Sam Tranum
@samtranum
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Reporter, deputy editor, co-founder @dublininquirer . Covering transport, energy, environment, other stuff. 0873924797 (WhatsApp is good) sam @dublininquirer .com.
Dublin, Ireland
Joined April 2012
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Why doesn't the govt pay to put solar on every roof (i.e. increase grant to 100%, pay up front instead of reimburse)? It'd bring down carbon emissions, help with energy costs, etc. Don't talk to me about the cost, govts always find the money for things they really want t do.
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I listen to a lot of audio books, but only just last week realised that my Dublin City Libraries card gives me access to the BorrowBook app, which lets me listen to loads of excellent books for free. I have cancelled my Audible membership. Libraries are the best.
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Apparently, running a small newspaper in Ireland means regularly risking financial ruin – both business and personal. We think the story is solid and of public interest. They say, “Should you write anything about us we will take legal action.” Here we go.
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I am nominating this for Best Tree in Dublin. Any other nominations?
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Landlord outraged at students who buy groceries and also want affordable rents emailed me to vent.
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Ah yes, the 1840s, famously a Golden Age in Ireland. Wish we could go back to those days.
Michael McDowell: A railway was built from Dublin to Cork with little more than a shovel and a pick in the 1840s. Today the Shannon pipeline project will take 15-20 years from conception to completion - if all goes well
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Is there a vacant or derelict building in your area in Dublin city, and you've always wondered who owns it and why it's been left to sit empty? Would you mind telling me about it? I'm on the hunt for a couple to look into.
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Yes, I taped my toddler's orange back together this morning to try to stop him having a tantrum. No, it didn't work.
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Try all you want to demean and discredit the team at
@wereontheditch
, but their work has stood up to scrutiny and had real impacts: An Bord Pleanála, Robert Troy, Damien English. Attacking the messenger doesn't make the message untrue.
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Ireland is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and if we choose not to help people who need it, both at home and coming from abroad, it's just that – a choice. It's not because we couldn't if we wanted to.
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Parked on the footpath. Went into nearby coffee shop. Came out with coffee.
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The number of PR people based in London who send press releases to Dublin Inquirer obviously based on the belief that Dublin is in the UK too is embarrassing.
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If you believe there aren't enough homes and services for all the people in Ireland, you should be pressuring the government - who are responsible for this - to fix it, not shouting at people who came here seeking refuge and don't have the power to solve all our problems for us.
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the battling below our FB posts virtually disappeared (and many more people started clicking through to actually read our articles). So, bottom line: you can basically pay FB to make people shout racist, classist, horrible shit at each other. That's pretty messed up. 4/4
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This month’s
@DublinInquirer
cover, by Harry Burton and Lois Kapila, "is inspired by Dublin’s ‘Fortress Grand Canal’, perhaps the most striking example of hostile architecture, of designing against humanity, in the city in recent years”.
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I'd really like to know how Dublin City Council is spending €21,000 *a month* for security services for its toilets on St Stephen's Green. Please explain the math on that to me. How many security guards, being paid how much?
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There's obviously an organised effort to spread fear and hate of immigrants in Ireland. Is there an organised effort to counter this horrible campaign? Who's coordinating it? What's the plan folks?
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Imagine you're being illegally evicted from your home, and the Gardaí show up, and instead of saying "It's a civil matter" and just watching on, they arrest the people who are chucking you out. The RTB has recommended giving Gardaí that power.
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Do you miss saying thank you to the bus driver now that you exit through the middle door? Is it the end of a lovely tradition?
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Why aren't more media and opposition politicians picking up the latest Niall Collins story from The Ditch? Is it wrong? Are they just still checking it and will follow up in due time? Are they just sick of The Ditch?
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Shame on all of us. The media who fed this hate, the racist grifters profiting from stoking it, the state that failed to house these and many other people, the Gardaí who did not keep the peace, and many more.
The aftermath of the fire at a makeshift camp for homeless asylum seekers on Sandwith St last night, tents, sleeping bags, half cooked meals, burnt out couch, books and chairs among the debris. Gardaí say there were no injuries from the fire
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We got a bunch of Facebook ad credits at Dublin Inquirer, and I've been spending them by "boosting" our articles so they go to a wider audience than they would "organically" if we just posted them and left them. And I learned something. 1/4
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wtf are RTÉ doing paying *anyone* that much anyway, whether they're hiding some of it with dodgy dodges or not!?
(Waiting now for someone to reply and say €515,000 a year isn't that much, that just puts poor Ryan in the squeezed middle, trying to make ends meet.)
