Category: Journalism
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2016 – Goodbye to all that…but 2017 may be worse
Looking back at 2016 it is hard not to think that there were tectonic shifts in the western economic and political system, even allowing for the tendency of us all to overweight recent events. Ever since Cicero politicians have been complaining “o tempora, o mores” and we should have a healthy suspicion of those words…
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Ireland’s Elephants
We need to talk about elephants. White, in the room, dancing It doesn’t matter , elephants are where it is at. However, rather than ascertaining how to manage, evade and if needed cull same, our government, which resembles an elephants graveyard of hope, is goading and ignoring.
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Lets make England’s Brexit led education difficulty our opportunity
Theresa May’s plans for Brexit may have suffered a setback after campaigners won their high court battle over her decision not to seek parliamentary approval before starting the process. Nevertheless, any move by the UK to leave the EU is likely to pose significant challenges. If it is hard, as favoured by the British prime…
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Government must not “wibble” on Lansdowne Road
The ASTI dispute throws into sharp relief a number of elements of how we disorganize our state. Lets leave aside the mad Leninist concept of equal pay for equal work, and the Trotskyite raving of equal pay for equal work. At heart the closure of schools will result from the abdication of the state over…
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A brexit proof budget?
The budget last week was a bland and pallid affair, designed to try to create an illusion of prosperity, a Potemkin village of a performance. Thrupence here, a fiver there, a half percent somewhere else, it was devoid of any ambition other then keeping the FG/FF coalition, for that is what it is, in power.…
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Ireland- subsiding housing market failure
Economics has a lot to say about market failure, its causes consequences and resolution. The government know these. Indeed, at the cabinet table sits a man with formal economic training, in Richard Bruton, who knows these things. If they don’t, or have forgotten, then a phone call to the Government Economic Service will refresh or…
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Post Apple, time to rethink FDI policy
Regardless of whether or not an appeal should or should not be taken by the Irish government in relation to the Apple tax ruling, apple themselves will of course appeal. We should not mistake the individual issue, whether Apple did or did not get illegal state aid, for the broader issue of Ireland’s over reliance…
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Whats wrong with ticket touting anyway?
The recent events in Rio have brought the issue of ticket reselling, also called touting or scalping, to the minds of many. Without getting into the issue at hand, which is under legal investigation, it raises some interesting questions. Why are some trades seen as repugnant exchanges and others not? How should we decide?
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Cultural Learnings of Brexit for Make Benefit…
Post Brexit – Who says we cant have a hard border? Or that we are special labour snowflakes? Lets look at our culture..
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Taxes, bull and the Irish economy
Another week another inversion. This time, passing almost unnoticed in the august torpor, one of the worlds largest meat companies, JBS, signalled that it would relocate its HQ to Ireland. It also noted that this HQ company would be controlled from an office park in Herefordshire. The reasons for this have nothing whatsoever to do with…