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TAOISEACH LEO VARADKAR has said he is not concerned that a delegation of Scientologists were hosted in Leinster House by a Fine Gael TD.
Colm Brophy met representatives of Scientology in September in the coffee dock area of Leinster House.
The Victory Centre in Firhouse was opened as the Scientology’s European base after it was bought by the international group last year.
The centre in Firhouse is in the politician’s Dublin South-West constituency.
It boasts a 1,050-seat state-of-the-art auditorium, sports pitches, meeting rooms and a full service cafe.
Scientology has been in Ireland since 1956 when the creator of the pseudo-religion L Ron Hubbard opened an office in Dublin.
Brophy has said that he is concerned about the centre opening in the area, which is why he met with the group. He said he has also met with concerned constituents.
When asked about the meeting at Leinster House, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he understood deputy Brophy had hosted a delegation, but he did not know the exact details of that meeting.
“But I wouldn’t have any difficulty in principle, I think it made sense,” he said, adding:
Even if you’re going to oppose somebody or oppose their plans or stand up to them, I think it always makes sense to engage them first and I think it is reasonable for a TD to actually engage with a group who are establishing a premises in their constituency.
Another politician, Fianna Fáil’s John Lahart, also raised his concerns with the Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan in a parliamentary question, stating: “Their new centre in my constituency is adjacent to vulnerable communities, that would be my concern.”
The Taoiseach acknowledged to TheJournal.ie that he is aware of the concerns about the rise of the Church of Scientology in Ireland.
“I know there is a genuine concern about the fact or the possibility that it could be a cult. At the same time I think we always have to balance freedom of religion or freedom of association on the one hand with protecting people from being exploited, and that is always a challenge,” said Varadkar.
The Taoiseach admitted that he did not know enough about the Church of Scientology, other that what has read in the media.
“I read stuff like you do, I don’t know enough about the Church of Scientology to know whether or to what extent the allegations made against them would require government intervention of some sort,” the Taoiseach told TheJournal.ie, adding:
I would be loath to go down that route of starting to interfere with religious groups or restrict people’s freedom of association in any way.
In October, Micheál Martin said he was very concerned about the opening of the new European HQ.
“I would very concerned about that. I think these type of groups can be very damaging to people, particularly to young people,” he told TheJournal.ie.
Martin would not be pushed as to whether he would be in favour of banning Scientology from Ireland, as some other countries have done in the past.
He said he was not sure new legislation would be the best way to deal with the issue.
“The best way forward to deal with that needs to be examined it may not be legislative ultimately in situations like this. It is about education, it is about informing the public, it is about self-esteem, self-confidence – it is a whole range of issues that just don’t lend themselves to a simple ban. It is more complex than that,” he said.
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Any ransomware I’ve ever seen if it corrupts your files they are gone for good pay or not
It doesn’t corrupt files. It encrypts them. There have been cases where people/companies do pay the ransom and do get their files unencrypted. However it’s a big risk as there is no guarantee and it just encourages these people to keep doing what they are doing
Yes, but easily defeated by taking regular backups. You may loose some data but the majority will be safe and it’s something people should be doing anyway.
Yep that is the best defense.
Backups are only useful if they are made to something that is NOT connected at the time of encryption … otherwise your backup gets encrypted too! :(
Back up your most important data externally.
It is the safest way and the least troublesome way.
Stick with using a good cloud service which gives centralised file distrbution as well as backup.
Dropbox for example will not synchronise with an encrypted file due to lack of rights.
Also, all files can be returned to a previous version if the worst were to happen.
That’s not true David. Once your local hard drive is encrypted, which includes your dropbox files, they wull be uploaded to dropbox.
You will then need to download them all from dropbox or any file sync service from a backup.
Reuben, Try it. Encrypt a file inside a DB folder and watch the process be refused access. It is a constant problem for me when users place encrypted files they have received from external sources into server based DB folders. The DB process will not upload them because of no rights. We then can never get the status ‘Up to Date’.
Poor Mac users – first they’re douchebags, and now this!?
No harm to you Alex, but I hope you update your anti-virus software more often that your insults. Douchebag is so last year.
However, if you are still in your pre-pubescent years and spend your days watching iCarly, then all is forgiven.
Forgot to mention, sent from my iPhone, so I guess I’m a douchebag, which is sooooo Rad!
Bit sad seeing grown adults doing the “My gang is better than your gang” stance over a computer.
VHS will beat Betamax!!
Wtf is iCarly
An iPhone is not a Mac, John. You’re confused.
FRB, no fooling you, eh? I thought the hatred was for anything Apple, not just Macs….only Windows-based stuff is “proper” computery kit.
Way to spot a joke, guys.
I wonder if you can restore your computer to an earlier time or if you’re prevented from doing that as well. I doubt you’d be able to do it the regular way, but booting from a recovery disk you might be able to. I better start backing up my files more often either way
Create a single backup and then do incremental backups when you make changes that you want to keep (or schedule em)
Google Apple Machine – it’s on every Mac for a good few years now. If your disc dies or gets encrypted by malware, you can restore everything.
Which operating system are you looking to recover…??
@Fake Avast: Time Machine works locally, to a USB disc on your LAN, or connected directly to your Mac, so no internet need for daily backups. Restoring the whole system involves downloading the system again from Apple, so you would need good internet for a few hours – if the worst happened, you could bring your Mac and backup disc to a mate’s house to reload…
As long as you’re regularly running time machine backups, then if the worst happens you can boot and restore from a time machine backup. By default though this shouldn’t affect many Mac users as the “security & privacy” settings in “system preferences” are set to allow only apps from the “Mac AppStore” and not “anywhere”. So unless you’ve changed this setting you should be ok. If you have, then ebb on the side of caution and common sense when being prompted to download software from an untrustworthy source.
So in short as long as I don’t install pirate software on my MAC I’m still OK!
I think it’s all starting to go pear shaped for Apple. A brutal start to the new year.
Yes Eugene, one of the most profitable companies in the world is going to go pear shaped because of what exactly? I don’t think so.
have your say