Latest news with #MichaelMoynihan
Irish Examiner
2 days ago
- General
- Irish Examiner
UCC athletics track, which closed due to damage, to reopen after repairs
The damaged athletics track at University College Cork (UCC), named after athletics legend Sonia O'Sullivan, is set to be fully repaired almost a year after its sudden closure on health and safety grounds. UCC has confirmed the track at its Mardyke sports campus will undergo a full resurfacing, with contractors Tony Patterson Sportsgrounds Ltd scheduled to start on site next Monday. The work will take several months, with no certainty yet on a completion date. 'The timeline for completion will be contingent on weather conditions, both in Cork and abroad given the specialist nature of the works,' a spokesperson said. 'Delays to other projects undertaken by the specialist teams involved may subsequently impact the delivery time of the UCC Sports Athletics Track.' The track was closed unexpectedly in March 2024 due to 'health and safety' concerns after an urgent inspection by UCC's Building and Estates team identified 'a rapid and significant deterioration' of the track — sections of the track surface were literally peeling away. The closure of the UCC track came at the same as the city's only other athletics track, at the Munster Technological Institute (MTU) was also out of commission for resurfacing works. The two closures left several athletics clubs and thousands of athletes without a proper training venue. MTU's resurfaced track was reopened in July 2024 in time to host the 70th Cork City Sports event. UCC said the full reinstatement work on its Mardyke track represented a significant investment in the university's sports infrastructure and reflected its ongoing commitment to providing top-tier facilities for students, staff, and the wider community. The new track will enhance training and competition conditions for athletes of all levels and support the continued growth of athletics at UCC, the spokesperson added. As the work gets under way, access to the synthetic pitch alongside the track will be restricted and UCC's Department of Sport and Physical Activity has appealed to clubs and individuals using the facilities to follow the signs that will be in place locally in relation to temporary new access points that will be in place for the duration of the work. The spokesperson said queries from clubs and individual athletes about club athletic track bookings or track membership, please contact UCC Sport at sport@ Read More Michael Moynihan: Broken and damaged footpaths cost us more than you think
Irish Examiner
3 days ago
- General
- Irish Examiner
Record number of students to sit State exams this year
A record number of students will today begin their Leaving Cert, Leaving Cert Applied and Junior Cycle exams as the 2025 State examinations begin. For the first time, the number of students beginning their exams today has surpassed 140,000, which the State Examination Commission (SEC) has linked to increasing demographics. Overall, the number of students set to take the 2025 exams increased by 3% when compared to last year; From 130,160 to 140,457. This includes 61,632 Leaving Certificate candidates, 4,512 final year Leaving Certificate Applied candidates and 74,313 Junior Cycle candidates. The most significant increases were recorded for the Leaving Certificate programme, up 5% when compared to 2024, and the Leaving Certificate Applied programme, which increased this year by 11%. This year also marks the beginning of moves to tackle grade inflation, which increased sharply post-pandemic. The SEC has been asked by the Department of Education to begin 'a gradual return to normal' Leaving Certificate grades in the main, which will involve a post-marking adjustment. This is expected to bring the overall Leaving Certificate results in the aggregate on average to a point broadly midway between the 2020 and 2021 levels. Education Minister Helen McEntee and Minister of State for Special Education Michael Moynihan wished students beginning their exams today good luck. Ms McEntee said: 'I know the amount of work and effort you have put in to reach this point. It is the culmination of many years of effort. 'This can be a very stressful time so I would remind everyone that when it comes to examinations, all we can do is our best. We are all very much behind you over the next few weeks, and I know that regardless of the outcome of these examinations, there will be many great opportunities ahead for you all.' Mr Moynihan said: 'I know the exam period can be a stressful time for students, so please do take care of yourselves and try to take some solace in the fact that there are many pathways to what you may hope to do next, some which you might not envisage at this point in time. You never know when or in what shape certain opportunities will arise. 'The skills and knowledge that you have learned during your schooling will stand to you during the examinations period, and throughout your life.' SEC chair Jacinta Stewart added: 'Today marks a real milestone in the educational journey for the thousands of candidates taking the State examinations. 'On behalf of my fellow commissioners and the staff of the SEC, I want to offer our sincere best wishes to all those taking examinations this year.' 'I also want to express my appreciation to parents and families as well as school communities for supporting these candidates at this very important time in their lives.'
