Tommy Broughan

Please set your watch back as you cross the border…

Mick Fealty on July 9, 2013, 11:47 am

| Readers 51

The first time I visited Portugal it was overland through France and Spain. We ended up staying at a small hotel in Santarem, a small town with a beautiful aspect overlooking the Douro Valley, about an hour north of Lisbon. The first we figured we’d got something majorly wrong was when we turned up for work at a local secondary school (Escola Secundária Sá Da Bandeira) at what we thought was 8.30 that morning to discover there were no students there yet. We’d set …

Austerity in two halves: #Budget2012

John Ó Néill on December 3, 2011, 11:32 pm

| Readers 5

Early next week will finally see the introduction of #Budget2012 to the Dáil, in a novel format with two speeches, one by Brendan Howlin on Monday and one by Michael Noonan on Tuesday. The budget has been heavily trailed, with endless kite-flying over the last few weeks. A brief guide to (some) of the proposed changes was given by Caroline Madden in the Irish Times last Monday. For ease of reference, most of the main suggested budgetary changes are given below. It will be interesting to compare the …