One of the issues that have been exercising people during the Covid-19 panic has been what impact the lockdowns have had on access to essential healthcare for other life-threatening conditions. In particular there is increasing concern about the possible impact that lack of hospital referrals may be having on the long term prospects and mortality […]
A democracy’s fortitude and constitutional structures can only be judged by their performance through times of strain – times such as when there is no government in place or where a pandemic rages. We are in such a time now, and the rot within the democratic processes and the institutions of this country are plain […]
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 […]
Covid-19 and Michael Martin: Why are people’s legitimate concerns being ignored and marginalised? Taoiseach Micheál Martin claimed in a recent radio interview that people who downplay the seriousness of coronavirus should be marginalised and have their views undermined. Ben Scallan reacts.
The public’s reaction to Golfgate has been swift and brutal. Indeed, it has now occasioned more public mea culpa’s than you could shake a stick at. Yet still the public and political appetite for scalps, of both the EU and judicial variety has not been sated. No doubt this lamentable saga, with all its […]
Having spent several days ignoring the violence in Balbriggan last weekend that included the burning of a house, Sinn Féin has been forced to respond to other people breaking the conspiracy of silence (that includes the national broadcaster) on the issue. Louise O’Reilly the Sinn Féin TD for Fingal has come under strong pressure from […]
A commitment to establish a Citizens’ Assembly on education was a core feature of the recent general election manifesto of the Green Party. This proposal was based on its belief that there is a fundamental “need to re-evaluate the outcomes of education” and to bring about “structural changes” at all levels of our education […]
Summer 2020 is another kind of new normal. There’s a strange feel to it like all the other resets since March 12th when the country went into indefinite lockdown. This is arguably one of the better parts of new normal The little fishing village of Ballycotton with its signature island and lighthouse has been on […]
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 […]
The Programme for Government talks a good show about political reform. It remains to be seen whether they deliver in the one area that matters: removing the subjugation of the Conscience of TDs to the hegemony of the Whips office. We need, once and for all, to exorcise the oppressive culture of fear that corrodes […]
We already knew or should have known that we have the worst form of government ‘except for all the alternatives that have ever been tried’, as Winston Churchill put it. Sometimes it works better than other times. Sometimes, it is not the concept itself that is found wanting but the manner of its application. But […]
There are times when I have to pinch myself, when I read the concerns of journalists as expressed in our mainstream media, about the interaction between religion and politics in Ireland – and contrast it with the actual relationship between religion and politics in this country, as evidenced by social surveys. A recent survey, carried […]