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Inside the identity crisis in anti-woke media
The libertarian journalist Michael Moynihan felt the shift on election night 2024, after it had become clear that Donald Trump would win. He was co-hosting a livestream for The Free Press, a new publication that had boomed in response to The New York Times's leftward turn, and was ranting about the dangers Trump would pose to free speech to an impassive group of anti-woke talkers. 'This is one of those many moments when I realized that this wasn't, shall we say, a stable coalition,' he said in an email last week, after leaving a short stint at The Free Press. 'One didn't have to be especially prescient to spot those 'anti-woke' types who would just slowly become MAGA flunkies.' Moynihan's is a particularly stark example of an identity crisis now tearing through what had been one of the most vibrant slices of American media: the eclectic websites, podcasts, newsletters, and television programs that captured a reaction against left-wing speech-policing, identity politics, and social media-driven protest movements. That loose group, rooted in part in a letter published in Harper's Magazine in 2020, includes HBO's ,the digital show opinion outlets like Quillette, UnHerd and Persuasion, the Jewish online magazine Tablet, and podcasts like and . Now, they are reckoning with a president who has embraced their positions on many of their favored issues — in particular, the traditional boundaries of sex and gender, the role of affirmative action, and the left-wing slant of American academia — but who is pursuing their goals with the illiberal tactics they'd abhorred. 'There's been a crackup of the wider ecosystem,' said co-host Katie Herzog, along two lines: people who are fanatical about free speech but open to disagreement on issues from Gaza to trans rights and those who would crush their political enemies at the expense of speech; and between liberals who want to reform institutions and radicals who would like to destroy and replace them. 'There's a tendency for some media voices that rose to prominence as 'anti-woke' campaigners to become ever more reactionary. Many of them have also not adjusted to the new reality of the Trump presidency — namely, that 'anti-woke' ideas are no longer heretical and counter-establishment; they dominate the government,' said Freddie Sayers, the publisher of the venerable British conservative magazine The Spectator and of UnHerd. He said the latter outlet has been shifting its focus to follow its audience: UnHerd spends 'more time covering geopolitics, science, religion and less time on culture war issues that are waning in relevancy.' Sayers — like many others in this loosely organized sphere — tend to take only oblique shots The Free Press, founded in 2021 by former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss. Some said they were worried about getting on the wrong side of a powerful outlet; more said they like and respect Weiss and didn't want to criticize her publicly. But the outlet, by dint of its success — it told Axios it has nearly 155,000 paid subscribers — is often seen as representative of the whole group. It faces a perception, in the words of another contributor, that it's become a platform for 'moderate Trump sycophants,' in part for giving Trump credit for his hostility towards their shared enemies, and for elevating supporters like self-described 'MAGA leftie' Batya Ungar-Sargon. One investigation that exposed two low-profile employees at PBS who had focused on diversity and got them fired rubbed even some of its allies the wrong way. But it's hardly a MAGA outlet: The Free Press has published a litany of unsigned editorials criticizing Trump on deportations, Russia, the firings of US attorneys, pardons for January 6 rioters, his accepting an airplane as a gift, and other other perceived violations of the rule of law. Indeed, The Free Press is in some ways sui generis among its generation of media: Weiss is a bankable star; her co-founder and wife Nellie Bowles writes a widely-circulated and politically eclectic weekly newsletter; and The Free Press has attracted A-list columnists like the economist Tyler Cowen. Still, allies and critics alike obsess about its trajectory, and its relationship to Trump's movement. 'The Free Press is the only one that's serious about politics,' said the conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who drove public attacks from the right on Harvard University and other institutions. He dismissed the rest of the outlets as 'the permanent contrarian, hovering above the discourse casting judgement on whatever coalition is in power.' He concluded: 'The center-left liberals were not able to 'reform the institutions from within' and are no longer useful as proxies for the right,' Others see the site's trajectory differently: 'It's perfectly possible to be very anti-woke and very anti-Trump. In fact it's the only coherent liberal and old-school conservative position. But it's hard in our tribal age to find an audience that wants to read — let alone support — both,' said the veteran online journalist Andrew Sullivan. He also cited Maher as someone who has succeeded in 'threading the needle,' and said his own audience is 'used to being pissed off at least half the time.' 'I'd love that to be where The Free Press eventually finds its feet,' Sullivan added. 