As part of the ongoing relationship with Aontas. It was suggested in mid 2008 that DCTV and the Aontas – Community Education Network would be a good fit to explore a production project. This series, supported by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland sound and vision scheme is the most visible result of that partnership [...]

Larry Elliott’s article about the current Eurozone crisis in yesterday’s Guardian contained a reference to some interesting research to come out of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. The paper, titled Eurozone Crisis: Beggar Thyself and Thy Neighbour contains some thoughtful insights into the underlying structural causes of the current predicament. [...]

Aggressive free market approach disastrous for development, demo warns
In Brussels today campaigners warned that the European Union’s free market trade policies are savaging poor people and the environment in developing countries, and have staged an action outside a DG Trade conference in Brussels where senior EU figures were discussing the issue of trade with developing [...]

Irish, English, Scots and Welsh people are so reluctant to talk about death they often fail to tell their families what they want to happen to them when they die, or so a recent survey has found. 60% of people have not written a will, including a quarter of over-65 year olds. And of those [...]

In 1975, the victorious Viet Minh entered Saigon, the capital of the South, following a 30 year struggle against a range of international forces. For the first time, since its occupation by France in the late 19th century, Viet Nam was independent and no longer subject to the dictates of foreign powers.
However, while the lengthy [...]

Reproduced by permission of the Irish Examiner.
Ashley Balbirnie of the ISPCC is the latest in a line of people, including Jillian Van Turnhout of the Children’s Rights Alliance (CRA) and Fergus Finlay of Barnardos, who are effectively inverting the facts of the history of abuse in Ireland to secure increased power over our children for [...]

The first of four community stories which together provide an overview of Community Education in Dublin. Part of DCTV’s Beyond the Classroom project produced in partnership with the Aontas Community Education Network and funded by the BAI.
These four case studies span the last 30 years and provide an insight into what community education is, how [...]

Government lies and myths cloud attacks on social welfare
Tune into Pat Kenny, Live at 5, or any other formulaic RTÉ current affairs programme these days and chances are you’ll come across a panel of ‘experts’ debating the social welfare dilemma. It’s no coincidence that, two years into a recession, with unemployment and a deficit still [...]

In a previous post we saw that public sector labour costs are below-average by EU-15 standards. The argument that Irish public sector workers are ‘over-paid’ in relation to their European counterparts holds no water whatsoever. However, that doesn’t answer the charge that, regardless of comparative costs, we just have to cut public sector wages because [...]

Ireland after NAMA has an interesting blog post which links to Ronan Lyons assumptions about whether those running NAMA have got their assumptions right with regard to the “fall from peak to time-of-tranfer, the yield, and how yields might correct”. The writer goes on to say that “given the drop in land values, the oversupply [...]