Ireland – Page 219 – Slugger O'Toole

Irish 2009 budget deficit goes upwards to 14.3% (past Greece)!

Mack on April 22, 2010, 12:26 pm

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Ireland surges past Greece into first place for 2009 European fiscal deficits. Per the Eurostat report In 2009 the largest government deficits in percentage of GDP were recorded by Ireland (-14.3%), Greece (-13.6%) the United Kingdom (-11.5%), Spain (-11.2%), Portugal (-9.4%), Latvia (-9.0%), Lithuania (-8.9%), Romania (-8.3%), France (-7.5%) and Poland (-7.1%). No Member State registered a government surplus in 2009. The lowest deficits were recorded by Sweden (-0.5%), Luxembourg (-0.7%) and Estonia (-1.7%). In all, 25 Member States recorded …

Roubini sceptical on Eurozone debt

Mack on April 21, 2010, 2:08 pm

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Known as Doctor Doom because he correctly identified the imbalances that led to the credit crunch, Nouriel Roubini appears to be unimpressed with attempts to solve the emerging sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone. Over at RGE monitor he warns – A Modern Greek Tragedy May Soon Turn Into a Broader PIIGS Disaster These issues within the eurozone stem primarily from a loss of competiveness, high wage growth and labor costs which outstripped productivity, undisciplined fiscal policies and, crucially, the …

IMF propose new bankers tax

Mack on April 21, 2010, 11:56 am

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In a new report to the G20, the IMF recommend that two new special taxes should be levied on banks and bankers to meet the cost of any future financial crises. The two taxes target bankers pay and bank profits. Per the Times report The first tax, a Financial Stability Contribution, would be a levy to fund any future government support. The second would be a Financial Activities Tax on the sum of the profits and remuneration of financial institutions. …

Brian Cowen: “let’s go on a journey and forget about the destination”

Pete Baker on April 21, 2010, 11:49 am

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As the Irish Times’ Deaglán de Bréadún reports, Taoiseach Brian Cowen, picking up from where Bertie Ahern left off, has been telling the Journal of Cross-Border Studies in Ireland that the political journey is what is important, not the destination. And he’s not wrong. From the Irish Times article “The ultimate destination of any political project is a matter of time working itself out. Therefore the destination is not the thing to be talking about. That will be for other people …

Have our parents and leaders screwed up the country?

Andy Pollak on March 31, 2010, 8:24 pm

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[This is taken from A Note from the Next Door Neighbours, the monthly e-bulletin of Andy Pollak, Director of the Centre for Cross Border Studies in Armagh and Dublin] I have just returned from Malawi in southern Africa where I was with a group of Irish and Northern Irish university academics in health, education and ICT who are working with colleagues in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda on a training programme to help build their capacity to raise the research performance of …

Unity Won’t Solve Ireland’s Two Major Problems

Andy Pollak on February 27, 2010, 9:09 pm

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[This is taken from A Note from the Next Door Neighbours, the monthly e-bulletin of Andy Pollak, Director of the Centre for Cross Border Studies in Armagh and Dublin] I believe that in the present circumstances of continued deep communal division in Northern Ireland and deep economic crisis in the Republic, Irish unity is not on the political agenda, nor does it make sense to put it on the agenda any time soon. I have not heard advocates of rapid …

A tribute to the amazing Armagh Rhymers

Andy Pollak on January 29, 2010, 11:10 pm

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[This is taken from A Note from the Next Door Neighbours, the monthly e-bulletin of Andy Pollak, Director of the Centre for Cross Border Studies in Armagh and Dublin] If I ever became Mayor of Armagh, the first thing I would do is to give the freedom of the city to the Vallely family. John B. Vallely is the best known of them, an artist who despite his international reputation has continued to live and work in his home place, …

Ms Cahill: “The IRA came to me and forced an investigation…”

Mick Fealty on January 25, 2010, 10:01 pm

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Below the fold you can read the statement by Ms Cahill that was sent to the BBC last Wednesday in response to their carrying a denial of her story in the Sunday Tribune. I’ve been reluctant to post the whole thing entirely because of potential legal complications (unlike the BBC we are not indemnified against such action). But we believe this previously unpublished account of what passed between herself and the two IRA volunteers who dealt with her be made …

An Insider’s view: Sinn Féin has become “bloated, slow and predictable…”

Mick Fealty on January 11, 2010, 2:27 am

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The excellent Sinn Fein – Keep Left blog has (see also Neil at The Beautiful Room) published a document prepared by Killian Forde and sent up to the leadership after the local elections in June last year… It was, we understand, completely ignored by the party’s leadership… Which is a shame for them, because instead of it remaining a private report, it has gone public… In essence, he argues that the party is driven not by an independent party structure, …

“Sinn Féin TD Arthur Morgan was last night unavailable to answer queries..”

