In a way I’m surprised that ICTU eventually said no. And here’s the thing. I don’t know why. Maybe they don’t either. But the mood music was such that even Stephen Collins in the Irish Times on Saturday was complimenting the ‘constructive’ role the unions had played. How nice. How good. How patriotic. And this [...]

I like John Gormley, I genuinely do. He’s one of our more thoughtful and sensible politicians. That he sits at the Cabinet table, even in the current circumstances, is no bad thing, whatever about the lack of clear positive outcomes or influence on issues close to our hearts. But one has cause to wonder… like [...]

Last weekend, the Sunday Times published an article by Brenda Power entitled: TD’s funeral shamed him about the recent funeral of Independent TD, Tony Gregory. The article has forced me to put together a few words in response, because it demonstrates that in fact her words shamed her.

So what to say? A giant figure, unique, a master politician. We’ve heard and read a lot of that stuff over the last few days. Much of it is true. I’m not even going to parse out the political implications such as they are for the the left and the Irish political environment. Not today. [...]

There is a blunt irony to the fact that as the Progressive Democrats leave the political stage, their socio-economic and political project largely made void by the financial events of this Summer, the competitive aspect of their project seems to have been transferred almost without modification to the leftish parties. The most striking aspect of [...]