'It's a work in progress and has amazing talent — so here's hoping,' he some of the anti-woke outlets navigate their mixed feelings about the Trump Administration, others are making a more explicit break with the American right. One is Quillette, which was launched in 2015 by Claire Lehmann, a former psychology writer based in Australia and a prominent voice in the global debates around gender and identity who has written bluntly that 'Trans activists have no right to pervert the English language.' Quillette made a name for itself by 'criticizing the excesses of progressive activism' in academia and the media, as Lehmann put it. The publication built up a large following by questioning dominant media narratives around individuals who were driven out of academia, media, or other professional spaces for various misdeeds. But while the frequent admonishment and skepticism of progressive values helped Lehmann grow the online magazine's subscriber footprint, it also gave some readers on the right a false view of Quillette's values, which Lehmann describes as classical liberalism. In recent months, the publication has repeatedly criticized Trump, going after his nationalist economic policies, which one columnist described as 'financial illiteracy.' In a piece titled the writer Cathy Young praised the Trump administration's rollback of DEI policies and policies around gender and trans rights. But the publication said those moves paled in comparison to its missteps: its political appointments, defiance of court orders, hardline immigration stance, and trade moves. 'The dizzying rollercoaster ride of Trump's first hundred days has, in many ways, justified and even exceeded the worst fears of those Trump opponents often accused of suffering from 'Trump Derangement Syndrome,' Young wrote. Quillette has also expressed skepticism of Elon Musk — and, in a particularly pointed break with the attempts to institutionalize the 'anti-woke' movement, ran a piece describing the University of Austin as constrained by its own rigid restrictions on speech and thought. Lehmann said the magazine had gotten used to criticism from the right during the COVID-19 pandemic by breaking with anti-vaccine conservatives. That move was 'costly for us financially,' Lehmann said, adding that the publication lost a potential investor and a substantial number of subscribers over its pro-vaccine position. 'Going through not being audience-captured does require some pain,' she said. 'Our mission has always been the same, and that is like we criticize anti enlightenment thinking and illiberalism where we see it. It's just that it's more salient in different areas at different points in time.' She added: 'I would encourage other media entrepreneurs to be a bit bold and disagree with their audience, because although there might be some short term pain, I think it pays off in the long run.'There's little more thrilling in media than having the cultural winds at your back. That was true for The New York Times when it tacked left, caught the wind of the Black Lives Matter movement, and turned the 1619 Project into a brand-defining juggernaut — and then found itself captured ideologically by its own success in crystallizing the progressive moment. It was true of the momentum that Weiss took from her resignation in summer into The Free Press, bringing along tens of thousands of center-left Times readers who disliked the censorious tone and often the substance of the new progressive agenda. The analogy is imperfect, but I recognize the feeling. I was lucky enough to be a blogger when 'the Web' was the thrilling opposite of the establishment, and to be running BuzzFeed News when social media itself represented a disruptive vertical. But the wind always shifts. The well-capitalized, well-known, and well-distributed outfits can poach your best talent and absorb your best ideas. The movement with which you're associated can, God forbid, win. Some of the anti-woke voices, like Harvard's Steven Pinker, are now firmly in the anti-Trump camp and decrying the excesses of anti-anti-Semitism in the pages of the Times. Others will simply be absorbed by the conservative movement. 'The decline of sustained anti-woke media seems to be a product of their own success and Trump's,' said The Spectator's Ben Domenech, who said that he saw most of that group, other than , simply becoming conservative. 'The anti-establishment thinkers became the new establishment. That makes for pretty boring content,' The Atlantic's Helen Lewis told me. Indeed, Rufo's grouse about reflexive contrarianism is what you'd expect a political activist to say. In journalism, there's nothing duller, and more soul-crushing, than being an attack dog for the party of splintering has been afoot almost since the reactionary movement's inception, when Blocked & Reported co-host Jesse Singal warned of 'anti-wokeness curdling into reactionary crankery.' The New York Times in 2020 citing, in part, the dominant role of social media: 'Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor. As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space.' The anti-woke right laid the foundation for a new illiberalism, and 'they did so in the most pernicious way possible — by smuggling censorship into American life under the banner of free speech and free thought,' David French wrote in The New York Times. Part of the new intellectual scaffolding was formed in group chats, as we explored in this space.