Pete Baker on January 5, 2010, 7:33 pm

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And in related news, today’s Irish News notes Sinn Féin TD Arthur Morgan was last night unavailable to answer queries about the scale of Liam Adams’s involvement in the party in Co Louth. Now that there is photographic, and archived, evidence which contradicts his previous assertion that “Although [Liam Adams] was a party member, he was never an officer”, “He was not on the richter scale at all”… Pete Baker

My Unsung Cooperation Heroes of 2009

Andy Pollak on December 22, 2009, 7:58 pm

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[This is taken from A Note from the Next Door Neighbours, the monthly e-bulletin of Andy Pollak, Director of the Centre for Cross Border Studies in Armagh and Dublin] Cross-border cooperation in Ireland is not exactly trendy. Much of it involves the painstaking building of trust and relationships, often as a pre-requisite to working on practical joint projects. Almost by definition, such mundane, ‘under the radar’ work rarely gets a mention in the media. It’s probably just as well, since …

Civil Servants and EU Officials are Peacebuilders too

Andy Pollak on November 27, 2009, 7:08 pm

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[This is taken from A Note from the Next Door Neighbours, the monthly e-bulletin of Andy Pollak, Director of the Centre for Cross Border Studies in Armagh and Dublin] On 13th December 1999 a long line of black Mercedes snaked across the border into Armagh for the first meeting of the new North/South Ministerial Council set up by the Good Friday Agreement the previous year to oversee the new cross-border ‘Strand Two’ institutions established by that Agreement. There to meet …

The man with the cross-border knowledge in his head

Andy Pollak on October 30, 2009, 7:15 pm

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[This is taken from A Note from the Next Door Neighbours, the monthly e-bulletin of Andy Pollak, Director of the Centre for Cross Border Studies in Armagh and Dublin] Gary McIntyre is a solicitor who works as an advice worker with Citizens Advice Northern Ireland in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh. For the past six years he has been employed by Borderwise, a cross-border partnership between Citizens Advice NI and the Citizens Information Board (Republic of Ireland) which was set up with …

Lisbon Essay (31): Checks, balances and a stronger social dimension

Mick Fealty on October 1, 2009, 9:24 pm

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And in the last of our Lisbon essays, Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore rather trenchantly asserts that Lisbon is not about transfering power from Dublin to Brussels. It is he believes, in contrast to Jimmy Kelly in LE26, enhances a social Europe by setting the Charter up as a watchdog on all EU institutions when it comes to the framing and passing of law. And in contrast with Joe Higgins’ concerns in LE4 he believes it would provide a bulwark …

Lisbon Essay (30): The least impact upon the Irish Constitution of any Treaty ever voted on…

Mick Fealty on October 1, 2009, 8:21 pm

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Ciarán Toland is a barrister (so we’ve given him a bit more space to make his case). In this, essay he lays out why he thinks the Lisbon Treaty has taken on a significance in Irish law that barely reflects insignificance in real terms. It lies primarily in the proposal to give the EU (previously three pillar multiple personality) and single legal personality of its own. Much else, he concludes is moving the furniture around: “…the Lisbon Treaty has the …

Lisbon Essay (29): It is Ireland’s credibility that’s at stake…

Mick Fealty on October 1, 2009, 6:26 pm

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John O’Farrell picks up on Heaney’s focus on the word ‘credit’ (nó creid as Gaeilge), and reckons that the poet has put his finger on what’s at stake for Ireland in the referendum when he argued that a No vote will mean that it will be “up to our EU neighbours – not us – to decide how we will be treated in the future.” It’s a theme taken up previously in LE17 and LE13. O’Farrell argues that even though …

Lisbon Essay (28): How on earth do we switch this (EU) thing off?

Mick Fealty on October 1, 2009, 5:30 pm

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Declan Ganley of Libertas notes that if you vote yes tomorrow, then there may be no more opportunities for the plain people of Ireland to turn this process around. This, he argues, is not the second time this treaty has been voted on but the fifth. That the only changes that have been made to it in all of that time (he makes the score 3-2 to the No side by the way) are purely cosmetic demonstrates just how far …

Lisbon Essay (27): If it’s No, Europe will simply find a way to move on without us…

Mick Fealty on October 1, 2009, 2:30 pm

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Dan O’Brien, senior Europe editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit in London, posts from Berlin where he is covering the aftermath of the Germany election. He takes a sounding of insider opinion on Ireland and Lisbon, in several of Europe’s major capitals. The general assumption is that Irish voters will, as they did with Nice, change their minds in tomorrow’s poll. Most negative opinion is constellated around Paris and Berlin. In brief, that negativity centres around a disbelief that a …

Time to bring in the French to run the Enterprise?

Andy Pollak on October 1, 2009, 2:08 pm

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[This is taken from A Note from the Next Door Neighbours, the monthly e-bulletin of Andy Pollak, Director of the Centre for Cross Border Studies in Armagh and Dublin] I make no apologies for returning to one of my pet subjects: the woeful state of the Belfast-Dublin rail service. We all know what happened on 20 August when the viaduct carrying the line across the Malahide estuary collapsed, narrowly avoiding a major disaster. We know something of what preceded that: …

Lisbon Essay (26): A ‘No’ vote would show solidarity with the Charter and a social Europe

Mick Fealty on September 30, 2009, 8:39 pm

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Jimmy Kelly of the Unite Union is one of the most respected figures of the No platform. His position is relatively straightforward. In Ireland workers protections lag hugely behind that of much of Europe. In particular he argues that the Charter for Fundamental Rights is being sold as a fait accomplai, when in fact there is no obligation for national governments to comply with its imperatives: “In effect, the Government is asking us to support the ‘form’ of fundamental rights …