Deeply unfair, you’d have to say: A series of gaffes prior to and during the general election cost Fine Gael at the polls, a meeting of the parliamentary party has been told. Ministers and Ministers of State held discussions reviewing the party’s general election performance on Tuesday ahead of a further meeting of the entire […]
It seems like RTE has gone all 1968 on our ass. Not only have they guilt-bombed us now for months over our white supremacy and slavery associations, but now it seems the national broadcaster thinks that abolishing the police is something they should give a “platform” to. On Tuesday, the national broadcaster posted a piece […]
For most Irish people, child benefit is sacrosanct and should not be interfered with. Many families rely on the monthly payment to pay for basic costs, and, since the state has long-since scrapped child tax credits, child benefit has long been viewed as an essential contribution to the significant cost to families of rearing the […]
There’s been a lot of talk recently about the removal of statues being an assault on our history, and the decision of the Shelbourne Hotel to remove, yesterday, four statues that had adorned its exterior walls for a century and a half is interesting, in that context: The Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin has taken down […]
Ireland has been slower than most other EU countries to re-open its borders to inward travel. A certain narrative is taking root, endorsed by prominent voices in the scientific community as well as in Dáil Éireann, to the effect that we should spare no effort in keeping Ireland “Covid-free.” This narrative has radicalized our thinking around […]
In the last few days we learned that the Department of Social Protection has been busy tracking down people who have had the temerity to take a holiday while in receipt of Covid-19 welfare support – and punishing them by cutting off that payment. 104 people have had their Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) stopped “as […]
The plan to re-open schools was released yesterday to great fanfare, and contains lots of big announcements, which are neatly summarised here, courtesy of the journal.ie: 1,080 extra teachers will be added to post-primary schools at a cost of €53 million to help reduce class sizes. Additional substitution, supervision, guidance counsellors and psychologists will also […]
A Report from Hotline.ie, which is Ireland’s national centre for monitoring activities related to online child sexual abuse and exploitation, is set to reveal that the rate of reported child sexual abuse material is at its highest level here since 1999, with a year-on-year increase of 79% on 2018 figures. According to the Law Society Gazette, […]
As most people have, by now, heard, one of the first legislative priorities for the new Government was to pass legislation enabling all three “super junior” ministers to be paid a bit more: The Dáil has passed laws to increase remuneration for a third ‘super junior’ minister who will now be entitled to an allowance […]
So that wealthy overseas investors could buy up the country? Luke Kelly wrote a poem some time around the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising lamenting the failure of the Irish state to implement the Proclamation’s pledge to “secure the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland.” With the exponential growth in […]
The result of the Green Party leadership contest, had it been narrated by David Attenborough, would have seen the magnificent old naturalist whispering into the microphone about Eamon Ryan something along the lines of “the old male has seen off his rival, for now, but it has come at a steep cost. Wounded and bruised, […]
Last week, we reported on a startling study from The Lancet which warned that a population crash – where the number of people in a country starts to shrink – was fast-approaching and would have a devastating impact on societies. With fewer and fewer young people to support an ageing world population, we face massive […]