Is ‘porn literacy’ something we should be teaching in schools? If so, at what age? What is ‘porn literacy’? Is there such a thing as ‘ethical porn’? To what extent will these things be part of the planned new Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) course? For clues, we might look to Kate Dawson who is […]
The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland has had several decades of bad press, and scandals, which have resulted in widespread public alienation and falling mass attendances. Those who have kept faith with it during these hard decades cannot be accused of swimming with the cultural, or political tides. The Church in Ireland is resolutely on […]
Already this morning, you’ll find, if you look for them, tweets from journalists about how the turnout is low in Ireland’s four bye-elections, which are taking place today, and will be counted tomorrow. Conventionally, the media does not discuss the specific issues around a campaign on, or before, polling day, and even though no such […]
Speaking during a discussion as part of the Jonathan Swift Festival at St. Patrick’s Cathedral last Saturday, former President Mary McAleese told the Irish people that they had no right to be questioning the rapidly changing demographics of our society. Celebrating this, McAleese declared that “today, 17 per cent of our population comes from somewhere […]
In the wake of the controversy surrounding Deputy Noel Grealish’ remarks on remittances, significant political capital was invested in highlighting the importance of basing policy and political commentary on accurate statistics. In fact, the Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohue, took what may be the unprecedented step of writing publicly to Deputy Grealish to say how […]
Before we get in to the rights and wrongs of this, it’s worth looking at what the state’s equality commission believes is a racist comment: “It points to recent examples which have caused it concern, including ….. Galway West TD Noel Grealish’s description of refugees from Africa as “economic migrants” seeking to “sponge off the system here in […]
The suspicion that RTE has been living “way beyond its means” and has been engaged in the provision of exorbitant rates of pay to its ‘top talent’ has moved from the realm of tentative speculation into that of clear fact. Indeed, such suspicions have a long and notable history. For example; in December 1966 the […]
Ireland has very firm laws on animal welfare when it comes to food production. As might be expected, these laws aren’t in place so much because we love our animals, so much as that they’re in place because the European Union imposed them, and because the agri-food sector is so important to the economy. Having […]
On Thursday 24 October, the Government formally signalled its intention to introduce draconian hate speech legislation in Ireland. As was the case with many people, I felt a sudden alarm that our fundamental inalienable human right to articulate opinions and ideas was going to be removed, so I took to Twitter to ask people if […]
The big news this morning is that the Social Democrats have decided that the time is ripe for a vote of no confidence in Eoghan Murphy: “THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATS are to table a motion of no confidence in housing minister Eoghan Murphy. Party co-leader Róisín Shortall confirmed this morning that the party will publish the […]
The Irish Examiner reports that the Comptroller and Auditor General is to reveal that Katherine Zappone, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, returned €60 million to the exchequer last year. This beggars belief. We are constantly told that the persistent failure of Minister Zappone’s department to protect and provide for vulnerable children is because […]
This business of demanding that social media censor every opinion that we don’t like just isn’t going to end well. Here’s another press hit this morning for the Minister for blaming everybody but himself for Health: “HEALTH MINISTER SIMON Harris is to meet with a number of social media companies today to discuss the spread […]