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RTÉ radio's Drivetime and Morning Ireland have, when following up on
@DublinInquirer
stories recently, both given us credit for our work, which I think is really sound of them.
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When Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien said he didn’t know how many eviction notices had been issued, his department had known for months,
@LoKapila
shows.
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Just saw a kid of about 8 throw a half full cold cup of coffee at a woman walking by and call her the n-word. Told him and his friends off and he they came after me, spitting and throwing stuff. What to do? Can't touch 'em, no parents in sight, guards would be no help.
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It's not just that place in Drimnagh – turns out that in apartment complexes across the city social tenants are segregated off from private private tenants, in different blocks, with barriers to accessing amenities like playgrounds and gardens.
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It's just such an embarrassment that TDs now all of a sudden think these shitheads are a problem -- it's only when it affects them personally that it matters it seems. Anyone else affected? It's all grand really, calm down people, it's free speech or whatever.
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I think Ireland's impending electricity shortage, and generally precarious electricity-supply system is an underreported story. If/when the system breaks down, it will affect everyone. 1/3
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Guy parked on the footpath opens his door in front of me and steps out into the cycle lane I am cycling in. I shout, "Whoaaaa!" and swerve out into traffic to avoid him. He replies not "Oh my god I'm sorry, I could have killed you!" but "Fuck you!"
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The news in Ireland May 2023
People: We're being evicted into homelessness, the health service is in crisis, food and energy prices through the roof.
Govt: Oh wow, we've so much money we literally don't know what to do with it, just billions and billions. Whatever shall we do?
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No one with much influence in this country cares about renters, do they? National uproar if something negatively affects first-time buyers. Renters getting screwed? Crickets.
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A few weeks ago I did a story about how some vacant buildings at the entrance to James's Hospital were sold to the HSE for €2.4m. Now I've learned that the council had valued them at only €1.7m. Here's what happened. 1/
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Reader, I've never before seen pedestrianisation described as creating a “pedestrian wasteland” (by a source, not the journalist). Apparently objectors are worried it might lead to people “congregating in the village”.
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Walking twin 2yos in the pram to the playground and a man driving his car toward us fully 4 wheels on the footpath (so he can park it there) seems to think *I* am in the wrong when I tell him to stop driving his car at us.
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I never knew what vast amounts of goodwill Ireland had for landlords until these past couple weeks when pro-landlord (sorry, pro-"house owners", pro-"the squeezed middle"?) narratives seemed all of a sudden to be everywhere in social, print and btoadcast media.
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Lot of news using the phrase "illegal immigration" for some reason. Maybe an import from US culture wars? The people everyone's hating on here in Ireland have come here to seek asylum. There's nothing illegal about that, whether they have passports or not.
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Niall Collins, the Fianna Fáil TD, is calling for a new register of outside interests for RTÉ stars. "'Top presenters are in a position of public trust ... They need to follow the same rules as the rest of us." 🤨
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Ignore all the nonsense: Kitty Holland did not make up the attack on the homeless people camping in Ashtown.
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Okay okay I've listened to your arguments and you have convinced me: there definitely are good reasons for a landlord to threaten a tenant with an electric saw.
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Poor Dublin landlords, someone's given them a bad name.
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What made everyone notice all of a sudden that Dublin doesn't have enough public toilets? This has been an issue for years and years and years
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The council's leasing a bunch of apts in Newmarket Yards, D8. Which do you think is the door for the private renters to the main complex with most of the amenities, and which do you think is the entrance for the council tenants, to the other building? 1/
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New study reveals London is the worst city for traffic in France
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Today's my last day working with the good people of
@fourcourtspress
. For seven years I've been editing books at FCP by day and making newspapers at
@DublinInquirer
evenings and weekends. But now I'm going to focus just on the Inquirer, full-time. Sad to leave, but excited too.
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So let me get this straight, we should give far-right individuals space to air their views in national papers because Free Speech, but we absolutely should not call them far-right because that bigs them up and makes them more powerful. Is that about it?
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Threatened a defamation action against a media outlet but didn't have the case to actually take one.
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Deliveroo workers gathered at City Hall, calling for safer working conditions.
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Just for context,
@DublinInquirer
pays €165 for reported articles.
In comparison, freelancers get paid 120 euros each time they do a report for RTE Radio One's World Report, which involves reporting internationally, script writing, recording, & editing.
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Congratulations to
@LoKapila
for being longlisted for the 2019 Orwell Prize for Journalism, for her work in
@DublinInquirer
!
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I hope every story on the Paul Hyde/ABP scandal today is crediting
@wereontheditch
for breaking it wide open.
