The Labour Party is proposing a Private Member’s Bill that would require the Government to draw up a national strategy to combat fuel poverty. Party spokesperson, Liz McManus, TD, said:
‘The strategy would require the Minister to specify a comprehensive set of measures to ensure the efficient use of energy and set a target date for [...]

40 years on, and the legacy of 1968 remains contested. This is probably inevitable. While it’s one of those few years like 1789, 1848 or 1989 that are synonymous with uprising and revolution, 1968 is unique in that there’s little or no consensus on what it meant then or what it means now.
Sean [...]

Having read Michael Taft’s piece on Labour and the two and a half party system last month some thoughts struck me which were underscored in conversation with someone close to the Green Party. They had done a neat little chart which demonstrated that historically it has been smaller fourth parties which have a better chance [...]

Sometimes a proposal comes along that is so simple you say to yourself, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ That’s what I said when reading ICTU’s ‘Economic Outlook: Narrowing the Pay Gap’. The highlight of this comprehensive review of the economy is its discussion of the growing pay gap between the upper echelons of [...]

Long endowed with a potent resonance for French people, the year 1968 has, at this point, 40 years on, morphed into a brand. In spite of the tumultuous occurrences elsewhere in the world that year, it has become synonymous with France, and more particularly Paris. Only for the Czechs and Slovaks does it have anything [...]

“The point about a free press as presided over by O’Reilly’s INM is that editorial content is a matter for journalists, not proprietors.”
So says Eamon Dunphy in his April 12th Irish Times article about the battle between Denis O’Brien and Tony O’Reilly for the ownership of Independent News and Media. The article has raised [...]

… “just because an institution or a practice is rooted in tradition does not make it right.”
This statement appears in the position paper of MarriagEquality, the campaign to extend civil marriage to same sex couples. It is a statement with which I wholeheartedly concur; tradition and practice are not an infallible or a desirable means [...]

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 [...]

 
In the third of our interviews on the media I talked to Dr. Heinz Brandenburg of the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Aberdeen, about political bias in the Irish media, how parties manage the media or fail to, and how the media covers politics in general.
Background
Dr. Heinz Brandenburg has written [...]

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 [...]