No time for wand-waving or wishful thinking on our energy supply
On the 19th May, Seanad Eireann debated an important private member’s motion tabled by independent senators with a view to having Eamon Ryan set out his plans for meeting Ireland’s energy needs. The motion sought clarity on whether Ireland was considering the option using nuclear energy. Ryan has until now indicated that nuclear energy was […]
New dynamism needed to overcome Ireland’s economic long Covid
Everything seems to take forever in Irish public affairs. Every major project gets mired in controversy and, frequently, in lengthy and massively expensive litigation. Hospitals such as the children’s hospital and the new maternity hospital take decades to plan, get approval and get built. Transport infrastructure is bogged down in policy and planning disputes. Twenty […]
Johnson will try to keep NI protocol centre stage
As predicted here and elsewhere widely, the Assembly elections resulted in Sinn Féin becoming the largest party and thus becoming entitled to nominate the First Minister, the DUP coming in second and only entitled to nominate the Deputy First Minister, and the Alliance party getting a boost from voters disillusioned with the orange/green polarisation. If […]
Planning Regulator makes a sham of local democracy
Does it really matter whether most people own their own homes or rent them? In my view it does matter. While some may say, and with a good deal of common sense, that the social priority must be that people have homes in the first place, rented or not, it does not follow that there […]
Ireland is drifting towards permanent energy crisis
Fintan O’Toole wrote last week about the desirability of Ireland really getting serious about off-shore wind farms and the possibility that Ireland might become an important exported of energy to the EU. I imagine that few people would oppose such development and that most people would strongly support it. That in turn raises the question […]
Renegotiation of Belfast Agreement looks inevitable
The paramilitary demonstration by dissident IRA members in Derry on the occasion of their commemoration of the Easter Rising demonstrated yet again that the vein of hatred that runs like a deep seam in the former heartlands of paramilitarism – green and orange -is still there to be mined and exploited for political purposes, especially […]