“I am totally depressed as I believe a huge amount of work has been totally undone … support structures to assist the most vulnerable have been undermined, which will mean that discipline and pastoral care structures will be affected”
Principal, boys’ secondary school, Leinster
The Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland (ASTI) has published a report into [...]

I’ve been trying to get away from this topic - the whole deflation thing and its impact on the economy and the budget. There are, after all, a hundred and one other issues in the Fianna Fail playbook to consider, deconstruct and reconstruct in a progressive fashion. But it seems that everyday we are drawn [...]

Do you remember why the Government introduced the emergency April budget? Rising unemployment? Collapse in economic growth? Mass depression over the weather? Let’s refresh our memories:
‘Without this supplementary Budget the general government deficit would have been 12¾% of GDP reflecting the large gap needed to fund the difference between spending and revenue. In the prevailing [...]

Updated on 5th of May 2009 to take account of the fact that I have since verified that the explanation about OECD tables being ‘problematic’ was provided to Sarah by a press officer in the Dept. of Finance. I have also modified a section which may have implied that the other claims about Ireland’s generous [...]

That wild and whacky outrider of neo-liberalism, Constantin Gurdgiev, has taken a scalpel to the Government’s budget numbers and I find myself . . . agreeing with him. No surprise there. People from wildly varying perspectives can still agree the sky is blue. Even if the great Fianna Fail sky-gods are doing everything possible to [...]

This article was originally written for Indymedia
I don’t intend to list the outrages that Fianna Fail has perpetrated in yesterday’s budget. We all have scars to show each other. And let’s leave the bank bailout for the moment (but everything about it is one more argument for immediate nationalisation).
Let’s get to the heart of the [...]

The progressive economy@tasc blog now have a number of posts up on the April Supplementary (or Emergency) budget, which might provide ILR readers with some useful analysis of its potential impact, strategy and what it might mean for the wider economy in the years to come.
First to post was Terrence McDonough, who has written a [...]

The three opposition parties, Sinn Fein, Fine Gael and now Labour have each published their proposals for economic recovery. In each case the emphasis has been on job creation, some form of stimulus and an attempt to restructure the economy to replace the previous over reliance on construction and property development.
Over on the progressive economy@tasc [...]