Tag: reform
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Running for the Seanad
So, I had been asked by some people to consider this, in the upcoming election. Run for the university seats, they suggested. These were people I respected, from non-party backgrounds. Some were active in elected politics, others not. They made a persuasive case (but then, some are in the political world). I thought about it, took…
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The Troika couldn’t reform us…why do we think we can?
This is an expanded version of a column published in the Irish Examiner on 14 December 2013. A couple of news items this week caught my eye. One was that we seem to have an excellent civil service; only 99% of those evaluated by their managers were deemed to be performing at the lowest level,…
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Im thinking of voting to retain the Seanad
Its strange to find oneself on the same side of a political argument as Fianna Fail. That’s now where I find myself with regard to the referendum to abolish the Seanad. As an exercise in sheer political cynicism this referendum is hard to beat. Conceived by all accounts in a rush of political blood to…
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Getting to the Hartz of the Irish unemployment problem
Earlier this week I chanced to listen to an interview on the Pat Kenny show. Pat interviewed the Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton, about reforms and unemployment etc. We have a major problem with unemployment in this country and so any reform is worth looking at if it can assist in solving this issue.…
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Thoughts on public sector sickpay
So the labour court has agreed that the government can adjust and cut the sick leave allowances of 300,000 public servants. The old “allowance” was 7 uncertified sick days per a mum and this will now be reduced to the same per 24 months. Also the time on full pay will be cut from 6…
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Stabilizers
Ok..this is going to annoy everyone I suspect… One of the things that strikes me about the debate in Ireland is the fundamental misunderstanding that exists about the public sector. There is a large constituency of people who exhibit tendencies in their discourse that suggests that any wage over zero is too high – these are the die-hards whose…
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What if Ireland Defaults?
Well, if you want to know the answer to that question you will have to buy my new book, which contains a bunch of essays. Contributors include: Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz Constantin Gurdgiev, Megan Greene, Seamus Coffey and Stephen Kinsella Peter Mathews TD Senator Sean Barrett businessman and political activist Declan Ganley politics lecturer and…
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Banking : Back to the Future – presentation to the Crisis Conference
For those that were unable to make the crisis conference held today in Croke Park, please see below my slides on a possible future for banking. Note that these are suggestions and ideas : not detailed policy proposals. Theres only so much one can say in 25 minutes…. The slides re PDF and about 4mb…
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“Articles of the Future” – moving things along in a small way
As people may know I am among my other tasks a journal editor, editor of Research In International Business and Finance, published by Elsevier. And a fine journal it is…Elsevier have introduced the ‘Article of the Future’ concept recently, which aims to expand scholarly articles from simple static print to be a richer and hopefully…
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Seanad : babies and bathwater
As we leave 2011 one of the government promises which they announced as part of their election appears to be still on track. They do appear to be intent on getting rid of the upper house of the Irish Parliament, Seanad Eireann I’m not at all confident that is this a good idea. Most people…