The Irish media is presently gorging itself on the revelation that for a number of years, at least four Irish political parties (and probably more) asked volunteers to pose as fake polling companies in order to go door to door and conduct market research. First, we learned that Sinn Fein did it. And then, because […]
Student volunteers promised €50 each, but never paid.
One of the rather more desperate attempts by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to recoup lost ground to Sinn Féin has been to focus on the latter party’s apparent track record in voting against proposals to build housing developments. Sinn Féin has indeed pursued inconsistent policies, as we shall see, but the political reality is […]
The claim that all improvements in living conditions are illusionary distractions was pioneered first by Lenin in What is to be Done? and updated as part of new left ideology in the 1960s by Marcuse and the Frankfurt School of Marxism. It still forms the basis of current identity politics in which the traditional working […]
The Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action has published its Report on Reducing emissions in the transport sector by 51% by 2030. The Report contains almost 50 recommendations. Among them is a call on Government to examine the possibility of introducing a new ‘charges’ regime for road users that would include setting ‘potential targets […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
Every time we report one of these polls, the comments on Facebook and Twitter and other social media platforms are the same: “fake poll”, or “they didn’t poll me”, or words to that effect. And that is understandable, nobody likes to be in the minority, or feel the country is against them. Least of all, […]
This morning, the hashtag #LeoTheleak is trending on social media. The Shinbots were up early then. Yesterday, or the day before, it was #Shinners or something wearily familiar, because, as we all know, Fine Gael are now well able to take the fight to the enemy on Twitter. It’s all mostly so trite and nauseatingly […]
The Irish government proposes minimum alcohol pricing – possibly their worst idea yet – while Sinn Féin cheer them on. #gript
We will put this in the category of “darkly amusing”: https://twitter.com/CloHiggins/status/1391083611860967426 You might wonder why a “wheelchair friendly” park bench is something that anybody would bother to invent. After all, people in wheelchairs – not through choice, of course – are not lacking for somewhere to sit down. Life has forced them to take a […]