If you’re in your late thirties, like me, then you are just about old enough to remember the evils of inflation, and the problems it wrought on the Irish economy in the late 1980s and early 1990s. As the value of money decreased, prices went up. As prices went up, the Government tried to make […]
How remarkably convenient that the Fianna Fáil election post-mortem – 18 months late – should conclude that the party’s miserable performance at the polls at the last election was really the fault of pro-life TDs, and not at all the fault of Micheál Martin and his leadership. One might almost get the impression that a […]
Serious question here: Why does Emer Higgins’ new bill, which would see companies forced to reserve 40% of the seats on their boards for women, stop at just forty per cent? If you believe, as she clearly does, in the value of legislatively mandated equal representation for the two genders, then why not simply go […]
There should be no particular mystery about why it is, this year, that the number of leaving cert students who achieved maximum points absolutely skyrocketed: Here is the share of Leaving Certificate candidates with maximum CAO points since 1995. In that year, 31 candidates (0.05%) had maximum points. In 2020, 577 candidates (1.0%) had maximum […]
On July 27th, just two weeks ago, the Irish Times reported that the hospitality sector, which is in the process of re-opening its doors to customers, is facing an “acute labour shortage”: Indoor service in restaurants and pubs resumed on Monday after months of closure because of Covid-19 restrictions. Industry participants said the availability of […]
One of the most frustrating things about watching Simon Coveney before the Oireachtas committee, yesterday morning, was the sure and certain knowledge that you were one of very few people actually watching it. 10am on a Tuesday morning, after all, is not a time when the average person is free to sit down, fire up […]
Joy unconfined in media and political circles, yesterday, as Ursula Von Der Leyen and Micheál Martin posed for their photo opportunity at which it was announced that Ireland will receive an initial €989million from the European Union’s Covid Recovery fund to, in the words of Frau Von Der Layen, “support investments and reforms that will […]
The most revealing document released by the Irish Government yesterday was a text from Katharine Zappone to Simon Coveney sent in the early part of this year. Joe Biden had just been inaugurated as US President, and Zappone wanted Coveney to make an introduction for her to “Sam” (Samantha) Power, Biden’s UN Ambassador. Biden, she […]
Fascinating, and full credit to Justine McCarthy and John Mooney in the Sunday Times for drawing this angle to the public’s attention: Simon Coveney, the foreign affairs minister, will be quizzed at an Oireachtas committee on Tuesday if he deleted texts with Leo Varadkar, the tanaiste, from his phone after freedom of information requests were […]
On the one hand, it is perfectly understandable that Leo Varadkar’s legion of defenders – both those who are true blue Fine Gaelers, and those who are not, but who think the Tánaiste is unfairly targeted by his critics – should feel put out by the latest controversy engulfing their man. Yes, every single one […]
In all honesty, it has been a struggle to maintain any interest in the ins and outs of what Simon Coveney said, or did not say to an Oireachtas Committee investigating the Katharine Zappone fiasco. We have had the spectacle of one minister, Simon Coveney, spinning the country an obvious cock and bull story about […]
Any abortion decision from the United States Supreme Court generally gets people very excited, or worried, depending on their views on the subject matter. This week, there has been a tremendous outbreak of excitement from pro-lifers, and anger from pro-choicers, at the Court’s decision not to injunct a Texas law which bans abortion when a […]