Lisbon

Railroad governance: scalded to death by the steam

| Readers 10

For once the trainwreck metaphor isn’t overworked when you cast your eye across the piled-up carnage of the current Fianna Fáil-led coalition. It applies equally well to their reduction to the status of front of house staff for the ECB with little fiscal freedom of manoeuvre, or any number of unedifying episodes involving bankers and developers and the two premier league exponents of the parish pump, Lowry and Healy-Rae, the coalition’s guarantors, and, in some respects, the public face of it’s moral compass. …

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Sovereignty is less Ireland’s issue than not knowing what to do with it…

| Readers 10

A fair amount of rubbish is talked about Irish sovereignty. Despite what some have said, it is not like virginity (ie, once it is gone, it is gone forever). But then again, like sex, it is not something that Ireland likes to talk about in public either. In our Lisbon essays (scroll down) it formed the base of some of our liveliest contributions. I was particularly struck by Ben Tonra’s suggestion that the country was too timid to make any …

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Dublin Convention on cluster weapons comes into force

| Readers 23

Yesterday, cluster bombs became illegal over much of the world; in no small part because of Ireland.  The Convention on Cluster Munitions, in effect from 1st August, was adopted in Dublin on the 30th May 2008 at the Croke Park Conference Centre. Disarmament is something of a niche specialism for Irish diplomacy  – it was Minister for External Affairs Frank Aiken who introduced in the UN General Assembly the resolution that became the Non-Proliferation Treaty (which Ireland was the first country …

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