Niall O’Hara has pointed out the audience participant in this clip is Micheál Frain who unsuccessfully stood for Labour in 2014 and Fine Gael in 2009.

He's now being promoted as one of two independent options by RTÉ for Ballaghaderreen voters. The other guy's a foreigner. You can see him at 53:51 at the community meeting.

Frain told Katie Hannon that he wished Ballaghaderrenn could have proved a successful role model for the plantation if only the government had just provided a few extra services for the planters.

Well happy days because Hannon managed to Jim'll Fix It for Ballaghaderren to get that school extension they need so now the town can continue being planted. 😏

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🚨 Community Alert for Waterford

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Just on the Paul Connelly story as there's been some confusion in the details:

The phone with the red casing pictured below does not belong to Paul Connolly unless it's a second burner phone he owns. There are actually two phones in the footage which has been circulating. The phone with the black casing belongs to Paul Connolly and the one with the red casing probably belongs to someone else.

Ireland Against Fascism's Charlotte O'Sullivan appears in the call logs of both phones. On Connelly's phone, she's listed as Char NTP which possibly stands for Newstalk Podcast.

I've seen some people suggest the whatsapp conversation below is between Khurram Adnan Ishtiaq and Paul Connolly but Ishtiaq is likely texting a third party about his procurement of caps and hoodies.

However, there is a message from a contact on Paul Connolly's phone which reads:

"I don't see an issue unless things get hairy at the city centre one and they are potentially in more danger in Coolock that they were in in city centre or if a crowd were to follow them from city centre for example but I assume that is unlikely. They can only call that in the moment."

There's evidence on the phone suggesting Connolly has been in contact with a security company called Security Central.

Khurram Adnan Ishtiaq is the person who can be seen in the footage writing 'refugees welcome' on a tricolour in a room at the Travelodge Plus in Dublin. He also appears in footage taken on Connolly's phone being in the back of a van with a third man near the Garden of Remembrance, both dressed in black.

There's a strong possibility the red phone belongs to this third man and based on other evidence in the footage of the phones, he has also been potentially identified.

Khurram Adnan Ishtiaq also goes by Khurram Sheikh and describes himself as TV & film producer, writer, director and investigative journalist who is from Salford, where the BBC have their regional HQ for north west England.

In one post on facebook, Ishtiaq congratulates the appointment of Pakistan's new Air Force chief, Zaheer Ahmad Babar, in 2021, who Ishtiaq describes as his dear friend.

Charlotte O'Sullivan also stayed in a Dublin hotel in anticipation of her counter protest against a planned Ireland Opts Out rally at the Garden of Remembrance last Saturday which was subsequently cancelled due to Storm Kathleen.

It's possible she stayed at the same Travelodge Plus which Ishtiaq stayed at. She appeared to goad potential attendees of the Ireland Opts Out rally on the night before the rally by writing:

"I will be at the Garden of Remembrance just before 2pm tomorrow. If any of the far-right thugs and scumbags that have threatened me online for years want to have a word then put your money where your mouth is. Otherwise STFU and get back in your box. That is all."

It's possible Paul Connolly wanted to use her to try to incite a confrontation and when that plan couldn't be realised, he travelled to Coolock instead where any plans he had became further unstuck.

There are a lot of claims going around and it's hard to know what might and might not be accurate but one thing I have noticed is that the trusted factchecker community don't seem to be in any rush to clear any of it up.

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Sharon Keogan: Asylum seekers should have the right to vote.

"In fact, I believe it should be compulsory to vote."

"For me, every voice is important."

Conservatism is making a comeback, baby!

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A Nigerian asylum seeker sleeping in a tent Finglas is investigated by a citizen journalist from D11SaysNO (Part 1).

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Back before social media had really taken off, people use to visit 419eater.com to lol at the parade of online Nigerian scammers who'd been trolled into taking photos with fish on their heads to prove they really were Prince Mungu and desperately needed to deposit $5 Million in your bank account if only you'd do them a small favour first.

Given how silly these chancers were, it was hard to believe there was actually people out there who were stupid enough to fall for their scams.

Unfortunately, we then found out our own government was when they continued to allow them to scam the asylum system and bullshit their way into Treasure Island.

Then the scams got more sophisticated, and now the one of the most powerful organised criminals in Ireland with over 70 lieutenants and 1,100 underlings is a conman from Nigeria who's made a fortune from investment & romance scams, and business email fraud.

Some people have lost all of their life savings, but still they keep letting them in.

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Last week, Justice Minister Helen McEntee refused to nominate Nigeria as a safe country of origin despite it being one of the top countries of origin for bogus asylum claims for the past 25 years with a 95% rejection rate.

Even the Nigerian ambassador warned us about her compatriots' abuse of the system all the way back in 2004.

In 2017, every single asylum application from a Nigerian were rejected. However, 57% were then granted subsidiary protection because the government believes that's easier than going through the pretence of deportation before letting them stay anyway.

In 2009, Switzerland approved just one asylum application out of the 1,800 requests by Nigerians.

The head of the Swiss Refugee Council said the main reason was that during their interviews most Nigerians tell the same “stereotypical and unbelievable” story and not the truth.

"People from aid agencies who are present at the interviews come to the same conclusions."

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Michael Frain has chaired the Roscommon Leader Partnership, a county NGO, for 14 years, managing a yearly budget of €4.2 million. A significant part of this budget goes toward supporting integration / immigration through SICAP programs. Additionally, one of his companies supplies office equipment to both the Leader Partnership and potentially the county council. Frain also serves as the secretary for the Bealach project, led by ReThink Ireland's former chairman—a project in Ballaghaderreen marred by suspicions of financial mismanagement. He is a board member of the Ballaghaderreen Local Development Company. The list goes on and on. Frain has led Roscommon's largest state and EU-funded NGO for 14 years, and is now being wheeled out as an independent candidate and harsh critic of the "lack of services" in the county. These are the so-called "independents" in Ireland. It's time to wise up.