It was a bad year for roses. New accounts submitted by the company behind annually The Rose of Tralee The festival shows the Co Kerry event is deep in the red, losing €72,321 last year and taking its total debts to €320,984. To make matters worse, the accounts show Kerry Rose Festival Ltd, the entity that controls the competition, owes US shareholder Richard Henggeler a further €86,414 after a dispute over a loan led to High Court action against the company.

One separate legal action pendingHenggeler, a hotelier whose late daughter represented Washington DC in the 2011 competition, alleged shareholder oppression against the company’s directors, Anthony O’Gara and John McCarthy. “It is not possible to make an estimate of the financial effect of this request,” the accounts state.

In recent years the health festival has become increasingly reliant on state funding, including from several councils, Fáilte Ireland and the Road Safety Authority. Last year it received a record €278,250 in government grants, up from €125,000 in 2022. Viewing figures are still healthy, with an average of 543,000 viewers for this year’s final, but this is down from over 700,000 in the years immediately before Covid-19. pandemic.

Could it become the truth that the Rose withers?

Try walking in Brian Ormond’s shoes

TV presenter Brian Ormond made a rare misstep when he launched a high-end shoe business to much fanfare in 2021. Ormond and his wife Pippa O’Connor own a fashion brand that sells everything from to jeans to vodka. But it seems Ormond is not cut out to be a sole trader.

Movrs, 25% owned by Ormond and O’Connor, opened three years ago with stores on Harry Street, just off Grafton Street and in Kildare Village. But last year the business folded, with the company behind the shoe brand going into liquidation.

The fallout looks set to continue at the High Court. Last week, a company called Shuz 4 U Distribution Ltd took legal action against Ormond. The company is owned by Sunil Shah and Paul Gallagher, who each owned a quarter of the Ormond-fronted shoe business.

The pair made a tidy sum from introducing Skechers to Ireland, but they’ll be kicking themselves for not sticking to sensible shoes.

Tóibín sees government funding of media as a ‘road to hell’

Peadar Tóibín from Aontú is not a big fan of the Global Ireland Media Challenge Fund, a Department of Foreign Affairs initiative that has given more than €1.6 million to media companies to increase coverage of “major geopolitical developments and the changing nature of Ireland’s role in the world . “.

RTÉ received €720,000 under the scheme to boost its overseas coverage by hiring three extra reporters, while Virgin Media received €400,000, Journal Media received €180,000 and several other organizations shared smaller amounts , including the Irish Examiner, Business Post and Bauer Media.

Tóibín thinks it’s all a little too close for comfort. “No one questions the good faith of those involved, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions and it is, to put it mildly, strange to see a government department funding those who should be holding them to account.” he said recently.

His comments follow a report in the Sunday Independent last month which suggested an expert advisory group set up by the department to advise on coverage was suggesting participants should provide more coverage of climate change and the “rise of populism”. abroad.

But an internal review of the initiative by the department gave it a troubling endorsement, saying the media visits to China, Lebanon, Palestine, Poland, South Korea and the United States would not have happened without the fund. One unnamed media organization said it was “the best thing we’ve done”, while another described it as “groundbreaking”.

The review concludes that the fund should continue for a period of two years, with previous and current recipients allowed to reapply.

Dyson takes the new inheritance tax to work

James Dyson has hit out at Britain’s Labor Party over its decision to introduce inheritance tax on farms worth more than £1m (€1.2m) in the recent UK budget. The inventor claims the so-called tractor tax is “ruddy”, calling it an “ignorant blow to suction”. Like TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson, who also bleated about the new tax, Dyson will be personally affected. He owns more than 30,000 acres of land in the UK, valued in the company’s accounts at more than £500m.

Perhaps the Brexiteer intends to spend more time in Ireland, where “working farmers” can still get 90% farm help when passing on farmland. Last week he applied for planning permission from Waterford County Council to build a helipad at Ballynatray House, the 850-acre property he bought last year on the banks of the River Blackwater for more than £30m of euros.

Effing Dáil

Last week People Before Profit’s Paul Murphy dropped the F-bomb in the Dáil over Danny Healy-Rae’s ignorant jab about the Dublin TD’s baby. Murphy said before she had named her baby Juniper to avoid “sexes” from birth. When Healy-Rae muttered that Murphy “doesn’t know if your own child is a boy or a girl”, the Dublin TD told him to “f*** off”, adding for good measure that he was a bastard.

While Green Party TD Paul Gogarty’s powerful blast from Labor MP Emmet Stagg is perhaps the most famous example of unparliamentary language in the Dáil, the F-word is not that uncommon. A search of the Dáil record turned up more than a dozen bastards over the past decade. Independent TD Mick Wallace was responsible for five of them, while Donegal TD Thomas Pringle was also led to swear three times.

There was a common thread with Murphy and Pringle’s latest breakout: Danny Healy-Rae. Last November, after the Kerry TD complained about uncontrolled asylum seekers in Kerry, Pringle said he wanted to dissociate himself from the comments. An argument ensued, with Pringle finally losing his cool and telling Healy-Rae that he “doesn’t listen to what anybody says”.

“Next time open your ears instead of your mouth, you might understand what people are saying,” said the Donegal TD.

There are penalties for swearing at the Dáil, including suspension. But there is nothing like it for those who challenge unparliamentary language. If there was, Healy-Rae would surely be the fugitive.

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