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A PUBLIC TOILET built decades ago in Dublin has been demolished.
The well known structure, one of 70 public toilets in Dublin, was located across the road from the RDS, at the junction of Anglesea Road and Merrion Road.
These public conveniences – some built over 100-years-ago – stretched from Harolds Cross to Howth. They were frequently used back when they were first built, as many people in Dublin did not have an indoor toilet and some had none at all.
As recently as 1990, there were still 33 staff working as public toilet attendants and some remained opened for part of the 90s, including those on O’Connell Street and Stephen’s Green. However these were eventually closed too.
Dublin City Council put the location up for auction last year but the decision was later made to demolish the building and the work was carried out yesterday.
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I admire Vincent Browne. I cannot say the same of Mr. O’Brien
Agreed.
Totally agree with VB on this one.
Denis will find few independent people who would believe his move to Portugal was for any other reason to avoid CGT, the fact he expects people to believe his excuse says it all. Ego has corroded his character it seems.
Vincent Browne has put it to power in Ireland more than any other journalist, I do not always agree with him but admire him immensely.
Im not a fan of O’Brien , but avoiding the tax was a perfectly legal thing to do and everyone would have done exactly the same. I think its unfair to pick on people for avoiding paying the already bloated taxes in this country.
There is an argument for people who earn their money outside of Ireland to then be expected to hand it over to an incompetent government who spend it primarily on ensuring high incomes/pensions for their incompetent cronies. However Denis O’Brien made his first windfall on a business that was exclusively based in Ireland, the dubious circumstances of money transfers amongst Denis O’Brien, third parties and the Govt Minister then in charge aside, the source of the windfall was the value of the license granted to O’Brien’s Company by the Irish State, Irish People were the sole customers of the business, all the wealth created was from Irish customers and in such a circumstance he ought to have paid his tax on the revenue, he initially suggested he would on the Late Late Show but then chose not to, he is now suggesting that his move to a country and change in status to a Tax exile was not for the purpose of evading tax, he will probably pay for it with his reputation which is disgraceful compouned by his constant attempts to bully and intimidate people who publish the facts of his dealings. He is a very talented businessman but it seems his ego and lust for power and control blind him to the detrimental damage his recent actions have done to his reputation , probably too many yes men around him as well.
Correction that should say “avoiding tax” as someone pointed out above, what he did was perfectly legal.
The point I am making is that Denis O’Brien is probably a fairly decent human being with good intentions that has been corrupted by greed and delusion, seeking to intimidate people who are unlikely to be intimidated by him.
One of the few people in this country with the grapes to speak truth to power. We need a thousand more like him.
Fair dues to you Vincent! This country could do with more people like you! Where else in the civilised world would behaviour like O’Briens and Lowry’s be tolerated? Our so called political leaders haven’t got the guts to take those two parasites on!
Quinn came on the show and would probably go on it again.
Why would a man who is BFF with Sean Fitzpatrick and who owns half our ”media” refuse to go on the show?
Would you have something to hide (Billionaire, Bilderberger, Tax Exile) Denis?
Go on, you can bring Lowry with you.
Hey Harry
He could hold Edna’s hand too . Some show that would be ….. Lowry , O’Brien and Kenny ! ….. Lol ..
Kenny could carry the suitcases !
They could hold the interview at Farmleigh.
Vincent Browne , Congratulations to you for being a strong man in the face of dirty tricks loaded with lots of money and assumed power. Denis O Brien may think he can control the media but thanks to V Browne and sites like this it is a real pleasure to be able to tell Mr O Brien to go and take a run and jump. It is my opinion that Mr O Brien even sounds like a true blueshirt .
for example…..
”I had moved to Portugal some time before the sale of Esat Telecom to British Telecom, and did so for perfectly valid and legitimate personal and business reasons. Once again you are guilty of perpetrating the lazy version of history.”
Mr O Brien has been found to be a cheat in business to offer back handers to a minister ( Lowry) to gain favors in business. A leopard does not change it’s spots . I support Mr Browne .
It must have been Michael McDowell’s advise to shine the light on Denis O’Brien’s attempts at intimidation that were heard. Denis O’Brien attempts at intimidation are a sad reflection on him, he seems to do more damage to his own reputation than any one else.
