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Stephen Collin’s story in the Irish Times today is one of those ones that feeds into a zeitgeist. Political leaders who have let the Social Partnership talks slip, are in charge of an economic slowdown and on 13 weeks of summer holidays receive their final pay increase today.
TDs WILL receive a pay rise of some [...]
Suzy has the theory. It consists of two words; stop over.
Someone emailed this from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform apropos our post on the mergers of the Equality Authority, National Disabilitiy Authority and IHRC (among others). Source asks about the vetting process and the final two three organisations in the press release relative to the others.
A tiny autonomous archipelago off Finland could soon add to the EU’s Lisbon Treaty woes…BBC
That isnt the kind of thing you expect to read everyday on the BBC website - or perhaps it is. Anyway it seems that not alone can the Irish do damage to the treaty by effectively killing it. A small island [...]
Source: Ballyer.net/Sundayworld
It would be remiss of us here not to congratulate Kenneth Egan on his excellent performance in the semi-final of the Olympics light-heavyweight boxing. Class and poise, well done and best of luck.
As Bertie Ahern does his screen-test for a future job on The Sunday Game or Late Late, he was quick to defend his handling of the economic downturn. Unemployment now at 5.1% and construction workers falling like flies - and little re-training to give them a hand up.
The Dublin Central TD, who quit office in [...]
In a week dominated by harrowing scenes of civilian suffering in the ongoing Russian-Georgian conflict over the separatist region of South Ossetia. There are shades of the Sudetenland crisis in 1938, when Hitler, on the pretext of defending a ‘persecuted’ German minority in that region of Czechoslovakia, was appeased and [...]
Even before the Irish people’s democratic decision to reject the fatally-flawed Lisbon Treaty, (which would have deepened the democratic-deficit in Europe still further), the source of Libertas funding was a bane of “yes” campaigners. To the elite, the possibility of the ‘mainstream’ parties being so decisively outspent by this upstart pro-business [...]
Well the story of the US campaign season, how a cartoon managed to raise $95,000 in days for a new aspiring politician, Sean Tevis in Kansas. If you’ve ever read XKCD read on. (Wikipedia entry for XKCD)
Irishelection.com is delighted to announce ‘Green Ink’s Week‘ a new feature to the site where cartoon and blogging legend Green Ink posts his reflections on the week. Each Friday the exclusive cartoon will be posted to the front page of irishelection.com by the artist presently known as Green Ink (but aims for a future title [...]
The news that the ESB is to seek a 20pc price hike will if granted, drive the average annual bill up to a staggering €1,100. It is up to the Commission for Energy Regulation to sanction all such rises. Before it does so, it had better think hard about the hardship they could bring and [...]
What? The price of a house on two offices? On a refurbishment?
The space needed renovation and cleaning, and according to figures obtained by RTÉ News, the OPW spent approximately €220,000 to do this and to fit it out with furniture. The work took around three weeks to complete.
We have been playing it for a while, though we are repeatedly at pains to point out that there was no single reason why this Treaty failed. Voters voted for different reasons. Anyway, over on his blog Jon Worth gives his two cents on who gets to shoulder the blame in Euro-ville.
The candidates? Charlie McCreevy, [...]
Cowen was giving a speech last night where he conceded that corrective action on the economy is likely to be “painful”. Not a great time for the ESRI to recommend a rise in Social Welfare to E230 per week across the boards, yet interesting to see them call it a priority in a time when [...]
The Financial Times’ Brussels blog has a very interesting story about the manouvering taking place on European Commission numbers from next year. As we found out, Nice will govern the makeup of the Commission from January next year - rather than Lisbon.
This means there has to be less Commissioners than there are member states, prompting [...]
Yup, recession. We are going to be hearing a lot about it thanks to the ESRI quarterly report and forecast.
Forecast contraction this year 0.4%
Unemployment next year forecast at 7%
It anticipates that the economy will contract in size by 0.4 per cent this year after growing by 4.5 per cent in 2007.
This recession reflects a steep [...]
Female Clinton Supporters In Focus Groups See Talent, Mudslinging In Palin’s Speech
Very interesting instant focus grouping of Palin's speech. It remains to be seen how the issue of sexism becomes resolved for the Hillary supporters who remain to be won over - how does Palin need to come across to get support? As tough as the men or picked on - and is she better of playing base politics than worrying about marred Clinton-women in Nevada
Plugged-in politics hits our shores
Online politics hits Australia
The Dail Ministers: Mary Harney
Dail Minsters profile of Mary Harney. Words dont do it justice, just go read it.
How the Conservative party square the politicisation of personal life and their belief in the small state.
A second Irish referendum? Eurocrats have a better idea
Dan Hannan at the Telegraph reckons the plan in Brussles is not for a second referendum but instead to parachute in sections of the Lisbon Treaty via legislation.
