Irish Election - Coverage of Irish Politics, News and Current Affairs

With the release today of the CSO details on gender in Ireland Labour used the opportunity to push out their policy of
Labour believes that state bodies and agencies should be required to achieve at least 40 per cent representation of each gender on their boards and governing bodies. We believe that statutory force should be [...]

Last week I posted a survey of the first one hundred properties listed on Daft.ie for rent in Dublin, as taken from the Daft site on 30 November 2007. Below is a survey of the next one hundred properties taken on the same day. It shows that in two weeks:
17 out of 100 properties have [...]

Swiss bank loses €6.8bn over subprime crisis

The term “public health” is used in various ways but one important meaning refers to the system that monitors for emerging health risks in the population and reports them to an authority that can do something about it.  We’ve traditionally thought of this as the key mechanism for control of infectious diseases: people start showing [...]

The Six one News had a report about the todays jobless figures showing a rise in unemployment coming mainly from construction. They had a report about how many rural areas depend much on construction something I mentioned a few weeks ago. What it reminded me of was a clip on reeling in the years. In [...]

Property in Ireland - its sale and rental - is not just a social issue, it’s a political issue. And it is covered by journalists as a political issue. Recently we saw a highly publicised campaign by the Irish Times and the Irish Independent to see stamp duty cut. The argument was that stamp duty [...]

After the 2007 Budget last December, Brian Cowen was called Santa Claus by those quick witted subeditors eager to fill a snappy headline. After all, the surprisingly large tax returns, mainly provided by the rampantly inflated housing market allowed him to provide a bumper ‘giveaway’ budget.
This year of course, with credit crunches and a collapsing [...]

500 jobs go at Galway Plant
Budget 2008 coverage

While much of the media have been acting with glea and the other lot with denial there is a big issue that is being ignored. When ever I go home to my local to have a pint the conversation generally turns to construction. Now this is not a D4 type talk of interiors this conversation [...]

The Irish residential property market has now reached a turning point and already there are encouraging signs of a pick-up in activity, with sales enquiries through Hooke & MacDonald increasing steadily. This momentum will follow through into the autumn selling period, boosted by the resolution of the stamp duty issue and as the interest rate [...]

Anabolic Initiations No. 5 is not a film you would think says a lot about Ireland today. The synoposis of the film on mentions the words ass, cum, sluts etc etc. Yet this film says more about Ireland today then any film starring that twit from the Frames.

You may find it curious that at the moment the Irish Times is doing extensive coverage of Irish developers, those brave and assiduous men, and they are all men, who are bringing this country the type of shopping centres and office blocks that we could only have dreamed of when we sat watching Dallas in [...]

Yesterday a court ruled that the Department of Education had not discriminated against dyslexic students when after they received reasonable accommodation in their exams that their results would be marked as having been marked differently. I wrote my feelings angrily on this a while ago Mary Hanafin or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and [...]

Time to boycott People in Need.

Over on politics.ie an article from the polish radio service is highlighted which says.
The Polish community in Ireland appeal to the authorities of that country to make Polish the third official language, after English and Irish. It’s natural, they say. We are now the second largest nation of Ireland, so we should enjoy our right [...]

Hat tip Eurotrib. From VoxEU
Gender discrimination is economically inefficient since it prevents equalisation of marginal products. Recent simulations based on calibrated macro models indicate that the economic loss is large. In one thought experiment, the research suggests that a very large fraction of the income differences between many nations and the US is due to [...]