Of Course …. That’s a name I have not heard in a while , the mighty Mr Mc Dowell…… Destroyer of the prison service and the Gardai when he was a joke Minister for Justice . Maybe he is advising Mr O Brien would they all know the same people from way back ? The more you think about all this , the more disillusioned one gets.
@ Eileen destroyer of prison officer overtime more like….
What did he do to destroy the Gardai?
@ Eileen. For the record, if you read the Sunday Independent two days ago*, you will see that Mr McDowell has an opinion piece in it that actually makes it quite clear what side of the line he is on with regard to Mr O’Brien, and it is not on the side favouring Mr O’Brien.
A little more effort and little less presumption would do us all a world of good. And before you ask, I don’t particularly rate McDowell’s politics.
- And no I wouldn’t be a fan of that publishing house either, for the record.
Andrew
Thank you for that link . I had not read that paper on Sunday and yes he does seem to be more than I gave him credit for ….
@ Gavin Tobin,
You do not know what you are talking about ,but then again if that is what you believe , The media did it’s job by selling the tripe that was put out back then. For the record Not all POs did overtime, by choice…. but after Mc Dowell was finished, all were obliged to do it( OBLIGED being the operative word) ….. That was to cut down on the wages individuals who chose to do overtime received . .Anyway not the thread for it ,except to say that media spin is a very powerful commodity, and Denis O ‘Brien owns a lot of it and thank goodness for V Browne for standing up to him.
Eileen didn’t you recently have a talk about how the media discriminate against the hard left in Ireland? Well maybe the answer is that everything the hard left speaks on comes back to conspiracy theories and name calling against the centre and the right. Maybe putting forward a realistic alternative might work rather than sulking about the media not taking you seriously?
Ryan
Who is name calling or sulking . Mr O Brien owns the media . Mr Browne is standing up to him , I admire Mr Browne . I own my own opinions and I am always open to sincere dialogue, not attempted put downs. What do you mean by hard left ? I am not affiliated to any left …
Pay your taxes in Ireland Denis, then we might listen to you
If Sean Quinn had used his considerable wealth and dubious borrowings to shove Mick Lowry over €1million, donate over €71k to FG and take control of the Irish media he could be ringing bells with Kenny at the New York Stock Exchange.
Endas little earner feeling the heat, He might send Enda after Vinny to bark at him. After-all FG do benefit from this guy, political donations etc.! Why should O’Brien be afraid of anyone now, FG are in power and everyone beware. This Country is rotten to the core, with corruption and we blame the rest of Europe for getting Tough!
Where exactly is Enda Kenny mentioned in this article?
Go away Denis, OH forgot you did, but you like to come back and explain to us what we need to do. Keep your opinions to yourself, we gave you enough already we have no more to give. Keep up the good work Vinnie
Vincent Browne ur a legend !!!!
George Orwell once said: Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed – everything else is public relations.
Vincent Browne, in this case and many others, is a true journalist. He’s one of very few that our small nation has and unfortunately, he might be the only one.
It’s refreshing to see Denis O’Brien finally being taken on and being questioned for his shady past. Vinny’s a great role model and someone I hope to emulate.
I wrote an article about Denis O’Brien and the terrible media we have in Ireland.
http://inspiredeconomist.com/2012/07/03/when-the-irish-media-fails-its-people/
I hope somehow, someway, we can see the O’Brien empire crumble and his true colours to be fully exposed. Changed always happens. It is up to us, the citizens, to fast forward this change and make justice of it all.
Vincent, the nation is behind you. Keep asking the difficult questions.
Vinny will be getting his marching orders soon and probably will be replaced by an establishment mule like we dont have enough already the same faith as Dunphy.Ratings for Tonight with Denis O Brien will still be high because current affair programme’s are on the slide and people want to debate control the debate forget the important issues have us worrying about irrelevant topics while the country gets robbed blind.Remember all the current affair programme’s while Bertie was in office gloating about how great we FF were their gone now and one would be hard pressed to find a decent Political show now and when Vinny leaves will be stuck with Miriam and her feckin cleavage.Dumb De Dumb Dumb Numb
“Never trust a millionaire quoting the sermon on the mount” or in this case a billionaire.
or “Behind every great fortune, there is a great crime” – Balzac. Either one can apply to O’Brien.
