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    Haughey cleaned up his own mess

    The author is a senior lecturer in the department of Modern History at Liverpool’s hope University. He has carefully mined the available documentary sources to produce a book that covers Haughey’s, much disputed disposition and policy instincts on Northern Ireland. Given the longevity and impact of Haughey’s career this, by definition, involves a painstaking trawl through […]

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    Ross hits judicial soft spot

    There is this extraordinary conjunction of interest between the legal profession and parliament. Lawyers in Ireland play a very active part in the political system. In 2010 there were 16 barristers and solicitors in Dáil Eireann – ten percent of the total. There are strong historical associations between the professions of politics and the law. […]

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    How maths will destroy capitalism

    The consumerism-generating-capitalism- it usefully loyal, generating-consumerism cycle that characterises the developed or ‘Northern’ world depends on inequality, even as it purveys certain equalities, and is the main obstacle to tackling climate change, the most serious long-term problem facing humanity. Capitalism is struggling to maintain itself. In one formal sense this is good for equality. A crucial weakness […]

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    Rolling back the Eighth Amendment: the Church’s power grab for the new national maternity hospital­­ — backed by government.

    The big day The sun shone, marquees fluttered, caterers bustled. Everybody who was anybody was there, ‘old boys’, former nurses, family friends. The No 1 Army band heralded the arrival of the Archbishop of Dublin; His Grace was followed five minutes later by the Tánaiste and Mrs Childers. The Archbishop said Mass for some 1200 […]

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    Investigation: Killusion

    The Smithwick Tribunal was set up in 2005, by the Irish Government on the advice of Michael McDowell, then Minister for Justice, and sat in public in Blackhall Place from 2011 until 2013, examining the possibility of Garda collusion in the deaths of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan, of the Royal Ulster […]

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    French Connections

    An intriguiging High Court action which featured allegations that a leading Kildare businessman used his political “connections” to secure favourable treatment from NAMA was settled in the High Court in late October. The judicial review application taken against NAMA arose from a dispute over valuable development lands at Straffan jointly owned by retired developer, Martin […]

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