At the launch of a pamphlet calling for repudiation of the debt, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Ireland, Eugene Mc Cartan, stated that people must be allowed to have a vote on this central question. It is not that we can’t pay but that we won’t pay. As working people are being [...]

Long-term unemployment is the worst part of any jobless figures. We can deal with frictional unemployment (a temporary period during which people change jobs). Even short-term unemployment can be dealt with - through re-training, back-to-education, temporary employment measures. But long-term unemployment (LTU) represents a terrible drain on the households who experience it, on the economy [...]

TASC has made a very interesting submission to the Independent Review of ERO and REA Wage Setting Mechanisms, which provides “independent external economic and labour market evidence in support of the need for wage floors”. It argues strongly against the cut in the minimum wage, and highlights the fact that Ireland is unique within the [...]

One of the defining characteristics of the 2011 general election is the championing of “competence” over incompetence. Foolish decisions made by politicians, both during the our relatively short lived ‘boom’, and since the collapse in the economy, are condemned by those eager to stress that they are the kind of professional management team that this [...]

This weekend I read the Sunday Business Post with some eagerness. Here would be the answers I required, that many require, about the bailouts, both the banking one and the ECB/IMF one - which aren’t quite the same thing as is all too apparent, and what is and isn’t possible.
Let’s start with the analysis.
In a [...]

The Bloom Movement* and the Feminist Open Forum**
Invite you to a Lunchtime discussion with renowned author and activist
Susan George
‘Global Crises Coming Home: Whose Crisis, Whose Future?’
The discussion will focus on exploring the current multi-faceted global crises - social, economic, financial, ecological - including the impacts of debt and the IMF, which have [...]

It’s bad enough the debate has not asked the fundamental question of why, after a series of austerity budgets, the deficit did not fall, borrowing costs shot through the roof and growth rates were slashed. It’s as if none of this happened and the only way we can climb out of the fiscal crisis is [...]

I was never a fan of social partnership. It was based on a flawed economic premise - limiting wage increases in return for income tax cuts; it was hardly a partnership (employers had the legal right to refuse to bargain with workers’ collectively); and it wasn’t terribly social (the social wage never featured - universal [...]

This is an extract from a just published paper prepared for Action from Ireland (Afri), December 2010. Click the link to access the full paper (PDF): The IMF and Ireland: What We Can Learn From The Global South.
The Politics of Denying Democratic Choice
Ireland has been a member of the IMF since 1957.[1] Despite [...]

With more interest being expressed (finally, finally) in growth rates, what are the forecasters saying. Well, Ernst & Young forecasts have just been published and their numbers are bad. They are worse than bad. They are so bad you’d wonder how it could get any worse. And the problem is - they are not alone.
A [...]