Irish Examiner
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Irish Examiner
SNAs may get better job security under NCSE scheme
Work is under way on a scheme to improve job security for special needs assistants (SNAs) that will allow them to move to another school when faced with falling enrolments or changing demographics. An SNA redeployment scheme, to be operated by the National Council for Special Education (NCSE), will, for the first time, allow SNAs to be redeployed to another school, if they are no longer required in the initial school. Currently, SNAs are allocated as a school-based resource. Their job security can be influenced if a student moves on from a school, demographics change, or care needs are reduced. Some have spent their whole career not knowing whether or not they will have a job the following September. Helen McEntee, the minister for education minister, and Michael Moynihan, minister of state for special education, have confirmed that work is under way on a redeployment scheme. There are more than 23,000 SNAs in schools across the country, Ms McEntee said. 'They are at the heart of our schools, both mainstream and special education schools,' she said. It is crucial that experienced SNAs can be redeployed to a school where a vacant post arises, allowing them to stay in the sector and ensuring they can continue to share their skills and experience with children and young people with significant care needs. This scheme will increase job security for SNAs, and encourage prospective SNAs to enter the workforce, she added. 'Crucially, the scheme will benefit children and school communities by ensuring that the SNA workforce is agile, and in a position to respond to emerging needs.' The scheme has been undertaken in conjunction with ongoing work on the first SNA workforce development plan, which is scheduled for publication later this year. SNAs are integral to how children with additional needs are supported in our schools, said Mr Moynihan. 'It is a priority for me and this Government to ensure appropriate supports are in place to facilitate attendance and participation by all children in school. 'The skills and experience which SNAs accrue through their work supporting children with special educational needs are a significant asset in the pathway to achieving inclusion in the education sector.' The allocation circular for SNAs in mainstream schools is due to be published shortly. This circular will advise all schools on their SNA allocation for the 2025/2026 school year, and it will also reference the redeployment scheme. NCSE chief executive John Kearney said the scheme will also build capacity in the SNA workforce, adding: 'The scheme ensures valuable skills are not lost as the level of need shifts between schools.' Work on the first SNA workforce development is expected to be published in September.
Irish Independent
23-04-2025
- Health
- Irish Independent
Major blow for long-awaited rural Cork health facility as its developers pull out of project
The project, which was due to go to construction this time last year, has now seen the developer who had initially won the tender pull out of the project – meaning the HSE will now have to re-tender the Primary Care Centre. The project was due to be developed by Dublin-based Manderley Holdings, who had employed Meitheal Architects to take on the job. The centre had been in planning since February 2018 and had been granted permission in December of that year. The centre had previously been held up over clarification on consent from Cork County Council regarding the use of a public road, which was clarified in a letter sent from Cork Kerry Community Healthcare to TD Michael Moynihan. The development was set to include medical consulting, treatment, and GP rooms, a mental health facility, an ancillary healthcare professional services suits, along with landscaping works and the inclusion of 21 car parking spaces and one ambulance drop-off point. However, in a response to a parliamentary question posed by local Fine Gael TD John Paul O'Shea, the HSE have confirmed that the developer has informed the executive that 'they are unable to proceed with the development under the previous agreed terms and conditions.' It means the proposed Primary Care Centre will now be re-tendered via the HSE's e-tender process, which is expected to start 'in the coming months'. O'Shea says the news is a 'disappointment' and says it will 'delay considerably' the project, which is among eight Primary Care Centres currently in delivery by the HSE. 'I'd encourage the HSE to re-tender it as soon as possible so we can go from there.'
