It’s a basic principle of Irish democracy that taxpayer funding may not be used to promote candidates for election, or sides in referendums. Actually, let me rephrase that: It used to be a basic principle of Irish democracy that taxpayer funding may not be used to promote candidates for election, or sides in referendums. But […]
In last year’s federal budget, the Australian Government assumed a fertility rate of 1.9 children per woman in the 2019-20 year. If it eventuated, this would have represented a rise in the fertility rate, but the Government was banking on a boost in babies to help the future economic viability of existing welfare plans and […]
The publication of an ESRI report on forecast population growths and consequent housing requirements was published on December 14. The report, Regional Demographics and Structural Housing Demand at County Level was compiled by TCD research professor Adele Bergin and Abian Garcia Rodriguez of the ESRI. As John McGuirk noted yesterday, all the forecasts contained are dependent on arbitrary […]
A fascinating new paper in a leading peer-reviewed journal should give parents of babies with Trisomy 18 hope – and should also give Irish doctors pause. The Associate Editor of the prestigious international scientific review, Pediatrics, notes that in regard to Trisomy 13 and 18, it has “become clear that these conditions are not lethal or […]
A few days ago, the lower house of the Argentinian parliament voted to legalise abortion. While the legislation has yet to pass the Argentinian Senate (where the vote is expected to be on a knife edge), the celebrations from the pro-choice side were familiar, to anybody who lived through the Irish referendum of 2018: Cheers […]
The European Green Party, which includes the Irish Green Party as a full member, recently held its 32nd Council with the aim of exchanging solutions on “today’s most urgent topics.” This included debates on “how to counter Rule of Law backsliding in Europe; and “how we can continue to fight for the human rights of […]
Most requests for euthanasia in the Netherlands come from people suffering from cancer. But the number of patients who have dementia, psychiatric disorders, or multiple geriatric syndromes (MGS) is growing steadily. An article by Dutch physicians in JAMA Internal Medicine examines the kind of geriatric syndromes which motivate a person to ask for euthanasia. They found that […]
According to leaked documents revealed in the Washington Post, Huawei, China’s giant telecom, has helped to develop an AI system to identify Uyghurs, its oppressed Turkic minority in the province of Xinjiang. Allegedly the facial recognition system is programmed to send “Uyghur alarms” to the police when Uyghurs are spotted by security cameras. The documents say […]
Leo Varadkar told the Washington Ireland Programme at a virtual event last week that Ireland, along with the rest of the world, is dealing with ‘a crisis of polarization due to the influence of social media’. Social media as distinct from mainstream media. According to the Tánaiste,one side of a story can become ‘accepted fact’ […]
Extraordinary. Usually, in Ireland, if you say that one way to reduce the demand for housing is to lower immigration, you’ll be dismissed as a rabid racist who’s peddling fake news. But in the Irish Independent this morning, no less an authority than the ESRI is out warning that a reduction in immigration, due to […]
A company which sold the Irish Government €14million’s worth of Chinese ventilators, which later turned out not to work, is behind a plan to implement a new vaccine passport, Gript can reveal. ROQU, which was only founded in 2017, and had no Irish trading history before being awarded a €14m contract to supply ventilators from […]
An Austrian film called The Trouble with Being Born is winning high praise from critics at film festivals. It received a special jury award at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year. On Rotten Tomatoes, it scores 100% amongst critics. It’s a “hidden gem”, according to Hollywood Reporter. “A powerful and revelatory achievement,” wrote a critic for Screen […]