Ireland's political and cultural magazine
On 8 February 2017 the inaugural meeting of SPAB Ireland (The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in Ireland) took place. In the audience were the bulwarks of Irish architectural heritage; the Irish Georgian Society, the Irish Landmark Trust, An Taisce, the Dublin Civic Trust. But the demographic for SPAB were better than for […]
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Pankaj Mishra inhabits a perplexing position in Indian and international letters. One of India’s most exhilaratingly provocative voices, his blistering op-eds and essays in Asian journals and such “intellectual outposts of Anglo-America” as the New York Times, Time, the Guardian, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Review of Books […]
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When Enda Kenny steps down from his position as Taoiseach in the coming weeks, it comes as little surprise that finance minister, Michael Noonan, another great survivor of Irish politics, will depart with him, or not long after. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is believed to be critical of a decision Noonan made not to […]
Cardinal Desmond Connell has died aged 90, generating – since he was the best known avatar of the conservative Catholic Church – predictably ambivalent obituaries. Born in Dublin’s Phibsborough he attended Belvedere College, Clonliffe diocesan seminary, and UCD where he picked up a brilliant MA. After St Patrick’s College, Maynooth where he was a bachelor […]
Mandatory standards, regulations and policy introduced since 2014 have negatively affected the feasibility of many residential projects, increased costs and contributed to the skills shortage in the construction sector. This has led to continued sluggish residential output and increasing rents. Despite Ireland’s vacancy rate of twice the ‘normal’ – with 200,000 vacant homes, Government policies […]
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Enda Kenny has been Taoiseach since 2011 and leader of Fine Gael since 2002, a political aeon ago, and was first elected to the Dáil in 1975, before the flood. When he retires as he will next month he will be the longest serving Fine Gael Taoiseach, overtaking John A Costello. He has been consistently […]
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The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has criticised finance minister, Michael Noonan, over his dealings with Cerberus, the US fund which controversially purchased the property assets held by NAMA in Northern Ireland in April 2014. Following public hearings late last year into the detailed analysis report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) on the sale […]
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More of the same, though unclear if SF will accept Foster as DUP first minister and tantalising glimpses of new collaborations for second-tier parties.
Dump neoliberalism and build the just society optimising liberalism and equality envisaged by Rawls, Dworkin and Declan Costello.
The beginning of 2017 doesn’t look good for the European Union. But things are at least becoming clearer. In light of attacks from both the US and the UK, the choice between unity and disintegration is registering for Europeans. This is a good thing. Disintegration would result in accelerated poverty and maybe even war, so […]
Inadequacy is set to remain one of the most significant features of the welfare state in Ireland. Fiscal conservatism, lack of capacity to get traction from ‘taxability’, and failure to generate adequate revenue suggest Ireland’s welfare state will remain not up to its task. This is the somewhat gloomy conclusion to the recently published book, […]
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With trust in Irish media dropping to an all-time low of 29 percent, reputation is an asset, to be tended to as advertising declines.
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Josephine Campbell (not her real name) volunteered for the media team in Apollo House during the 28 day occupation, which saw a vacant NAMA building transformed into a shelter for people sleeping rough. In total, 205 people stayed as residents in Apollo House. “I’m currently without a home or a tenancy since May 2015. Before […]
On 17 January, the European Parliament elected a new President, the Italian MEP Antonio Tajani. The election of Tajani may have gone unnoticed by most citizens in Ireland, however the implications of it could have far reaching consequences for their everyday lives. Tajani, is a member of the European People’s Party (EPP), a group he […]
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During 2015 in Ireland there were 49,689 applications to the family law courts in the context of relationship breakdowns. This indicates a high level of contentious separations and divorces exposing children to ongoing conflict between their parents. Definition One emerging phenomenon currently facing social, legal and mental health practitioners is that of a child or […]
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Judges and the Garda let our society down: make the Garda Commissioner accountable to the Ombudsman, and establish a Judicial Commission.
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The prospect of a Commission of Investigation into the sale by NAMA of its Northern Ireland property portfolio to US vulture fund, Cereberus, in April 2014, looks to be receding by the day. Judging by the demeanour and language of finance minister, Michael Noonan, during a special debate on the issue on 1 February the […]
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Changes to the number of Assembly seats in the forthcoming Northern election will give an artificial seat boost to the two big parties, the DUP and Sinn Féin. Each of the 18 constituencies will elect five MLAs (Members of the Legislative Assembly) rather than the previous six. Because the Assembly will be reduced from 108 […]
(2010) The king of Irish investigative journalists, Paul Williams, will join forces with the Irish News of The World on March 10 [2010] as its crime editor. The clamorous controversy about his departure from the Sunday World is indicative of how he has become the indisputable media godfather of crime reporting. But does “the journalist […]
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€260m has been spent on the Limerick Regeneration programme since its inception in 2008. After a bad start a reasonable effort is now underway but new build is far less than intended.
