This week, the Government announced that it would be increasing the property tax, which, as you all know, goes to fund local government and county councils. Later today, Niamh and I will have duelling articles on whether increasing the property tax is a good idea. And, sods law being what it is, no sooner was […]
Credit where it is due: this is an interesting, and what Sir Humphrey Appleby of Yes Minister fame would have called “courageous” proposal, first reported by Hugh O’Connell of the Independent: “speaking at Government Buildings on Tuesday, Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys said she had asked her officials to examine “pay-related benefit” where a person’s […]
Finally, a solution to the impending pensions crisis: Israeli scientists have boosted the life expectancy of mice by 23 percent, in an advance they hope could eventually be replicated in humans. They increased the supply of a protein, SIRT6, which normally wanes with aging, in 250 mice. In peer-reviewed research just published in the journal […]
It feels like a very long time ago now, but it is worth remembering, and reminding ourselves, that the original point of lockdowns was to reduce social contacts between people, and limit opportunities for Coronavirus to spread amongst the population. The success of lockdowns was supposed to be measured in scientific terms – the flatness […]
A stupendous success, says Stephen Donnelly: Mandatory hotel quarantining has worked effectively Health Minister Stephen Donnelly says. He tells the Seanad that 4,616 people have entered hotel quarantine here, 178 tested positive for Covid-19 and 59 cases associated with variants of concern were detected. — Mícheál Lehane (@MichealLehane) May 31, 2021 178 cases of Covid, […]
As bad as the new Red C/Sunday Business Post opinion poll is for Fianna Fáil the headline figures are not actually that obviously terrible. 14% nationally is still the stuff of nightmares for the party that has dominated Irish politics since the 1930’s, but it actually represents a slight increase on the previous version of […]
Look at the headline on this RTE News story from yesterday: RTE’s headline claims that Professor Luke O’Neill has said that it “might be time to slow down the re-opening”. There is only one problem, and that is as follows: O’Neill said nothing of the sort. What did he say? Well, you have to dig […]
Tim wrote yesterday about the wider media hypocrisy around the lab-leak story (the idea that the Coronavirus was accidentally released from a science laboratory in Wuhan, China, rather than occurring naturally in a wet market) but this particular element of the global about-face on the idea is worth some dedicated discussion: “Facebook will no longer […]
The media pummelling of Fine Gael bye-election candidate for Dublin Bay South, James Geoghegan, shows no immediate signs of easing off. One might suspect, given the ferocity of the criticism headed his way, that some elements of the media who had a soft spot for snubbed ex-TD Kate O’Connell are taking a little bit of […]
Three years ago this week, those of us who voted for, and campaigned against, the abortion referendum, were on the wrong side of an electoral kicking. The voters, in their questionable wisdom, decided to vote for what the Yes campaign said would be a more compassionate Ireland for women. Many of our readers will regret […]
The headline above is entirely accurate, and, at the same time, a little misleading. You might think, to read it, that the various main party candidates in the Dublin Bay South bye-election were engaged in a war over the legality of abortion, with one or two expressing a pro-choice view, and one or two dissenting. […]
Unbelievable. And yet, entirely in character: Soc Dems @RoisinShortall says she has “serious concerns” about Govt’s proposed extension of emergency Covid powers and says extension should only be six weeks. pic.twitter.com/jZzsbYepg5 — David Murphy (@davidmurphyRTE) May 25, 2021 As of today, the Social Democrats will vote against any extension of the lockdown powers. On one […]