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Friday, Sep 5th 2008


Archive for the ‘Political Economy’ Category

Fianna Fail’s Good News Week

What a good news week for Fianna Fail was last week. It wasn’t just the latest Irish Times poll even if it’s only a honeymoon result. There was also that report– the ESRI’s Medium -Term Review: a little rough patch and then clear skies and calm waters for . . . well until 2025 minimum. […]

The Red Herring Diet Plan

That ol’ red herring - Labour’s links with trade unions - is raising its head again. Kevin Rafter suggests the Party’s 21st Century Commission (an internal review body) should:
‘ . . . look at Labour’s relationship with the trade union movement.’
Mr. Rafter likens this relationship to that which the State used to have with religious […]

The Mood Song of the Poverty Deniers

Shane Coleman doesn’t believe. CORI recently published its exhaustive Socio-Economic Review 2008 - a 240 page report detailing all aspects of poverty in Ireland. Contained therein was the startling fact that there are over 720,000 poor people living amongst us. Not only that, there are now more poor people today than there were at […]

The Economic Legacy of Bertie Ahern

Paul Tansey wrote an impressive list of economic achievements during Bertie Ahern’s tenure as Taoiseach:
On Ahern’s watch, the Irish economy almost doubled in size, while the numbers at work increased by one-half . . The unemployment rate declined from 10.4 per cent in 1997 to 4.6. In the 10 years from 1987 to […]

Latest Essays

The Many Faults of Co-Location

The simplistic idea behind co-location - to create extra space for public patients in public hospitals by transferring the... More »

Lisbon and Immigration: Why Ireland Voted No

The category ‘immigrant’ has been systematically substituted for the category ‘worker’, only to be supplanted in its turn by... More »

Latest Articles

Class and Ireland - Part 1

It is not the poverty
Of soil in Leitrim that makes me raise my hat
To fools with fifty pounds in... More »

September 3rd Morning: The Recession Diaries

IBEC’s Turlough O’Sullivan has an unfortunate ideological quirk but it is treatable.  It seems he can’t say the words... More »