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Went to sign up for an allotment, and the fella says this isn't some hobby where you can just show up once a week for an hour, it's a commitment, like senior county hurling, with practice 3-4 evenings a week, and games on weekends. This is some hardcore gardening.
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Just finished laying out monthly Dublin Inquirer print edition
#100
.
I remember in 2016 or so when we were digital-only and weren't getting enough subscribers to stay afloat.
Decided to launch a print edition. Everyone says print is dead, but half our subscribers choose it.
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"Free speech" is confusing. So it's free speech to question trans people's existence and rights, but not free speech to say the housing crisis is really bad and suggest the government sort it out?
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Here's
@LoKapila
in the newspaper, next to a box of newspapers, holding a newspaper, talking about a newspaper.
As for the question in the headline, the answer is yes. Here we are, still publishing after seven years. We'll see how much longer we go!
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Just thinking about how I interviewed for a job with a national newspaper some years ago, newly arrived in Ireland, and said I would like to cover the energy sector for them. Nothing there worth covering, as Ireland's not a big oil or gas producer they said.
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Renters are people too. There are loads who are working their asses off and paying exorbitant rents and still can't get to the point of being the all-important first-time buyers everyone seems so worried about.
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The "free speech" people are the same people as the book-burning people. Wtf 🤷♂️
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Okay,
@LoKapila
will probably kill me for this, because she generally a modest and private person. But here goes anyways. She gets asked fairly regularly to speak about starting
@DublinInquirer
, and consistently downplays her role, giving loads of credit to others. 1/5
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Here's my column on the short-lived conspiracy of silence around the Niall Collins story, and how, when The Ditch published a story about Fianna Fáil TD Niall Collins on 19 April, other media and politicians were slow to follow up – stoking suspicions.
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I see DCC CEO Richard Shakespeare making the rounds doing interviews with the Irish Times, Indo, Business Post. I asked the council press office if he'd talk to me too but they said he was unavailable. I'm sure it's cause we're too small to bother but I like to think he's scared.
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It is absolutely insane that this man is being put on trial, instead of being given a medal. What kind of world, what kind of a Europe, do we live in!?
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Just cycled across the city centre and passed 9 vans parked in cycle lanes. Would it be okay to slap a sticker on the back of each, saying "I'm a selfish, entitled prick"? I mean, you can't talk to these people. I tried, one just said, "I'll park here if I want. That's life."
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For years I heard the "thump! rattle, scrape" of guys unloading kegs from trucks across the street from my office
@FourCourtsPress
, dropping them onto these old hand-made-looking cushions, and rolling to a pub. Like these guys. You know the sound. You can hear it all the city. 1/
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When we publish articles
@dublininquirer
about difficulties Travellers face in Irish society, they consistently get very low engagement. Feels like no one is listening. But everyone should be. The institutional/societal racism, and the impacts of that, are tragic, inexcusable.
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Remember when "hoarding cash" used to be called "saving, and people used to think it was a good thing and governments encouraged it?
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You may have noticed we've been making a few changes at
@dublininquirer
: new office, new website, and staffing changes. In case you're curious, here's a bit about what's going on: 1/
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Not only did the HSE pay €2.4m for this property the council had valued at €1.7m – but it was willing to pay a lot more, documents now show. So was the council's valuation too low, reducing the owners derelict site levy, or was the HSE's too high? 1/
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This supposed collective shock that big funds have for years been buying up homes – houses and apartments – all over Dublin is absurd. It's been government policy for years to encourage it, and it's been reported on debated, analysed. Wtf.
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I am trying to put together an "on the media" column for Dublin Inquirer about this (to me) strange lack of follow-up to The Ditch's latest Niall Collins story. If you know what's going on, please DM me here, or WhatsApp me on 0873924797.
Why aren't more media and opposition politicians picking up the latest Niall Collins story from The Ditch? Is it wrong? Are they just still checking it and will follow up in due time? Are they just sick of The Ditch?
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After
@DublinInquirer
published an article on councillors' efforts to get Dublin City Council to stop buying HP-branded products to support a Palestinian call to boycott, and paid
@Meta
to boost our posts of it, Meta suspended our ad account. Coincidence? At first I assumed so 1/
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"Most ‘Ireland is full’ and ‘Irish lives matter’ online posts originate abroad"
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This headline is untrue, is it not? Private vehicles are not banned from Dublin city centre. Or am I off base here and there is another way to read this headline?
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Would we even be in this place if some media hadn't published entirely inaccurate headlines saying there was a plan to "ban" cars from the city centre?
