Is vaccine suspension misguided insurance against blame?
AstraZeneca vaccination was suspended on the advice of the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) by the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA). Minister Donnelly hailed their suspension as “decisive” and “quick”. He passively hoped it would be for a “very short period”. Newspaper editorials commended the suspension. But they were wrong. Suspension was justified, we were […]
Citizens should decide height of Dublin skyline, not Johnny Ronan
The debate between Johnny Ronan and Frank McDonald on high-rise in Dublin is both important and healthy. Whether Dublin is a city in which high rise of 16 to 20 storeys is both permitted and encouraged or whether we opt for a lower-rise spread-out capital, is a choice to be made by the people of […]
Fianna Fáil risks being a mudguard-in-waiting for Sinn Féin
A recurring theme in the Covid crisis is that the pandemic will radically transform society culturally and economically. Left-wing thinkers look to the pandemic as having a catalytic effect in the long awaited demise of global capitalism and its domestic out-workings. Some of the Kaiser’s ministers in 1914 predicted that a German win in the […]
Northern census should bring some clarity to Border poll debate
This year is a census year in the North. Demographers are predicting that for the first time since partition, the number of people there describing themselves as Catholic may exceed the number of persons describing themselves as Christians of other denominations. That doesn’t mean that Catholics will be in the majority; it merely means that […]
EU chilly on State’s ‘soft cop’ NI protocol line
Nothing is as simple as it seems in relation to Covid and the Northern Ireland protocol. The Financial Times reported yesterday that anonymous EU sources were voicing annoyance with recent efforts by Micheál Martin and Simon Coveney to persuade Brussels and London to dial down the heat in relation to the practical problems that have […]
ESB’s new HQ is a monument to planning failure
The pandemic has delayed the removal of the final remnants of scaffolding at the ESB’s redevelopment of Lower Fitzwilliam Street. However, with most of the scaffolding gone, the reality of what has replaced Sam Stephenson’s awful planning blunder is becoming apparent. In essence, a massive office block has been constructed behind a screen of brickwork […]