One of the odd things about Irish politics is that what one might call the soft left – the sort of people who believe passionately in things like social justice, and liberal causes, and climate change – have not one, not two, but three political parties, all of whom believe basically the same things. On […]
“Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.” WT Yeats said this in Easter, 1916, and I first heard it said during Michael Noonan’s Budget 2014 speech. At the time, the context of their use seemed appropriate, though after a few years of mere cutbacks, bailouts and uncertainty, the context of their […]
There’s a golden rule when it comes to the Irish weather, and the Green Party: Any unusual weather at all is de facto evidence of Climate Change, and we can expect to be flooded and drowned within mere years if we do not immediately act. There is one exception to that rule, though: If the […]
Amidst all of the touchy-feely mainstream news media tributes to the different branches of the public service in this Time of the Virus, it would seem that some find it difficult to abandon old ways. While the Gardaí have attracted mixed reviews for their Dancing Against the Pandemic – as opposed to their removing people […]
The very difficult subject of assisted suicide is coming into sharp focus, with the Oireachtas Justice Committee having received written submissions on the somewhat dubiously named Dying with Dignity Bill. There has been fair criticism of the wording of the Bill and the dangers resulting from that wording. The biggest problems with the Bill though […]
The big problem about writing about “period poverty”, as a man, is that, well, men don’t have periods. While some of us may, on occasion, have been deputised to purchase sanitary items for the women in our lives, we don’t need, or use them, ourselves. So the idea that period poverty is an all-pervasive issue […]
I wonder, you know, whether this is constitutional: “A spokesman for Mr Donnelly said gardaí now had the power to call to people’s homes to ensure they were quarantining but they could (not) enter the person’s home. Antoinette Cunningham, the general secretary of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) said on Thursday evening […]
Ross McCarthy is MD of Keystone Procurement, a company that works with state, private and charitable bodies on procurement matters. Ross has previously written for Gript on the issue of modern slavery in supply chains. Several years ago, at the height of the European car emissions scandal, I presented to a group of public relations […]
To be fair, “put us on the payroll” isn’t quite how the Irish Times Group phrased their submission to the Government’s “future of media” commission. But make no mistake, that’s exactly what the paper is asking for. Its submission, which can be read here, on the Irish Times website, calls for “a framework of financial […]
The worst bit about all of this, of course, is that we didn’t even get a link out of it. Like it would have killed the Deputy to send us a bit of traffic. Though, to be fair, the article in question did very well anyway: It’s a niche website & I’m not going to […]
Last week it was announced that Google had been given the green light to proceed with their plan to create a “new urban centre” as part of their €300 million development at the former Boland’s Mill site on the south Dublin docks. Planning consultants John Spain Associates claimed that the project which will include various […]
As you may have heard, the new Secretary General of the Department of Health is to receive an annual salary of €292,000. This represents an increase of 40% from the previous salary for the position, which was a mere €211,000. The Government’s position is that the sum is necessary. If you pay peanuts, you get […]