During periods of enforced unemployment, where the private markets cannot employ people who want to work, the state should employ people until sufficient job creation commences. By Michael Taft.

Even the Government admits their policies are having little effect on job creation. They expect unemployment to remain at 13% by 2015, a fall of only one percentage point since they took office. The number of people at work will only grow by 12,000 over the lifetime of this government. Truly, we are into a period of medium-term stagnation.

There is a clear division between the two government parties on abortion, and also a clear necessity to bring clarity to the law. By Vincent Browne.

On Monday, 14 May 2007, during that year's general election campaign, I did an interview with Enda Kenny on behalf of Village magazine, which I then edited.

The anti-austerity march on Saturday will give people the chance to tell the Government that it’s time to change economic direction. By Michael O'Reilly.

Austerity is costing jobs.

No one knows for sure yet what happened to Savita Halappanavar. We know that she wanted to be pregnant, that she miscarried, and that the care she received did not save her life. It is important to push for medical accountability in such cases, and to demand a full investigation into whether protocols existed and were followed, and if the patient was subject to discriminatory harassment and remarks, as has been alleged.

Why not do something creative with the €400 million cut from the drugs bill? Maybe address a social need, increase growth and employment, and reduce household costs? By Michael Taft.

One of the keys to an alternative budgetary strategy is to stop cutting current public spending. This would provide an opportunity to re-direct or re-invest productivity gains and spending efficiencies into expanding growth and employment. This would be more effective at repairing public finances than the current austerity strategy.

The great success of societies that are as spectacularly unequal as the US is the indoctrination of the populace into believing that in so far as they are excluded from the wealth of such societies it is because of their own inadequacies. By Vincent Browne.

There is an impulse to dismiss political rhetoric as just so much blather, harmless blather.

{becssg}boxingdunboyne{/becssg}

The key message from recent work by Claiming Our Future is that if the Government wants to hit low-average income groups, it is a political decision – not one based on economic or budgetary necessity. By Michael Taft.

Enda Kenny has reflected the prevailing political consensus throughout his career. By Vincent Browne. 

On the day that yet another piece of bungling by this government was identified by the Supreme Court ("acted wrongfully. . . in a manner that was not fair, equal or impartial"), Enda Kenny was being feted in Berlin as the "European of the Year" - essentially because of the docility of the Irish people surrendering to the troika's austerity diktats.

"Any violence by a large population is not because this people is more violent than any other. It's an alarm, it's a sign, it's a signal; that something is wrong in the treatment of this population." - Occupation 101 (Film embedded as a playlist below)