Ireland’s capacity to deal with EU migration pact is deeply suspect
The Government is using the party whip to push resolutions through each House of the Oireachtas this week to allow Ireland to exercise an option it has kept opting in to the EU migration pact. Cynics will note that the motions were due to be passed before the recent local and European parliament elections but […]
Voters need more choices than a hard left coalition or the status quo
Last Friday’s vote by Irish voters demonstrated, as many commentators have remarked, that the broad centre of Irish politics is not as fragile as those on the hard left and hard right imagined and calculated. Those, including Stephen Collins and myself, who have consistently argued and written that the entry into government by Sinn Féin […]
Biggest problem of the housing crisis is the Department of Housing
The minister with responsibility for housing policy and delivery, Darragh O’Brien has been rightly criticised for his dismissal of one of the most important recommendations of the Housing Commission’s report, namely the establishment of a Housing Delivery Oversight Executive (“HDOE”), a body which would for a limited period mobilise and oversee what Ireland needs so […]
Democracy has not hung on such a fraying thread since the 1930s
In the year 2000, an episode of the Simpsons was broadcast entitled “Bart to the Future”, featuring Lisa Simpson becoming US president in 2016 and having to clean up the mess left by a Donald Trump presidency. In 2016, what was the stuff of comedic cartoon shows in 2000 came to pass; Donald Trump was […]
Irish people victims of campaign of concealment by Government
There are profound ethical, accountability and constitutional issues in light of the belated discovery of documents demonstrating that the Irish people were victims of a campaign of sustained concealment by their own government in the course of the referendums on the family and care. It isn’t a matter of those who opposed the referendums engaging […]
New Dublin taskforce needs to devise robust solutions for the city
The bottom is falling out of the new office property market in Dublin. Commencement notifications for new office developments have dried up. While cranes are still visible on the skyline on office developments that have commenced, the penny seems to have dropped that there just won’t be all those tenants willing to pay top-dollar rents […]