I’ve seen critiques of Sinn Féin’s drift into nativitism that claim that these arise because the party is uniquely post-truth as a result of their decades of I think that’s an important misdiagnosis because I’m my experience of Irish politics most political parties don’t care about the truth, so Sinn...
I’ve been hearing talk that another election would cost us €40 million euros, everyone is saying it. It came from Noonan so it must be true (leaving aside that he is not the expenditure minister) and that the caretaker government of the moment were perfectly capable and comfortable enough to...
It is always tempting to look back upon an event and form an egocentric view that those things that one did, or did not, do were crucial to the end result. Political parties have PhD’s in this type of post hoc confabulation. Take for example the Fianna Fáil response to the 2004 local election. They were...
We need to kill this fiction that the debt that Ireland is on the hook for is sustainable. It is not, the only people who say that it is are the liars, the credulous, or the misinformed. Last year, at the DEW Annual Policy conference, the chairman of the national...
It is being argued that David Norris’s comments regarding regarding Regina Doherty were sexist and offensive. Insofar as Regina was offended then yes they were offensive, and many found then to be sexist (my own bias is that I believe that rather than being misogynistic Dorris, alight with the fire...
Martin Ferris has is as “[Gilmore] has destroyed every party he was ever in, and he’ll destroy this one too” The man who recruited Gilmore into the CPI believes that he is “a weak man, a coward” so I’d expect him to be tremendously risk adverse, he’ll take the path...
[From your perspective] Allowing members of the public to access pension savings is a step in the right direction. It is the “Additional Voluntary Contributions” part of the pension pot which will become accessible. 30% of it’s value may be withdrawn (and then taxed). If an employer requires that...
This controversy emerges from the fact that no legislation has been put in place to recognise in law, what the constitution says. There was an opportunity to make the constitutional clause stronger (i.e. dismissing suicide as a threat to the mother’s life), but that was rejected by the Irish people....
When I went to the voting booth yesterday, I voted No. It was not a case of last minute gitters, nor was it a case of my being terrified by the austerity threats of the no-campaigners; I just didn’t have it in me to vote yes. This was the first...
When we try to understand the actions of Germany, with respect to the Eurozone, we have to look first at the Zollvererin league. The Zollvererin was a stepping stone to a united Germany, and it is supposed that the Euro will be the bridge that leads to a united Europe...