Tag Archives: republic of ireland

Video: Perhaps the most dramatic implosion of a front-running Presidential campaign in history

By Paul Walter | Published 23rd January 2012 - 3:54 pm

In case you missed this, it is likely to rank as one of the most dramatic ends to a front-running Presidential campaign in history.

Before this RTE debate on 24th October last year, Sean Gallagher, standing as an Independent candidate, was 15 points ahead of the field and a “shoe-in” to be the next Irish President. Three days later, he finished the actual election 11 points behind the winner, Michael D Higgins.

This video clip shows the complete debate episode which led to Gallagher’s political demise. The discussion centres on a visit to a businessman’s house on behalf of …

Posted in News, YouTube | 2 Comments

Opinion: A New Approach to our Union

By Nicola Prigg | Published 15th November 2011 - 11:45 am

The current approach to the United Kingdom doesn’t work.

The current approach treats each home nation as an individual, yet this approach leads to everyone pulling the centre in every direction. It leads to infighting, or to one country taking control and dictating to the others how they should be run. Neither result leads to a strong union.

We currently have the Scotland Bill going through Parliament devolving more powers to the Scottish Parliament; Wales passed a referendum giving its citizens the ability to pass primary legislation; and Nick Clegg has set up a commission to address the …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged constitutional reform, england, northern ireland, Scotland, united kingdom, Wales | 26 Comments

Ship of Fools: lessons from the Irish crash

By Mark Pack | Published 9th February 2011 - 10:25 am

Fintan O’Toole’s Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger is a coruscating account of how the Irish boom turned into biter bust. The sharpness of the prose as O’Toole recounts a tale of property boom, tax evasion and dodgy banking practices both entertains and obscures.

Along the way we have a blizzard of names and details about tax dodging, back handers and absent regulation. We also have the bitter irony of the failed exposure of politicians. When politicians were exposed yet their political careers continued unimpeded, the message to other politicians was – look, it does you no …

Posted in Books, Op-eds | Also tagged fintan o'toole | 9 Comments

The Independent View: Advice for the Lib Dems – be strong, but also be selfish

By Jason O'Mahony | Published 11th December 2010 - 2:20 pm

Watching the Liberal Democrat angst over tuition fees takes me back to 1989, when I was a young, considerably trimmer and clean shaven young Progressive Democrat activist. There had just been an Irish general election, and we had been devastated, dropping from 14 seats to just 6, which in Westminster terms would be like dropping from 50 odd seats to the early twenties, so you can imagine the howls of anguish. But that wasn’t even the worst bit: we were now faced with the nightmare scenario of entering coalition with Charles Haughey’s Fianna Fail, which in British terms was like …

Posted in Op-eds, The Independent View | Also tagged david cameron, nick clegg, progressive democrats | 36 Comments

Opinion: Ireland has many economic problems…..but it isn’t an argument against the Euro

By David Thorpe | Published 21st November 2010 - 1:50 pm

As my native Ireland teeters on the edge of bankruptcy and bailout, sections of the British press have taken the opportunity to view Ireland’s difficulty as the Europsceptic’s opportunity.

Some of the comment has centred around the idea that British taxpayers will be asked to ‘bail out’ their feckless neighbours, as, apparently they were with Greece last year.

This article aims not to explore that argument further, as it is a debate too reliant on uncertain future events, and is framed within a Britsih nationalist context which it is not appropriate for me to explore.

Instead I want to focus on another aspect …

Posted in Europe / International, Op-eds | Also tagged euro, european union, eurosceptic | 55 Comments

Opinion: Another Greek tragedy? Time for Europhiles to admit the dream is over

By Mike Guillaume | Published 9th March 2010 - 11:50 am

In case you wouldn’t have noticed, another crisis has come on top of the big one.

For those who understand French, read carefully this article in the March 5 edition of French daily “Le Monde” . A former German finance vice-minister buries the euro as it is now and advises all Southern-Europe economies (including France) to get out of the Eurozone if they don’t clean up their act, behave more like Germany and adopt many unacceptable social measures. Some German backbenchers have suggested these might include selling off some islands (who would buy these? You guess).

That doesn’t yet …

Posted in Europe / International, Op-eds | Also tagged euro, european union, eurosceptic, france, germany, greece, iceland, single currency | 54 Comments

Nick welcomes Ireland’s Lisbon yes vote, says Tories are “embarrassing themselves”

By Stephen Tall | Published 3rd October 2009 - 5:25 pm

Ireland’s yes to the Lisbon Treaty was emphatic (albeit at the second time of asking): 67% voted to approve it, with just two of the 43 constituencies rejecting it, on an icnreased turnout of 58%.

Nick Clegg was quick to welcome the result – and to note the awkward situation David Cameron now finds himself in:

This result finally puts to rest years of wrangling over Europe’s future and paves the way for a stronger and more democratic European Union.

“The worst thing would be to re-open this self-indulgent debate. David Cameron should now finally accept the treaty as a fact of life instead of plotting with Eastern European nations to have it blocked. The Conservatives are already embarrassing themselves and Britain with their petulant impotence on Europe.

Posted in Europe / International | Also tagged david cameron, european union, lisbon treaty, nick clegg | 17 Comments

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