The scale of the Nama (National Asset Management Agency) project is awe-inspiring. We never had it so good as in the Celtic Tiger years but it is clearly a case of, the higher they come, the harder they fall.
Nama and Snip? Tiger cubs at Dublin Zoo, with Mum and Dad (Photograph by Brenda Fitzsimons)
The French anarchist, Proudhon said, “Property is theft!” but a more apposite quote might be Benjamin Franklin’s statement that the only certainties in life were, “Death and taxes”. Herewith a piece from the print edition of the newspaper on the Commission on Taxation Report, which is to be finalised today and will be considered by Cabinet in September. Some of its proposals are likely to be quite controversial.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (left) and Benjamin Franklin (more…)
It would be wrong to finish up a week at the MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal without contributing to this blog. One has not yet mastered the art of the brief, almost Twitter-like “soundbite” which other bloggers use from time to time. Our posts on this Blog are more like mini-essays and hopefully therefore more profound.
For this week, we who labour in the field at Leinster House feel what it must be like in Glenties for the other 51 weeks of the year.
This half of the Politics blog has been away for the past couple of weeks. The village in the Swiss Bernese Oberland that I stayed in had the connectivity of rural Ireland. That, added to the extortionate rates that O2 charge for data roaming abroad (and I’m sure it is no exception) meant that little news from Ireland came through. (more…)
The Dáil may be gone for the Summer but politics refuses to lie down. First we had the Greens with their late-night abstention on the final vote for the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill and then we had Colm McCarthy’s Bord Snip Report.
That Report (Photograph by Alan Betson) (more…)
Your Humble Scribe was asked to chair a debate on Afghanistan last night at a Dublin hotel. Unfortunately, due to pressure of work (reporting on the Greens’ row with Dermot Ahern), most of the speeches were over by the time he got to the meeting.
There’s more of this in store if the Taliban win (Photograph by Brenda Fitzsimons)
There’s an excellent letter in today’s Irish Times (see below) which struck a chord with yours truly. The letter-writer suggests that the Bank of Ireland hand over the old Parliament House on College Green to the State. He goes on to propose that the building become a museum in commemoration of the 1916 Rising and the Battle of the Somme.
Former Houses of Parliament, now Bank of Ireland premises at College Green, Dublin (Photograph by Alan Betson, 2001)
While we’re all focussing on the economy and politics, our civic culture is gradually crumbling away. Maybe not so gradually.
O’Connell Street, heart of the city (Photograph by Cyril Byrne)
A friend of mine is fond of quoting the American humorist and commentator, the late H.L. Mencken, who said that, “If all the economists were laid end to end, they still wouldn’t reach a conclusion”.
Bright Intelligent Fellow From Offaly meets Ban the Man (Photograph by Dara Mac Dónaill) (more…)
It nearly slipped past. Today is the first anniversary of this blog. As it happens, a young graduate student has interviewed both of us separately on the experience.
Aargh, no, not another referendum campaign (Photograph by Matt Kavanagh) (more…)
A frequent contributor of comments on this blog, Dan Sullivan has a very interesting letter in today’s Irish Times on the issue of Seanad reform. He puts the spotlight on Senator Donie Cassidy who, according to Dan, is singlehandedly holding up the process of widening the franchise for the the six university seats. No doubt Donie will have a riposte. To read the letter, click here
Donie on the hustings (Photograph by Alan Betson) (more…)
There was a time when I couldn’t get enough of Maureen Dowd in the New York Times but I have tired of the formula, and the over-cleverality, and the devices, and verbal pony tricks. I have switched loyalties to Paul Krugman (him of Erin go Broke fame) and Thomas Friedman in the same paper. Both are required reading, especially when it comes to the big issues like the economy, climate change, and the future of society.
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