Tag: politics
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The cloud of delusion in the silver lining of Irish recovery
This is a version of my column in the Irish examiner 11 January 2014 . Every silver lining, they say, has a cloud. Or is it the other way round? The new year has certainly got off to a bang in terms of the nascent Irish recovery. In the last week we have seen three…
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Teachers, Parliamentarians and Pay for Performance
Two interesting papers which I noted recently First, Mike Jones looks at what really happens when we introduce performance pay in the teachers salary mix. He looks at a longitudinal study of US data. Whats the outcome? Over the last decade many districts implemented performance pay incentives to reward teachers for improving student achievement. Economic…
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8 reasons to be cautious about Ireland’s “clean exit” from the Bailout
This is an expanded version of a comment piece published in the Irish Examiner 15 November 2013. The decision of government to exit the bailout ‘clean’ is a curates egg. The good element, and it is an unalloyed good, is that this signals that the worst of the effects of the noughties credit binge on…
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Political Doublethink on the Double
So… through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole and into Orwell speak Yesterday we saw two magnificent examples of political double think. James Reilly, the minister for health, announced another (is it now monthly?) rise in health insurance costs. The numbers of persons covered by private health insurance is down 11% from peak…
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Punishing trade union members for being union members….
A week is a long time in politics. A century is therefore much much longer. One of the great traditions of the many strands of the left was that the right to organize and to engage in collective action should be respected, both for individuals and groups. People have , literally, died for this right,…
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Why do we hate teachers?
We seem to hate teachers, at least if one goes by some of the comments one sees. Teachers are pretty regularly called thugs, bullies, parasites, derided as lazy, seen as grossly self interested, motivated only by money (as opposed to the pure desire of those commenting to help the public and work pro bono), and…
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Dublin Economics Workshop Annual Policy Conference Programme
Dublin Economics Workshop 35th Annual Economic Policy Conference Castletroy Park Hotel, Limerick, October 18-20 2013. The Dublin Economics Workshop is kindly sponsored this year by Dublin Chamber of Commerce Programme Friday October 18th 14.00 Registration 14.30 Session 1 – Callaghan Suite – The Mortgage Market I Conall Mac Coille and David McNamara (Davy): Ireland’s Deteriorating Mortgage…
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Mirror Mirror on the (Clara) wall, who is the sorriest of all?
‘No one more sorry than I about what happened,’ says Cowen – Political News | Irish & International Politics | The Irish Times – Fri, Aug 30, 2013. I have never met Brian Cowen. The closest I came was twice, once when I saw him and some others in a hotel near the Dail the…
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A hidden danger to democracy- Article 27 and the Seanad Referendum
The Irish Seanad, the upper house of the Irish Parliament, last night voted to allow a referendum on its continued existence to be held. Its not exactly turkeys voting for christmas, more turkeys voting to allow people decide if there should be christmas. There is an argument that is is more about power grabs than…