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The govt decided not to provide shelter, and the council decided not to provide shelter -- and now the govt's like, Why are people sleeping on the street, this is no good.
New: Taoiseach says Mount Street situation had “become completely unacceptable… The laws of our land must always be upheld and we cannot have unsafe and illegal encampments in our cities or towns”
@VirginMediaNews
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Big story from
@IrishCycle
now picked up and amplified by The Journal 👏
Cycle lane bollards were removed and dumped in a garden before fatal crash in Dublin
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On appeal, An Bord Pleanála has approved MQI's planning application for a medically supervised injection facility on Merchand's Quay. Full ruling here:
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Can't stop thinking about this. I don't know if it really means the IT is abandoning "Truth Matters", but it suggests a strategy of (further) foregrounding opinion, instead of news reporting/features, and of trying to make people angry to get clicks. Really disappointing, if so.
I see Irish Times have admitted to abandoning 'Truth Matters'
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This morning I cycled in to work and, like most days, nothing very bad happened, no drivers were shitheads – in fact, a bread truck driver was kind of friendly.
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Ah yes, have an opinion about Ireland, but not an Irish-sounding name, and there's always this kind of thing waiting for you. It's no wonder there are so few immigrants in public life.
Ireland is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and if we choose not to help people who need it, both at home and coming from abroad, it's just that – a choice. It's not because we couldn't if we wanted to.
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He came here as a refugee, ended up homeless living in a tent next to the canal and then a Waterways Ireland "clean-up" tried to bin his tent with him in it, he was left with life changing injuries.
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This morning at the new linear park in Rialto.
Create any new space in this city and some driver will park on it.
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Don't comfort yourselves with the idea the racist anti-immigrant hate is all coming from US and UK Twitter. Plenty IRL in Ireland too.
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I see 99% of the conversation about this incident now is about Kitty Holland, and not the thugs with the bats and dogs. A big win for the people who don't want to talk about violence of the organised anti-immigrant movement in Ireland and would rather put journalists on trial.
Ignore all the nonsense: Kitty Holland did not make up the attack on the homeless people camping in Ashtown.
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all of a sudden, unusually for Dublin Inquirer, the comments below our posts were full of angry people shouting at each other and sometimes saying horrible racist, classist things. So I changed the goal, to getting people to click the link (and read the article) and ... 3/4
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If I did a short workshop on starting a small news publication in Ireland, would anyone be interested in coming? I'd never claim to be an expert or anything, but I do have some limited experience to share, and would love to see more news start-ups, all over the country. 1/
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[Dear PR Person], there's no way we are going to publish this. For starters, we don't publish letters to the editor. Also, we're unlikely to publish something to do with your queen's platinum jubilee, as we're a local paper, and do not cover events in other countries.
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Today's news that Capel Street's car-free status is up for debate again, made me think about what I read in Joe Brady's recent book "Dublin from 1970 to 1990" about the pedestrianisation of Grafton Street. 1/
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Some journalist should start a subscription-funded newsletter covering Irish MEPs and what they're doing in Brussels, in detail and in context, in the run-up to the elections, adding coverage pf candidates as the election nears. If enough people subscribe, keep going after. 1/
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Hey guess what?
@LoKapila
has made the cut, from the longlist to be shortlisted for the 2019
@TheOrwellPrize
for Journalism, for three of her
@DublinInquirer
articles.
The
@TheOrwellPrize
for Journalism 2019 shortlist:
@NewStatesman
Editor-in-chief
@JasonCowleyNS
,
@insidehousing
deputy editor
@PeteApps
,
@prospect_uk
deputy editor
@BloomfieldSJ
,
@suzanne_moore
,
@DublinInquirer
's
@LoKapila
and
@TheEconomist
Foreign Editor
@robertguest1
👏👏👏
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I got curious about why there's still no permanent replacement lined up for the head of Dublin City Council, who's due to step down next month after 10 years in the job. Here's what I found out.
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If you think that Dublin has too few bins, you might be interested to know that the council has been working to reduce the number even further.
Tendering in 2018 for rubbish bins, Dublin City Council said it was looking to cut the number of litter bins on the streets in its area by 20 percent.
#fromthearchive
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Oh wait let me guess!
1. Downpayment will be 127 times your annual salary.
2. There are only 3 houses for sale in Dublin.
3. You are bidding against a field of billion-euro global funds.
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The council sent out a press release this morning, a reminder that Parliament Street will be "traffic-free" at the weekends from this Saturday to late August. I asked Midjourney to imagine it.
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These referendum results seem to have made some people feel it's now okay to publicly share shitty far right views they had been keeping to themselves.
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