TASC has just issued its Budget analysis. Short, headline grabbing version: Government may have no choice but to restructure national debt unless radically different economic strategy adopted
“Current fiscal trajectory is unsustainable”
Press release:
Independent think-tank TASC this afternoon issued its analysis of Budget 2011.  The main findings are outlined in the summary below, and the full document [...]

DEMONSTRATION TO SAVE THE MINIMUM WAGE

OUTSIDE DÁIL EIREANN

THURSDAY 9 DECEMBER - 1:00pm
A delegation of minimum wage workers will present our petition to TDs asking them to vote against proposals to cut the minimum wage to €7.65. (www.claimingourfuture.ie)

The proposed cut is contained in the Financial Emergency Measures In the [...]

The ‘creepy’ is in the detail which the Government didn’t reveal.
Social welfare rates will fall by 4 percent (except for pensioners). Regarding low-average earners this is what the budget tables tell us.

All low-average income earners - self-employed and PAYE (both private and public sector) will suffer considerable falls in income.
This is where it starts [...]

From The Worst EU Lobbying Awards 2010, organised by Friends of the Earth Europe, Corporate Europe Observatory, LobbyControl, Spinwatch. For more information about the organisers, and the partnering organisations go here.
Brussels, 2nd December 2010 - RWE (npower), Goldman Sachs and derivatives lobby group ISDA have been given the dubious honour of being named the [...]

It appears that the government, in what can only be considered as a deeply undemocratic and unjust move, will attempt to legislate for a €1 cut to the minimum wage over the coming days.  This will most likely happen in the form of an amendment tacked on to legislation such as the [...]

Michael Burke has an article in yesterday evening’s Comment is Free on The Guardian site about the Irish budget. As always, Michael provides some good perspective and detail as well as an interesting comparison with the policies of the Conservative/Lib Dem government. Michael makes the point that the one difference between the two countries is [...]

The much-hyped budget has finally been delivered, much of it leaked over the last number of weeks in a sordid orgy by “informed sources” and the serried ranks of commentators and tame academics, vying with each other to present their interpretation of what each and every leak meant—all contributing to the general strategy of manufacturing [...]

The Future is So Dark, I Cannot Find My Shades
As you can see from the above photo which I was take the day before yesterday, everyone here is bloody freezing and having to huddle together on the beach at Playa Blanca in the hope that our body heat will generate enough warmth to see us [...]

The new proposed budget for 2011 is the final bullet or the coup de grace for the already weakened social Greek State. It projects cut backs of €2.2 billion in health and education, € 700 million of which will hit hospitals, €1.4 billion welfare expenditure and €107 million third level institutions. Hard pressed hospital [...]