Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
MINISTER OF STATE Brian Hayes has travelled to the New York neighbourhood of Breezy Point today to announce Irish Government funding of $50,000 to help the regeneration project in the area.
Hayes will attend the reopening of a community centre, devastated by Superstorm Sandy last year, which is used by 350 young people who are involved in athletics programmes in the area. Now fully refurbished, the centre’s reopening will mean that the Breezy Point youth athletics programme can be restarted immediately.
The funding of $50,000 is part of a total of $320,000 (€250,000) to be provided to assist Irish-American communities in New York and New Jersey most affected by the natural disaster. The Irish Government has already allocated funding of $60,000, which was dispersed equally between the three Irish Centres in New York – the Aisling, Emerald Isle & New York Centres to assist their pro-active response to the impact of Sandy. The Centres’ support has ranged from acting as co-ordinators for the distribution of clothes and food as well as outreach initiatives to people in the various locations.
Speaking at Breezy Point today, Hayes said:
Sometimes it is in adversity that we see the very best of people, and the response of the community to support the recovery efforts in the areas most impacted by Sandy, has been hugely impressive. The two ‘Irish Days of Action’ organised by the Consulate in the immediate aftermath of Sandy saw over 1,500 people travel out to the Rockaways and other areas to lend a hand in the clean up and recovery efforts. Since then, the focus has moved to rebuilding the community infrastructure.
He added that he hoped the funding and support of the Irish Government for community projects will help in “a practical and meaningful way.”
The Minister also spoke of his visit on Friday to the Irish Arts Centre in New York where, the Office of Public Works in Ireland has been lending its considerable expertise in architectural design for a number of years to the Arts Centre for its exciting project of the development of a new purpose-built Centre on a site donated by the City of New York
The Office of Public Works has noted that the emergency funding to Irish voluntary organisations is being made available from within existing resources in the budget of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and complements the work already being undertaken by the Consulate General in New York, which cooperates closely with the Irish community organisations concerned.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
He sounds like great craic
He must be a blueshirt.
I wonder could we get him over here ? Savings of about €150k on salary and he will clean up crime as well !
This geriatric tosser wont stand up to any real criminals. Hes just another dictator who’ll be hard on citizens while he lives off backhanders from organised crime. Where are all the assassins gone?
They’re off making a film with Michael Fassbender.
Makes Donald sound like a pinky left liberal.
Hillary can supply him with the arms and ammo from her ISIS stash
Could do with him in Ireland !!
Snipers should be brought in here to sort out the gangland problem
Sounds more like a dictator!
Interesting approach good luck with that
Just rhink about this for a minute. If parents let their kids out at night he will jail the parents. So who will look after the kids then? The State? Who will pay for that? It just demonstrates the kind of knee jerk red neck thinking of this moron. He doesn’t fight crime he just gets the State to commit crime instead of the “private sector”. Murders become state sanctioned executions and robberies become “contributions”. He is definitely a dictator in the making and the people of the Phillipines will dearly regret electing him.
Or maybe it will stop parents allowing their children out at night..
he has been doing this for 20 years in davao. we have a Penal code. laws of the land that protects minors from abuse and neglect. before we assume lets read the facts first.
People on here seem to forget he was freely elected with a massive majority of the vote. I know many are opposed to the Death Penalty. But look at what crimes he is proposing to introduce it for. Murder, Terrorism, Rape, Child Molestation, Armed Robbery and Drug Smuggling/Dealing. All crimes many on here have said should be dealt with in the most draconian manner. And how many times have we read stories of feral kids here roaming in packs, attacking frontline emergency personnel and have read comments about making the parents pay. As for his shoot to kill policy. Simple solution, don’t resist being arrested.
And it’s that simple is it?
Yes Deborah, it is that simple.
Do you really think drug dealers/smugglers should be hung?
Yes Mick, you are that simple
I never pretended to be complicated Ross. Only the pretentious try to be.
Hi Mick, I am from the Philippines it is very sad to think my people forgot that they got rid of Martial Law and what the call a dictator only to go back to this. I wish and pray it works for their benefit and future.
As I said Theresa the vast majority of your countrymen voted for him in free elections knowing full well what his policies were and his history as mayor. People must have seen no alternative in the other candidates when it came to tackling crime.
Hitler, Mugabe, Al bashir, lukashenko and most importantly for this story, Ferdinand Marcos were all elected and look how their ruling turned out.
Ross. We got Enda. Nobody is claiming that a Free Democratic election is perfect but it is the Peoples choice. And in this case he was elected by a vast majority of the Filipino people. He made no attempt to hide his policies, his history as Mayor of Davao city was there for all to see and yet still they voted for him in their millions.
And we think we are hard done by with Enda in charge
Just a different type of dictator
What a nice fellow.
They should fear the IMF mafia more and the march of aggressive neo liberal capitalism which has been destroying them. Watch this documentary.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79bZ71fUZRU
oh a good crack down on drug dealers, rapist and murders sounds like a great idea. and for parents who let their kids walk the streets at night in such a dangerous place should not be allow look after kids.
Extra-judicial killings are not the way forward no matter what. And I have always been perfectly safe in the Philippines.
It’s an interesting case study all the same.
I was in Davao last year and the people there love him. It was extremely safe by day and night although there is a very visible police force on the streets all fully armed. Smoking is banned literally everywhere and bars close at 1:30am. People in the city all seemed very happy and say it’s a god send from the days when Davao was the murder Capitol of the Phillipines. Whether such draconian ideology work across the nation remains to be seen but with so many phillipinos sick of crime and corruption you can see why they voted for him….
The majority of my friends here in Belfast are Filipino and I’m surprised by the support for him given the votes they cast in our recent election in the north. Why Miriam Defensor Santiago’s polling was so low is staggering – a highly intelligent, able, socially liberal academic and former International Criminal Court Judge. She may be mouthy but she was more than able. For Duterte to win, and for Marcos to poll astronomically higher than Miriam is completely and totally beyond me. It’s American-style cult of personality madness!
Or maybe the country want a serious change
Robbi, Mirriam was the only deserving candidate, if not for her being very sick ( granted she said her stage 4 cancer is in remission) people are in no doubt would have voted for her. Marcos is running for VP and Merriam is for President so their votes don’t connect.
This article perfectly encapsulates how bad the AFP is. Duterte is a plague and is a step backwards for The Philippines, it’s literally the easiest honest hit piece in the world to write but they just can’t help themselves. “He claimed Davao is one of the safest cities in the Philippines” well is it or isn’t it? How hard is it to quote the figures to us? Are they that afraid of admitting he may have been successful at one thing? God just report the facts and leave out the spin.
He must be Muslim…
He sounds absolutely crazy!!! I fear for the country!!!
have your say