Messages

Correct. And the cost is irrelevant. Who cares if it costs 500m? The money will only be spunked on something else.

Aye thats true.

Imagine if it were spent on a new wing on the RVH, or replacing a few schools that are falling apart at the seams.

That'd be just stupid.

Very surprised with your take on this.

My take is fairly simple. NG has been badly failed by social services and her legal representation* - not the Derry county board.

Some of the expectations on the Derry CB "investigations" of matters in this thread are wholly ludicrous.


*my natural dislike of the legal system is also probably shining through; barristers are quick enough to rake all other professions over the coals in court inquests with the benefit of hindsight and an assumption of infinite resources - so IMO what is good for the goose - how the f**k are family law practitioners not expected to identify the signs of an raise concerns with the investigating authorities in divorce/child custody cases? If there are already such expectations, will there be any action taken against NG's representatives?

**teachers are educators, yet are expected to pick up on and raise child abuse concerns.

[Another question that is in my mind - why did (seemingly) none of this come out when custody of the children was up? Not casting doubt on the allegations, more on how did the combination of authorities/legal representation allow things to string along this far? Did NG receive extremely bad advice during the custody proceedings?]

Exactly.

The competent authorities are the ones who should be doing the investigating and prosecuting if appropriate. Not a volunteer board whose skillset is no more applicable to the problem than landing a man on the moon.


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Another question that is in my mind - why did (seemingly) none of this come out when custody of the children was up? Not casting doubt on the allegations, more on how did the combination of authorities/legal representation allow things to string along this far? Did NG receive extremely bad advice during the custody proceedings?

If the allegations are true, which inferring from a lack of strong denial from RG they would appear to have substance, then the systematic failure needs examined and rectified.

Why don't you research coercive control?

So RG had coercive control of NG's legal advisors and social services? 

It would but that is a not going to be a runner and let's not get into that argument again. If it's a green field site you are after instead of Clones then the Maze site isn't it.

IMO, with the project being a complete clusterf__k to date - I'd be inclined to get relegate the existing project team to bystanders for opinion only and have a new team in charge and essentially restart it with nothing off the table.

First thing would be scoping out exactly how palatable the government would be to the funds going toward a new/renovated stadium that isn't Casement Park.

Was at the balmoral show the other day.

If folks are going to advocate for transport as the principal reason for Casement over Clones, then you'd have to say, the Maze over Casement makes far more sense.

- Greenfield site is cheaper to develop on
- Loads of parking
- Right on the motorway
- No planning issues
- No/Less issues around noise pollution for concerts

[criminal]

And not one of those posts by me even mention a criminal investigation.

If you are wanting someone to investigate a potential crime, determine the truth and then take action based on the outcome of said investigation, then it is a criminal investigation.

Criminal investigations can be conducted by people other than the police you know.

So anyone can email a county board with an allegation and they must stand down the manager?

Who has actually said that?

It's not so much as said that, but people have done it and it works. The case here in question I'm totally behind Mrs Gallagher my point is that anyone can send an email or go on to social media and make claims about someone.

Would you be happy if you had allegations (true or false) made public via social media that would have wider implications on your kids and job and that would have even more implications on caring for your children should you lose your job over it?

The courts are there for a reason, to settle these issues. Court by social media though seems to be the way of the world.

Nobody is saying the courts should not do their job but right back at the beginning of this the "suspended pending investigation" route was explained and what steps you would need to take before suspending the individual.

Derry had their own decision to make and steps to take. All of which have already been set out.

Put yourself in Derry CB's position if they did get that email from Nicola's dad.

Your response would be that due to the seriousness of the allegations that he should go to the police with them.

In the meantime you'd have a duty of care to all to face Rory with what you've been informed about and as we've seen from his release, he probably told them (or would have told them) that these claims have been "dealt with" during the custody case and he's been cleared and now has custody of the children.

What do Derry CB do next?

They really can't be ignoring an email of that type all the same, that's really bad if they did.

Exactly.

The competent authorities are the ones who should be doing the investigating and prosecuting if appropriate. Not a volunteer board whose skillset is no more applicable to the problem than landing a man on the moon.


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Another question that is in my mind - why did (seemingly) none of this come out when custody of the children was up? Not casting doubt on the allegations, more on how did the combination of authorities/legal representation allow things to string along this far? Did NG receive extremely bad advice during the custody proceedings?

If the allegations are true, which inferring from a lack of strong denial from RG they would appear to have substance, then the systematic failure needs examined and rectified.

An incredible post. Show me where I said Derry had to conduct a criminal investigation?

Right here: "the matter will have to be fully investigated" along with all the preceding sentences

Then straight after, again you were at it: "if a county board receives such a serious allegation that they need to take steps to, to the best of their ability, reassure themselves that there is no truth to the allegation"


Unless your happy with a half-assed investigation by ill-equipped and ill-qualified volunteers that could turn up anything? Oh wait, you'd likely be first in the queue to decry them for not doing it right.

