Politics

In his lengthy critique of the planning tribunal and its first sole member, Justice Feargus Flood, in the April edition of Village, Anthony Harris manages to avoid any mention of why his former client and Dublin assistant city and county manager, the late George Redmond, was the subject of corruption findings by the inquiry. He […]

We are told that the Brexit debate is the most important political decision our neighbour has made so far this Millennium. Even so, the debate in the UK could compete for the most boring referendum campaign ever. It’s been little more than a series of ‘he said, she said’. The claims made by each side […]

On 26th May the European Parliament passed a comprehensive and progressive report on “Poverty – A Gender Perspective”. There has been recognition of the feminisations of poverty for decades, but there has been little progress on tackling the root causes for this. There is a whole range of factors at play and the report is […]

In 1976, an ageing farmer living a few miles from Killarney wanted a medical card. He had just turned 60 and a few years previously had suffered a stroke. Medical cards were a relatively new phenomenon in Ireland back in those days and so he called up his local Fianna Fáil councillor to ascertain how […]

“For good and bad Kelly killed the issue [of water charges], even if tens of thousands of diehards continue to protest the principle at occasional marches in Dublin” (Village, May 2015) Alan Kelly got it wrong. The mainstream media got it wrong. Village got it wrong. They were united in the rhetoric that water charges […]

After almost seventy days wandering in the political wilderness the two largest parties have finally agreed a programme with a 30-month timelimit. As Village was going to print the programme was being supplemented with whatever concessions are necessary to attract at least eight independents into the Fine Gaelled minority administration in a ‘Programme for Partnership’. […]