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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 […]
3,613 total views, 228 views today
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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 […]
3,576 total views, 226 views today
(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 […]
4,113 total views, 226 views today
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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.
1,057 total views, 2 views today
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One of the biggest obstacles in trying to address what has been accurately characterised by government as the housing emergency is the lack of reliable and valid data.
760 total views, 1 views today
January was the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, which sponsored the civil rights marches that brought the anti-Catholic discriminatory practices of the old Stormont Unionist regime to world attention. I was at that foundation meeting on Sunday 29 January 1967 in the International Hotel, since demolished, behind Belfast […]
3,636 total views, 225 views today
We are now witness to a pervasive acceleration in the normally glacial processes of geopolitical rebalancing in the West. Behavioural economics is helpful in analysing it. On his first full day in the White House, President Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the core international economic legacy of […]
3,357 total views, 221 views today
THE PROBLEM. Donald Trump is a purveyor of hatred, a contrarian: anti-liberal, anti-democratic and hostile to a free press, an anti-environmental, corruptible bully; a liar, a misogynist groper and a boor. He developed the political platform you would expect on the back of this persona. And as Village went to press at the beginning of […]
24,089 total views, 222 views today
With yet another EuroMillions winning ticket sold in Ireland recently (giving some indication as to how disproportionately much we are gambling per capita), our media went into overdrive with advice on how to spend the estimated €88m fortune.
332 total views, 1 views today
In 2001 Irish Times reporter Carol Coulter wrote a short article outlining allegations of abuse affecting Smyly’s Church of Ireland Children’s Home. The report referred to preparation of a report by the health board. What the report said and indeed whether it was written were never reported. The paper did not investigate further. On 16 […]
4,632 total views, 219 views today
Around 25,000 undocumented people, 2000-5000 of them children, live in Ireland. Their precariousness is an inevitable consequence of a piecemeal immigration system.
496 total views, 1 views today
Pioneering ban – despite FG opposition – on government investment in fossil fuels must now fuel improved general climate policy
862 total views, 3 views today
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Reform the 2009 Act: recognise intention, eliminate aggravated and punitive damages and juries, cap awards, compensate oppressed journalists and elevate free speech.
398 total views, 2 views today
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In 2007, as the spin-heavy, scandal-bruised Blair era came to a close, British journalist Peter Oborne published a harsh polemic titled ‘The Triumph of the Political Class’. The book describes the rapid growth of a professionalised cabal of career politicians in the UK from the late 1970s onwards – a self-interested clique more devoted to […]
3,697 total views, 215 views today
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Books by Margaret Urwin, Ann Cadwallader and Ian Cobain illuminate the viciousness of end-of-Empire Britain from Ireland to Kenya
870 total views, 4 views today
As public hearings at the Public Accounts Committee into the controversial sale of the Project Eagle portfolio of distressed assets in Northern Ireland and Britain come to a close, its members are facing some difficult choices with potentially serious political implications. However, the absence of key individuals who have declined invitations to give evidence, including […]
3,511 total views, 211 views today
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The new American President is post-science just as he is post-truth. His number one environmental priority is to cancel the Paris Climate Agreement, not uncoincidentally the number one environmental priority for environmentalists.
373 total views, 1 views today
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The planned closure of the St Mary of the Angels institution in Beaufort, Co Kerry has brought a disconcerting media focus on the issue of de-institutionalisation of people with intellectual disabilities. The families of residents have made their feelings known on how the closure of that institution is being handled. They have launched a Facebook […]
3,827 total views, 208 views today
The Construction Industry have said for years that “increasing supply (housing) will reduce prices”. The government have accepted this as fact and current policy is driven by it. The graph below is compiled from Central Statistics Office (CSO ) data for 1975-2015 and includes monthly new home completions and monthly average new house prices in that 40-year period. The information has […]
3,525 total views, 206 views today
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Bertie Ahern made a sensible and probably decisive intervention in the controversy surrounding Gerry Adams and the killing of senior prison officer, Brian Stack, which dominated the headlines and political discourse during the first week of December. The resurrection of a story involving the shooting of Stack as he left a boxing match in Dublin’s […]
3,238 total views, 207 views today
