THE Labour Party may have been hoping the Higgins/Stokes affair would dissipate, but the ripples the controversy continues to send through the local leader columns are potentially seismic. The "party should get its act together before lecturing others", the Tipperary Star said, while the Leinster Express was critical of Labour's "show of arrogance".
The Kerryman believed "Tanaiste Dick Spring and his colleagues have written the script on political probity. The only problem is that this script seems only to apply to others - and not to them.
"From Emmet Stagg's lark in the Park to Ethical Eithne Fitzgerald's fundraising tactics, to the latest issue involving Minister Michael D. Higgins and his supporter and friend Niall Stokes - whom Michael D. appointed to the chair of the IRTC - labour has been exempt from `doing the right thing'.
"What's good enough for Albert Reynolds, Hugh Coveney and Phil Hogan is not good enough for the Labour Paragons of Virtue.
"It all adds up to a pretty stinking example of political duplicity."
The Wexford People, in an editorial headlined, "Do as I say, not as I do", said "the conduct of the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht in relation to the fund raising activities undertaken on his behalf by the chairman of the Independent Radio and Television Commission, Niall Stokes, is breath taking.
"The essential point is not really the degree of wrong doing, or perceived wrong doing, involved in this matter," it says. "Rather it is the increasing level of double speak being employed by senior Labour Party Ministers to explain activities which they themselves would find totally unacceptable if practised by Fianna Fail, or indeed by some of their partners in Government."
Headlines across the country showed the BSE scare is continuing to have profound repercussions for rural life, with the Down Recorder reporting that local, beef producers are "facing disaster and that the industry vital to the economy of Co Down "is in chaos".
The Western People reported that the BSE scare had put 300 workers on protective notice in its area, while the Donegal Democrat reported 140 workers on protective notice. "BSE scare means west's cattle cannot be sold", the Connacht Tribune said. The Westmeath Independent said that as "Midland farmers count the cost" of the scare, all 120 employees at Tara meats in Kilbeggan were given protective notice.
The sentencing of Brendan O'Donnell last week seemed to bring little resolution to the matter for people in Co Clare. Printing its headline "Triple Killer O'Donnell Jailed for Life" in white letters on a black band, the Clare Champion conveyed a sense of mourning. The killing of Imelda Riney and her three year old son Liam and Father Joe Walsh in Cregg Wood near Whitegate in 1994 "will leave a scar in the east Clare community for many generations."
The Champion said "fundamental questions must now be asked of the psychiatric services. How ... did Brendan O'Donnell manage to slip through the safety nets, not just once but on several occasions?"
It also called for an internal Garda inquiry. "There was patent public anger in east Clare at the force's initial handling of the case and a Cabinet decision to defer an internal Garda inquiry promised by then Justice Minister, Maire Geoghegan Quinn, simply exacerbated the sense of disquiet.
The Connacht Tribune headline asked "How long is `life'?". It quoted "one leading legal expert in Galway who has been following the O'Donnell trial closely" as stating that "they will not keep him in prison forever. There is a possibility that he could be a completely changed person in 15-20 years and may be considered fit for release.
The investment loophole in the seaside resort scheme in the Finance Bill which had caused a "holiday cottages explosion" in Westport, Achill and Mulranny has been closed, the Mayo News said. A "dramatic slow down" in building is being predicted now that investors can no longer claim double reliefs on investment schemes.
The Connaught Telegraph reported that French experts have been called in to erect a cable between the mainland and Inishbiggle, off Achill island. The line will span a treacherous 400 yard inlet which 24 families currently must cross in open currachs, which has been "deemed illegal by the Department of Marine".
Kerry, meanwhile, is in uproar over the issue of whether single mothers can be "roses", the Kerryman reported. Meanwhile, the Westmeath Examiner which reports that the 1996 Westmeath Bachelor, punningly named Neil Devine, reckons on taking the Scots at their own game at the Guinness International Bachelor Competition at the Mullingar Festival in July. Neil thinks that Scots bachelors keeping winning the contest because of their kilts. So he intends "wearing the grass skirt he wore on stage during Lakeland Productions' recent show, Joseph."
