In the last two years alone, the state will have spent twenty billion euros more than it took in, even with a record tax take.
Case numbers are soaring, hospital numbers are slowly rising, ICU numbers are flat, and the number of people being ventilated artificially to keep them alive is actually falling.
There is nobody rational, on the whole planet, who seriously believes that tennis player Novak Djokovic poses any kind of health threat to the people of Australia.
But that poses a problem for journalists, because unlike the scientists, the journalists are sure. They’re sure a disaster is coming, and they need you to act.
In these circumstances, the decision to let the virus rip, so to speak, is unambiguously the correct one.
One of the great temptations when you write about policy and politics for a living is to surrender to your prior prejudices when covering any story. It is fair to say that my prior prejudices about recent Irish policy are as follows: That harmonising our corporate taxation rates was a grievous error, likely to drive […]
A phenomenon which I encounter more and more often, these days, is the case of the secret Gript reader. The secret Gript reader comes to you via Whatsapp, or a twitter direct message, or sometimes, an encounter at a social event. They always say the same thing, more or less, and it goes something like […]
It has not been much remarked upon, in the early days of the new year, that there is one political certainty in 2022: The year begins with Micheál Martin as Taoiseach. It will end with somebody else in the job. Mr. Martin made a deal to take power, and at the centre of that deal […]
Cappagh Hospital in Dublin is not an acute hospital. It is the national orthopaedic hospital, with 159 beds, and seven state of the art operating theatres. It is where you go when you need an operation on your bones, or muscles. It does not accept, and is not equipped to handle, Covid patients. However, at […]
2021 was the year of the great Irish vaccine culture war. And, in a sane world, 2021 is where that great vaccine culture war would stay. We now know the facts about the Covid 19 vaccines, and what they do, and do not, do. We know, for example, that the vaccines confer some important benefits. […]
It’s an unusual thing, at the best of times, to find oneself being denounced as some sort of racist crypto-paedophile. It’s more unusual still, when you find out about it while in the middle the kitchen aisle at Super Valu, trying to decipher your wife’s shopping list. (Since when is “extra strong tin foil” a […]
What’s remarkable about all of this is that for a man so different in tone and temperament to Donald Trump, Biden has made very similar mistakes.