its failed referenda

A Fine Gael election candidate’s secret go-away money deal with a developer – before she had to ask people not to vote for her

How the attorney general advised government to reduce the number of applicants to the state mica scheme, limit the state’s financial exposure and help ensure claims were kept as low as possible. And how he didn’t know about relevant EU legislation – now the European Commission has begun proceedings against Ireland

The dozens and dozens of illegal flights passing through Irish territory with weapons on their way to Israel for its onslaught on Gaza

What government say in private about not passing the Occupied Territories Bill (as well as the US ambassador warning of the ‘consequences’ were it to be enacted)

We also took three successful cases in the High Court including one that showed SIPO hid Leo Varadkar’s donation statements from the public and Oireachtas.

We’re taking some time till the new year.

We’ll be back in 2025 to take the state to court over its repeated failures to stop Irish complicity with what is the subject of a genocide charge at the International Court of Justice.

Thank you so much for your support.

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

A senior Housing Agency official suggested engineers downgrade a grant recommendation for a defective Donegal home – after withholding a report that showed severe damage to the home that would have warranted the highest level of redress available.

https://t.co/3gboeKOmoZ

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

The Central Bank of Ireland has claimed it doesn’t have the authority to stop facilitating Israeli bond sales – but failed to consider the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) January ruling that Israel may be committing genocide in Gaza.

https://t.co/IISyzBPVO7

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

🚨Dublin-based ASL has said that both its French and Belgian airlines won't carry munitions to Israel🚨

'Therefore, we can now state "unequivocally and without reservation" that ITAR – (meaning International Traffic in Arms Regulations) – freight is not and will not be carried on any ASL airline to Israel, this includes ASL Airlines (Ireland), ASL Airlines (France), ASL Airlines (Belgium) and finally ASL Airlines (UK) which does not operate to Israel.

After repeated protests at its Swords office following reports of its munitions flights on The Ditch, ASL had issued a carefully worded statement last month.

Though it pledged to stop delivering munitions to Israel, the company used a subsidiary company to continue transporting such packages to the Israel Defense Forces.

In its most recent statement, ASL said, 'At the time we could only speak about our own airline, ASL Airlines (Ireland), and our decision was made to address staff concerns in the airline.'

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

🚨Minister of state Ossian Smyth confirms US interference with Occupied Bill – and why Fine Gael blocked it 🚨

‘The Occupied Territories Bill was blocked by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil because the Democratic Party in America asked them to block it.’

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

Helen McEntee’s running mate councillor Sharon Tolan proposed a successful motion to rezone land at risk of flooding owned by a friend and former company co-director

An Bord Pleanála had ruled the land carried an 'unacceptable risk of flooding'.

https://t.co/Qdg6zk24mr

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

A general election candidate for Aontú – which criticises government for its failure 'to increase social and affordable housing' – objected to a social housing development near her home because she said it would devalue her property.

https://t.co/4fU02FcsVA

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

The Ditch condemns yesterday’s arrest and charge of activists at Shannon Airport protesting the unlawful use of Irish sovereign airspace to transport munitions to Israel.

The Ditch submitted a complaint to the Garda Ombudsman today.

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

An open letter from Irish Bloc Berlin to the Irish and German states and European Union condemning Germany’s role in Israel's ongoing onslaught on Gaza.

The Ditch has signed this letter.

Demands include the enactment of the Occupied Territories Bill.

https://t.co/UTOk8n2wLg

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

🚨Ex-Fine Gael election candidate Jimmy Cumiskey was jailed today for 18 months over a bogus mortgage scheme

The Louth man ran for Fine Gael in the 2009 local elections and was a candidate for cooption to one of its council seats in 2011 and party activist till at least 2014

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

A senior US diplomat warned of ‘consequences’ if the Occupied Territories Bill passed, offering to ‘connect’ the attorney general with DC for 'the best outcome’

Less than 90 minutes later Micheál Martin announced the bill would merely undergo a ‘review’

https://t.co/fqQlDXZHHC

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

🚨Breaking🚨

Lawyers acting for campaign group Uplift have given government 14 days “to immediately suspend all military and dual-use trade with Israel along with the use of Irish airspace for the transport of weapons to the IDF”, according to a statement released today

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

Israel’s national airline transported more than 1,300 kilogrammes of guns through Irish territory to Israel last week – despite The Ditch first reporting a month ago that the airline was illegally transporting munitions through the state.

https://t.co/2ZRFgTMUjH

[The Ditch @wereontheditch]

Another day, another FedEx flight due over Irish sovereign airspace with munitions of war for delivery to Nevatim air base in Israel

Many of the packages are sent from US military bases – the one below came from Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina