iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Nice words from the Taoiseach for our departing colleague, the incomparable and irreplaceable Miriam Lord, who’s on the Press Gallery for the last time today 👏🏻

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On a national scale, perhaps. On an individual constituency basis, if you’re sticking with single-seat constituencies, AV and PRSTV are functionally identical systems. PRSTV for consistencies that elect only one MP is pretty much precisely what was put in the referendum in 2011.

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Ah, in fairness for single-seat constituencies they’re so similar as to be purposefully identical. If nobody gets a majority (i.e. the quota) you eliminate the lowest candidate and distribute their votes onward. The sentiment and outworking are virtually identical.

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I’m old enough to remember when the UK had a referendum on this, and Andy Burnham opposed it. (It was 2011.)

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Tonight on #MondayGR: • Drumcree deadlock. How did we get here, and is there a way out? • Are we destined for a second round of fuel protests in the days after the Budget? • Has the drama of Debrecen caused fissures in Irish football that might never heal? Your comments please wa.me/353896074218

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Can you link to the first application? I see plenty of weekly ones but none to have taken place on July 5 which was the one at issue

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IIRC the Commission had effectively required the marchers to engage with local community and find acceptable consensus before applying. The JR found this was beyond the Commission’s stipulated criteria and forced a completely fresh review of how a march might be allowed

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Parades Commission was asked, and denied, as has been annual case since 1998. This year marchers sought judicial review, which found some sloppy procedural defects (not all Commissioners had input, and criteria for approval too high). Marchers thus applied again and won approval under new procedure

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Don’t be at all surprised if Stormont collapses one way or another this week – SF because the present-day structures don’t serve the interest of nationalists; DUP because the First Minister participated in an unlawful protest gathering – and for another stalemate that last for *years*.

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Reported by @davidsneyd.bsky.social on @the42.ie this morning that the player responsible for this subsequently went to Bazunu’s room and apologised to him. Meanwhile: one defender will be made tog out as a goalkeeper tonight because UEFA rules require matchday squads to have three goalkeepers

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This amounts to a 6.3% increase on the last Budget (or 5.5% if it also includes pensions)

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🚨 The squad registered by Ireland for today’s game includes QPR defender Jimmy Dunne registered as a goalkeeper, so as to fulfil the ‘three GKs’ rule

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Ireland v Israel: Day of infamy exposes serious lack of leadership in FAI

Also reported by @gcooney93.bsky.social in the Irish Times tonight that following the team meeting and vote, some players “turned on Bazunu, one of whom is understood to have abused him to his face”

irishtimes.com

Gavin Bazunu has been left brutally isolated as any semblance of squad unity has been utterly sundered

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Kerr also says Bazunu was not informed about the squad meeting this morning - ostensibly called to consider the options after Bazunu refused to agree to a players’ statement sketched out last night - and didn’t attend. The squad vote took place without his input or presence.

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Kerr ctd.: “It’s been suggested to him that it’d be better if he leaves the squad, which I think is disgraceful because they’ve a match against Austria to play, and why shouldn’t he be involved in that game?”

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Brian Kerr on Virgin Media: “I’ve been in touch with [Gavin Bazunu] this evening, and he’s feeling quite low, and shunned by some of the players and by the FAI… (🧵)

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I’m not a football hack so I’m not in those circles, thus I can’t surmise WHO exactly players might be consulting with when they’re in a situation like that l

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It’s not plausible. It’s a transparent and unmanipulable demonstration of incompetence.

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Hallgrimsson subsequently said that goalkeepers were also not among the players he held one-to-one conversations with, as he is not their ordinary point of contact within the backroom. He also said any player who joined the squad would have known what fixtures were forthcoming.

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What has emerged at a later part of the FAI press conference: Knowing the circumstances of the upcoming games, the FAI did a trawl of prospective callups and checked with abut 30 of the most likely players to ensure they were comfortable fulfilling those fixtures. Goalkeepers were not among them.

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The Ireland players intend to wear black armbands for “all lives lost in the conflict”; the players and FAI will make charity donations (including a portion of the Austria gate revenue next Thursday), and some elements of pre-match formalities will not go ahead

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🚨 Israel v Republic of Ireland game goes ahead, FAI’s David Courell confirms, at delayed press conference in Debrecen Fresh meeting this morning followed one player (goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu) saying they wanted to withdraw from the squad Squad voted after that meeting to establish the view

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Gavan Reilly @gavreilly.com · 25/09/2026

Context to Gavin Bazunu’s position: a matchday squad of 23 must be submitted to UEFA before midnight tonight, and *must* include three goalkeepers. Were he to simply refuse to play, the FAI would only be able to submit a squad if they (farcically) redesignated an outfielder as a goalkeeper.

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1️⃣7️⃣,8️⃣8️⃣5️⃣ Another new record for the number of people in emergency accommodation, as of the end of August. Includes 12,055 adults (+7% yoy) and 5,830 children (11% yoy). @virginmedianews.bsky.social

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Gavan Reilly @gavreilly.com · 25/09/2026

This single image comes closer to explaining the state of the parties in Irish politics than anything I’ve ever seen

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Gavan Reilly @gavreilly.com · 24/09/2026

Since I wrote that article, they have changed the question-lodging system so that you have to enter questions through a form instead of pasting them in bulk into the body of an email. It doesn’t appear to have made much of a dent in overall quantity

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Gavan Reilly @gavreilly.com · 24/09/2026

POLL: Irish Times/Ipsos B&A (Sept 21-22, MoE 2.8%) Sinn Féin 23 (-1 since February) Fianna Fáil 18 (-1) Fine Gael 17 (-1) Social Democrats 8 (+1) Aontú 5 (+2) Labour 4 Ind Ireland 4 Greens 3 PBP-Solidarity 3 (+1) Inds/others 14 (-1)

irishtimes.com

Help with heating costs is top priority for voters in Budget 2027, Irish Times poll finds

Satisfaction with Government falls to lowest rating in six years, but support for Sinn Féin and Mary Lou McDonald is also down

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Reposted by Gavan Reilly

Virgin Media News @virginmedianews.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The authors of a new report shared exclusively with Virgin Media News say Ireland “can’t afford” to continue its data centre boom. Academics at UCD and Maynooth University say the capital invested in data centre construction over five years could have funded 50,000 new homes. #VMNews

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Gavan Reilly @gavreilly.com · 23/09/2026

People strategically asking them every day who should fix their gas boiler, just to suss out whether they’re actually swapping or not

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We got that PC in November 1996 and Office was so generally unburdened you could double click the icon and it just… opened a blank doc immediately. Wizardry

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You can imagine how I felt when I moved from “56”k land to UCD, where the WiFi was so abundant and (relatively) unused that you were genuinely seeing stuff load instantaneously and any browser delays were at the server’s end, not the user. Felt like a caveman discovering fire for the first time

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The telephone exchange we were linked to was absolute garbage so it was routinely more like 10k. I remember using another 56k a while later and genuinely asking if they’d had ISDN installed

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Get a load of this bad boy with a massive sixteen (16!) megabytes of RAM *and* a built-in 56k modulator-demodulator! Perfect for researching on Encarta or sending that long-overdue email to friends and family!

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