Tag: Politics Ireland
-
Imagining a better future..
Quoting O’Bama is a cheap trick this week, but it is a good headline to address the issue of the plethora of campaigns for reform that have spring up as a result of our current economic woes. Most focus on constitutional reform, or on fixing our banking laws, in the hope that we can…
-
Needs to do better
Enda Kenny’s pledge to abolish the Seanad, reported in yesterdays Irish Times, is a cheap shot at populist politics which shows why he is no better than the current crowd. There are things which can be done to reform the Seanad, and some are very easy.
-
Boyne Walk in the Wet
The Battle of the Boyne was the largest single battle fought in Ireland, and I recently had the opportunity to walk the site with the Military History Society of Ireland on a typically wet Irish summer day. The walk was led by Dr Harman Murtagh, the society President, who played a key role in the…
-
Anatomy of Indecision?
Batt O’Keeffee must be the worst Minister of Education in the history of the state, at least insofar as political savvy goes. He failed to defend his portfolio from cuts which increased class sizes, and now he is making every possible wrong choice about the very necessary reintroduction of fees. Having decided it must be…
-
Look..No Germans?
Funny thing not in The Irish Times today – The Guardian has three paragraphs in it’s front page lead story in which the German Finance minister attacks the UK and Irish budget deficits, which the IT manages not to mention. Is this a case of ‘don’t frighten the voters again? Now, admittedly, it is the…
-
Fees For Degrees
This mornings Irish Times reader poll is about the proposed increase in University registration fees, and remarkably, it is a 50-50 split at present; I guess the folks who want it all for free are still in bed. Â I’m in favour not only of bringing back fees, but of actually charging every student full economic…
-
Swop Finance Ministers and we’ll fight again!
Well, faith and begoraah but isn’t it great to be Irish today? The government actually made a decision (quick – when was the last time an Irish cabinet made a decision?) to guarantee all savings in Irish banks and now cash is flowing from the UK into Dublin; to such an extent that Alasdair Darling…
-
Lisbon, Egalitie, Fraternitie?
The EU and its allies are now losing 50% of the votes in the UN Human Rights Commission to opponents of basic human rights led by an “Axis of Sovereignty”; a group of states who value the rights of the state over the rights of the people. Ratifying the Lisbon Treaty wouldn’t have automatically stopped…
-
Sinking like a Northern Rock
The sub-prime mortgage lending bubble continues to bite back, with the news of Northern Rock’s misfortune – a temporary cash flow problem which arose because they expected the market to recover sooner than it did. Indeed – I’ve got news for you lads, the market won’t recover for a long time yet. Commentators this evening…
-
Playstation Catholics and Religious Tolerance
The start of the new school year has produced more hot air about the role of the Catholic Church in education, and the Minister for Education appearing on the news suggesting that the only problem was accommodating immigrants in the system – this is wrong. The major issue is that the government allows the Catholic…
