Anne Costello of the Community Platform argues that Progressive tax reform will promote economic activity. It will retain consumer demand, protect jobs and protect low and middle income earners.

The Government is planning to cut €3 billion from public spending in the coming budget. They say there is no alternative. The Community Platform, a network of [...]

In a way the contribution that has remained with me the most from my very limited attendance at the Desmond Greaves school was William Kingston. Kingston, who is Professor and Research Associate at the School of Business Studies in TCD and has specialised on issues of public policy and administration, set out his stall as [...]

I recently posted a satirical response to An Taoiseach’s call for poets to do the state some service, and I would now like to return to the question in a more direct way. The call was widely reported because it coincided with the installation of Harry Clifton as Ireland Professor of Poetry, most notably it [...]

Seven Towers, in association with Salmon Press, presents the Dublin launch of ’Dreams for Breakfast‘ by Susan Millar Du Mars and ‘Frightening New Furniture‘ by Kevin Higgins.
Venue: Chaplin’s Pub, Hawkins Street, D2
Date: Saturday, September 25th
Time: 5pm
T: 0872283351

This is an article I’ve just come across as part of the chapter on industry and natural resources. I think it’s a good companion piece to the Dublin Shell To Sea campaign’s Someday Independent.
The article’s below the fold as it’s a bit long. It dates from 6 February 1974. The more things change, the more [...]

Every June, the schoolchildren of the Greater Manchester area nominate and vote for their Lollipop Lady of the Year. Lollipop Ladies are a British institution, known abroad variously as Crossing Guards, School Crossing Supervisors, Crossing Patrol Operatives, Pediatric Pedestrian Transverse Street Enablers, Lollipop Men (in Muslim countries), and, in France, as Les Otaries Effrayantes. We [...]

Book Review:Yeats and Violence: Michael Wood (Oxford University Press, 2010)
Violence moves restlessly through Yeats’ poetry.  It is there in ‘The Magi‘ (written in 1913) with its Three Kings who ‘Being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied’ wait for something more, another disturbance of the world order, a revelation of sorts, intimating an appetite for violence.
The violence in [...]

Last Tuesday, Sept 7th, France virtually came to a standstill through large scale strikes and demonstrations against the intentions of the Sarkozy elit to increase the pensionable age from 60 to 62 !! For many of us living in Ireland, and in the UK, facing the prospect of pensions at the age of 65, 66, 68 [...]

On Monday Michael Burke put up an excellent post on the news that the 10-year government debt climbed to 5.7% by close of trading on Friday. Since then of course, we know that yesterday it climbed to over 6%, reaching levels unseen since just before the 750 bn EU bank bailout was put in place [...]

As we head into ‘budget season’ we’ll get a lot of nonsense. One of the biggest is that we must extend the ‘tax system’ to those who don’t pay any tax (one Minister described this situation with outrage: ‘50pc of people are not paying a bob of tax. That is not sustainable’). No, the commentators [...]