O’Brien is a perfect example of the gombeen man that has ruined Ireland . In times past he would have been boycotted and treated as a leper not lauded by the political class
Sam Smyth has had to stop writing about O’ Brien and Lowery. These bullies will get their way and and nobody will be able to stop them. Lowery is insignificant and most people know he is a lying cheat but O Brien wants to have us believe he is in some way a decent honest person. Well nobody in this country thinks O Brien and Lowery are any better than the drug dealers in Mountjoy. They bully to get what they want.
VB will not be bullied.
Every major media outlet in the world is now owned by the super rich and the rest just copy and paste their crap. Only reason i listen to them now is to find out what agenda their pursuing cause its certainly not to find out the news.
Keep your shoulder to the wheel Vincent, and if he bullies with money, appeal to the Irish people for help with the costs and you will be pleasantly surprised.
This is something we will pay for without question.
Grinder , Well said . It is people with principals and honesty you will find get support when it is needed . Not crooked individuals who are only out for what they can get on the backs of other’s hard work. V Browne will get support.
You are all so negative towards Denis.
Denis moved to Portugal because the weather is lovely there. Only a cynic would suggest it was because of the zero rate Capital Gains Tax.
After some years Denis moved to Malta where again the weather is very pleasant. Again only the cynic would suggest this had anything to do with the big increase in Portugals CGT and the very low CGT in Malta.
Exactly, only a cynic that hates freedom and job creators, instead of critciaing this great man we should be building statutes of him in every town, and ignore anyone taking about the findings of a mere “fact finding tribunal”, this great leader who provides us with our media and employees completely impartial journalists, this great man who prevents certain journalists who dislike our freedoms from stating “facts” that are only there to paint the great man in poor light, he does like the weather and the tax incentive aspect of these place is of course coincidental and it is people who dislike the great man who could even suggest such an absurd inference! Denis should move to a country where people’s opinions are easier to manipulate, the media easier to control , and the lust for money a complete blinder to any misdeeds of negative effects associated with same, its likely his arguments would work there but fortunately he is only digging deeper here,
Regardless of any allegations against an individual, it is a threat to democracy to allow the emergence of an Irish Murdoch/Berlusconi in terms of dominance of the Irish media. It must be asked why FG appear reluctant to address this issue, e,.g. the failure to pass the media bill before the Summer Break as Rabbitte wanted, which would have transferred responsibility for media ownership from the DETE to the Dept of Communications and Natural Resources.
Thanks to Vincent Browne & the likes of The Journal for at least giving us the opportunity to read and post comments about this important issue. I have yet to hear this issue covered on Today FM, Newstalk or any other media outlet owned by DOB. Yes, I know that the Sindo had a front page article on this last week, but that this is only because the editor is against DOB gaining control of the paper. “Power corrupts…..Absolute power corrupts absolutely”
Bully boy & typical blueshirt tactics by O’Brien – stifle freedom of opinion and expression – are we surprised really?
I wonder what the Indo and Sindo will have to say about all this!
”Change* always happens” that should read!
To Vincent brown – D’uh!!!!
O’brien is disliked by the majority of Irish people. He’s a sad man with no friends so causes trouble to keep him busy and further play monopoly with his money. I Pity him.
What Mr. O’Brien has forgot I think, is that Vincent is trained as a barrister. And I’m glad there is only one person on this stream so far that feels the need to support O’Brien. Although there’s a lot of thumbs down. But I am starting to think that that’s a hobby of some on here.
DOB has a point about the govt mis spending the revenue earned but its not a reason. all enormously wealthy individuals in this state avoid paying tax if they can. DOB employs more people than U2 for instance, should we chastise them more or less for hiding their money? on this issue of using his wealth to intimidate journos I agree, its outrageous but he hires an awful lot of Irish people both here and abroad which should be noted.
You won’t find many here who look at the wider picture. They’ll complain on one story on how much tax they pay and how it is wasted so badly (as well as possibly refusing to pay their household charge), then on the next story they’ll criticise someone who legally avoids paying tax here in this country. Yet if they were in O’Briens situation they’d do the same thing. Sure isn’t Ireland partly dependant on tax avoiding transnationals? Irish hypocrisy is breathtaking sometimes and not just at the level of the elite.
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