Written by P O'Neill on January 20th, 2011
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Resignations from Mary Harney, followed by Noel Dempsey, Dermot Ahern, and Tony Killeen. As Brian Cowen appears to have been sitting on at least one of these letters for over a week, we don’t know the timing. But Mary Harney correctly pointed to the problem with TDs intending to retire from politics — and thus [...]
Written by Mark Coughlan on December 9th, 2009
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What exactly are the Government expecting in their Department of Justice budgeting:
Written by EWI on July 19th, 2009
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Re: the cuts in the Defence Forces proposed by the McCarthy Report.
Headscratching stuff. The Defence Forces have already been pared down to the bone from a decade-long transformation arising from the PricewaterhouseCoopers report in the Nineties. So where is the ‘fat’ meant to come from, exactly?
Written by Future Taoiseach on August 21st, 2008
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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 allowed to annex it, followed [...]
Written by P O'Neill on February 5th, 2008
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It’s very rare for Ireland to have a potential military dilemma given that any overseas military activities are always under the colour of the United Nations. While there have been occasional concerns expressed about whether European Union military operations might breach neutrality, those concerns have never been able to overcome the general momentum of EU [...]
Written by P O'Neill on November 4th, 2007
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Maybe it’s just for public consumption but it’s another day of chastened-sounding statements from FF. Willie O’Dea managed to go a bit beyond Bertie’s “work harder” and dropped a hint that the Cabinet is taking another look at the pay review recommendations for ministerial and public service posts.
Written by P O'Neill on June 1st, 2007
2 comments »
Friday’s Irish Times reports on a potential hurdle in coalition formation that while not fatal, will deal a blow to the credibility of several of the independent TDs if/when a dodge is found around it. The issue is that some of them signed a pledge not to participate in any government that allowed the Shannon [...]
Written by Dan Sullivan on April 15th, 2007
6 comments »
Unanswered because it seems no one in the Dead Tree Press is asking them. I was drawn a fortnight ago to the Minister of Defence Willie O’Dea’s entry in the register of Oireachtas members interest. The minister as many people will know has a weekly column in the Sunday Independent. Now, politicians writing the occasional [...]
Written by P O'Neill on January 22nd, 2007
1 comment »
Given the regular migration of UK policy proposals to the Republic, here’s one worth watching: Home Secretary John Reid’s announcement that he’s seriously considereing splitting the Home Office into 2 departments — which might be a tempting idea for an under-siege Minister for Justice to float the next time a scandal hits the department.
Written by Simon on May 14th, 2006
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I know we go on about this a bit. But anyway Fine Gael and Labour disagree again. On Tuesday in the Dail. Billy Timmins of Fine Gael said of the Triple Lock (UN approval for military action).
Written by Simon on April 30th, 2006
2 comments »
The other day I argued against the neutrality “triple lock” requiring a United Nations resolution for the defence forces to act. Fine Gael agree. Irish ‘Triple-Lock’ is a potential massive embarrassment – Allen
Written by Simon on April 28th, 2006
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No post about Willie O’Dea can not be complete without the picture. Willie O’Dea was talking today about EU battle groups in Limerick. He gave his speech at the Institute of European Affairs Conference on “EU Battlegroups –Perspectives from Neutral and Non-aligned states”. From Wikipedia “The European Union battle groups is a project done in [...]