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THE PUBLIC ACCOUNTS committee (PAC) is to write to Junior Minister for Skills and Training, John Halligan to ask him to clarify a statement he made regarding the questioning of Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT).
Officials from the college appeared before the PAC last week.
Questions focused on how companies co-located within WIT were commercialised and in some cases sold off. The officials were asked about what policies were in place to deal this.
Waterford TD David Cullinane asked about the potential conflicts of interest there might be where people involved had various capacities within the college.
It’s understood the Independent Alliance TD took issue with the line of questioning, and made statements on the issue to the media.
“Destabilising effect”
Halligan warned that such suggestions could have a “destabilising effect” on WIT when it is at a “critical point” of gaining university status.
Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou McDonald said it is “astonishing” a minister would consider it appropriate to put out a statement that appears to “rap the knuckles of the PAC”.
“I want to know what we are going to do about that,” she asked the chair, Sean Fleming.
What I am querying here is that a minister deemed it appropriate to intervene in that way, I think it is completely inappropriate. I can’t imagine what he was thinking…
She said at a minimum, the committee should write to the minister and explain “we are doing our job and we will continue to do our job”.
Sending out statements ‘willy-nilly’
“We need to stop this – what next? Every minister can willy-nilly fire out statements and attempt to undermine what has been very thorough work and very necessary work,” she said.
Fleming said because the statement came from a government department it was a serious issue.
“We are in an open society. Anybody, including a minister, is entitled to criticise our work… I think people have the right to criticise us – we are not above criticism.”
However, he said he wants clarification from John Halligan as to what he was referring to in his statement. If he cannot back up his remarks, he should withdraw them, said Fleming.
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Watched a fantastic documentary called “the Phenomenon” last night. Even the most hardened sceptic would be doing well to walk away unconvinced. Very convincing testimonies from ex high ranking officials and military. The last section about a ufo school landing in Zimbabwe in the 90s was fascinating. Worth a watch.
@John Sheahan: that landing you refer to was very much debunked. While the incidents are not immediately explainable it’s still possible to be a number of things. Experimental vehicle tests for one by their own intelligence agencies or something Chinese or Russian. The least likely is aliens. When you look at it from purely factual point of view why would any intelligent life travel for millennia to come and watch some fighter jets? With what we know of the cosmos it’s extremely extremely unlikely that it’s anything from outside our own world. They keep happening and USA has laser weapons. Should engage, take down and study.
@Tom Ripley: Download the 1999 COMETA Report (made by Comité d’Études Approfondies, “Committee for in-depth studies”) It’s a famous military-ufological report, from a private French group mainly composed of high-ranking individuals from the French Ministry of Defence. You might find its conclusions interesting as they are directly opposite to your own. Definitely worth a read or you can skip directly to the ‘Conclusions and Recommendations’ section. So far as I know it hasn’t been debunked…
@Tom Ripley: have you seen the documentary? Also that particular schol incident was never effectively debunked. Sure, a few sceptics theorised some improbable theories but I’ve yet to find a plausible one. UFOs have be observed for millennia so the whole China/Russia excuse is red herring.
@John Sheahan: Most self-professed sceptics in this area are really what I term ‘scofftics’. True sceptics try to leave their preconceptions and biases behind and consider all the evidence objectively and dispassionately whereas scofftics have already decided that what’s being claimed cannot possibly be true under any circumstances so evidence is essentially irrelevant…
@Tom Ripley: very much Debunked…when…by whom ..can you send on a link to where u came across this & please don’t let it be sceptic magazine
@Hear me now: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/skeptoid.com/audio/skeptoid-4760.mp3
There you go
@Tom Ripley: ah the ould mass hysteria. I’m not buying it. Watch the interviews with the kids. They’re not making it up and very similar descriptions and drawings. The argument that they were familiar with what a ufo looked like is nonsense, if ufos and aliens are real then obviously they will look very similar to what others have seen. The large eyed “grey” Aliens in Popular culture were based on real life reports, not the other way around.
There’s also a present day interview with them, story hasn’t changed and they are totally convincing. Perhaps they’re all trained actors since birth? Plausible.
@Tom Ripley: Brian Dunning who runs Skeptoid, like the extremely smug Joe Nickell another so-called ‘scientific sceptic’ tends to operate on the basis of ‘You couldn’t possibly have seen what you thought you saw because these things couldn’t possibly exist in my worldview! So you must be mistaken, delusional, hysterical, drunk/high, lying or attention seeking. Trust me, I’m a sceptic, I know about these things and you’re wrong…’ They’re also two of the best at cherry-picking evidence to suit their belief systems and ignoring or dismissing what they can’t explain…
@Tom Ripley: I Googled the Ruwa case a few years ago assuming it would be mass hysteria but all I could find was results in psychological papers stating that this event didn’t seem to be hysteria at all & that the children had seen something.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3588562/
@John Murphy: yeah just like children of Fatima and Knock. Remember how moving stayed were a thing back in 85. Come on. Bit of common sense.
@Tom Ripley: “when you look at it from purely factual point of view” sounds like everything you said there that you have all the facts, btw where are your facts coming from? Or are you the usual character with all the facts and answers in this world lol. Tbh, you don’t know until you know – stop claiming otherwise
Of course they have, now, again, they know what’s coming!
The truth is out there
@John kane: just wasn’t the same when they killed off CGB Spender. That and the lack of mulder in season 9.
@Luke: I was actually too scared to watch it most of the times. I could just about manage Are you afraid of the dark.
Always on a Monday evening in winter. The 90s kids version of the fear
Covid was started by aliens..to soften us up. The know the half-baked vaccines will kill us. We’re due a visit shortly. Lock up your women.
Even the Pentagon are being brainwashed by conspiracy theories…. Aliens …? We need Pat Kenny to get an ‘Ology Expert’ on the radio to poo-poo these outlandish claims …..
@Martin Galvin: wha? Can’t tell if you are being sarcastic or…
Our perceptions of UFOs can’t possibly match what people see, as its fictionalised for one thing. Do aliens look like the ones in ridley Scott’s film or Marvin the Martian in Bugs Bunny?
@Pauline Gallagher: Meant to say what people claim to see.
have your say