Talking about getting facts right 'Tyrone' you're a bit far off the mark there. And if you actually knew the people involvesd you would know that it was the families directly affected that contacted Joe Duffy, not exactly 'sensationalist reporting' seeing that it is a talkshow. And who is brandishing these threads as truth? It is a discussion page and people are allowed to have their opinion, if anyone is brandishing the thread as truth it is Brendan as this is the only correspondance that CCE has or rather an employee has used to communicate with people apart from the 'woolly' answers we get in press releases. Read the article from the Irish Times from the weekend to see the wall that CCE has put up in relation to the whole affair. CCE silence only adds speculation, they have got themselves into a hole and they're making it worse by not communicating with the public in th hope that this all goes away.

The funny thing about this whole mess is that Clontarf doesn't need Comhaltas. It is successful enough to survive without CCE, unlike most music promoted by CCE it is quality music, they also have the support of a huge amount of well known musicians, you only had to be at the gig in April to see that. In terms of trad music Clontarf would be far more restricted by CCE.

Yes a lot of the funding came from the Government but it wasn't given to Comhaltas, it was petitioned for and received by the committee that was put in charge of getting the centre going. The committee did however have a representative of Comhaltas on it and this was to oversee affairs. That was the extent of their involvement up until last year when the whole affair of VAT and the bank loan came into play. And I wouldn't exactly call what was raised by the branch as pittance, maybe if you had gone to one of the MANY concerts that were held you would get an idea. But at least we can agree on one thing, checking facts.