What’s the point of giving every student in the country €250 in the budget? The pubs are closed, after all. But nonetheless, that’s what the Government is doing, apparently: NEW: In budget third level students to be given €250 each to help meet the cost of this year. Total cost €50m. Details to be worked […]
Thankfully, the Government remembered who elected them and rejected the NPHET call for Level 5 restrictions. It was clear that the leaking of the proposed lockdown last night had elicited a pretty wide ranging rejection. Unlike the announcement of the first lockdown in March when people were naturally in a state of shock and in […]
The recent passing of yet more “emergency” legislation under the Covid-19 exemption has led to some criticism with regard to the implications that it might have for those in danger of home repossession if their mortgage has been sold to one or other of the ubiquitous vulture funds. Many billions of such debt has already […]
I have known Phil Hogan for more than 40 years and I remain astonished at his rise but even more amazed that he has fallen just when his presence was useful to the country. He was not Jacques Delors but an Irish commissioner was likely to be far more useful to Ireland at the Brexit […]
With #GolfGate sending shockwaves through the country, Ben Scallan asks if our most senior politicians have been taking their own lockdown rules seriously since the beginning.
Confession: I cannot figure out for the life of me what readers will make of this. On the one hand, it’s one in the eye for west brit lackeys like me, and presumably the membership of Fine Gael, who’s favourite part of the year is when “Rule Britannia” comes on at the end of the […]
The politicians have headed off on their holidays for the next six weeks, which would, in normal circumstances, be a cause for populist annoyance: it’s well for them heading off on six weeks of holidays with the country in the state it is, etc etc. But this year, the public should breathe a sigh of […]
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 […]
What’s the world coming to when you can’t trust a politician to cut their own salary without actually increasing it by accident? Clarified this evening: voluntary pay cuts taken by the previous Govts lapsed when new Govt was formed, so today's 10% is effectively a renewal of those cuts. e.g. Taoiseach's salary €207,590; Varadkar had […]
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 […]
Apart from delivering Cherish leaflets and attending a small number of meetings and the final rally, most of the huge effort that went into trying to trying to save the 8th amendment was unknown to me. I had been with Sinn Féin in Leinster House for many years and I am afraid to say I was […]
Should Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman publicly distance himself from UK campaigner Peter Tatchell, after this week’s controversy? VOTE in our Poll below and leave your comments here and on social media.