All the CB could do would be to ask the person the allegation was made against, and take their word for it if they plead their innocence. They aren't in a position to do anything else.

What does it matter if the accuser's father emailed the Derry board?  Surely if someone emailed my work with such an accusation they would be told wrong direction, contact the police.

Not really.

Do you think is all the responsibility a community sports organisation has?
Do you think that's what their members would want?
Do you think that what their sponsors would want?
Do you think that's what potential funding agencies would want?
Do you think that would be the best way to protect the game that you are there to nurture would be?

The matter will have to be fully investigated. Was the mail sent? Was it received? Who the did the recipient share it with? What they do next? These should not be difficult questions to answer.

Eh? So your expecting GAA volunteers to perform criminal investigations?
Are they then expected to act as a jury on the outcome of said investigations? What about judge and executioner too while were at it?

The response can only be - "Sorry, you need to take this to the police. It is not appropriate or feasible that we be an investigator in these matters. With society here operating on an 'innocent until proven guilty' premise, Rory Gallagher will remain in charge of Derry unless we receive concerning information from the relevant authorities".


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In general, a bit concerned about the trial by social media thing gathering pace. If people are going to condemn someone based only on accusations, that is an extremely slippery slope to start down. Hypothetical argument; if [a,b,c] happened, how would you like it if the other party made accusations and you were sacked and turned into a pariah off the back of the accusations (be they completely false, embellished or true) before even having the chance to defend yourself?

[a - you got promoted ahead of someone and they were livid about it.]
[b - your marriage broke down]
[c - neighbour feud]
[etc etc]

I wouldn't necessarily blame him either defeat but he seems to have an obsession with the Kilcoo blueprint and playing small ball carrying athletic players. It takes a lot of time and energy to prepare a side at senior county level and there are only so many hours in the week. Trying to manage about 70 players and back room teams simultaneously can't be easy and I can't see how it wouldn't have an impact.

Might the obvious reason not be that we don't have good large ball carrying athletic players?

Motorway junctions take up vast amounts of space that could be put to more financially sustainable use. They take up more room than you think, and it becomes clearer when you superimpose them on actual revenue-generating city blocks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln5oTdi8CNM

In the case of Belfast, the Sailortown area was all but obliterated by the motorway.

That is one of the biggest loads of rubbish ever posted on this forum.

Aside from the fundamental misunderstanding that a motorway junction can exist to leverage economic actors a significant distance from the junction itself, rather than a few more local offices/shops, a motorway is useless if you cannot get on and off it. 3 motorways meeting without seamless transfer are largely neutered in their local effectiveness. Pollution and commute times significantly impact economic productivity. (Unless you think hauliers like to pay their drivers to burn several gallons of fuel to move a few miles over the space of an hour, or business folk like to sit in traffic for an added hour rather than work in the office when looking to catch a flight?)

The space used for the York road junction is insignificant given the benefits it'd bring.

Here's a pdf map of the proposal - as you can see, the footprint is only an incremental increase over what is already there.

They're an embarrassment but the whole bloody event loses any shine if they are giving foster a peace award.

Your taking the piss? Seriously?

You can accept that it is going to be £100 million over budget if you wish but there will be many that won't. They won't see it as a good investment of £162 million.

I wouldn't see it as a good investment at £16.2 million.

One covered terrace, one covered seated stand, two ends uncovered terrace. Simple, affordable, and in actual fact, a better fit for what Antrim and Ulster actually need.

So, the SNP got ~600k in donations to spend "on an independence referendum", or on "achieving independence"?

Yer man then lent an additional ~100k, of which he got back ~50k - and the SNP are still a bit skint.


I suppose depends on the exact wording of what the donations were for - but if the SNP have "we will seek a further independence referendum" on their manifesto, gonna be hard to prove that spending it on the party in general doesn't equate to trying to deliver their manifesto which in itself is trying to deliver an independence referendum.

Or is the problem that yer man treated himself as a (somewhat) secured creditor in a questionably insolvent organisation?

I know our HR grown ups are looking at attrition rates , new hire rates and retention rates and they are nervous for long term

You have grown ups in HR? That's pretty unusual!

Indeed. Usually HR are the last people in the company to wake up to it.

They've obviously no f**king idea whatsoever of the cost of knowledge leaving the company on a regular basis.


In general, nowadays employers need to be offering both a big wage and good terms. Otherwise they're getting the dregs.

Our lot offer a reasonable wage, but they are completely at sea over terms. About 30 years out of date and they just keep losing people out the door at a horrendous rate. Yet not one of those in charge wants to deal with it - not even sure they acknowledge it.