Despite swingeing cuts affecting the poorest in Irish society, austerity has not been imposed on Ireland's 33 County Managers whose high salaries  are unchanged since 2010. County Managers are paid an average salary of €143,054.48 per annum, a total spend of €4,720,798.00 each year. The highest paid paid County Manager is Dublin City Council's John Tierney (pictured) with a salary of €189,301. We are seeking salary details for previous years before 2010. County Managers are entitled to additional allowances (outlined below). By Malachy Browne.

One of the more substantial achievements of this government has been to burnish the reputation of Fianna Fáil which, we had believed, had been consigned to well-deserved oblivion by the outcome of the 2011 election. By Vincent Browne.

As the coalition resolutely persists in its ineptitude, Fianna Fáil doesn't seem that bad in retrospect.

Austerity has been an economic failure and a social catastrophe.

Research conducted by the office of TD Catherine Murphy shows that Ireland’s system of financial allowances to TDs unfairly discriminates against Independent and non-party affiliated TDs. (PDF here)

This referendum campaign is part of the concerted denial of how we could hardly care less about very many of our children. By Vincent Browne.

The arresting black and white poster, with the photograph of a charming child, accompanied by the slogan “Every Child Matters”, is one of the falsehoods perpetrated by the Government parties urging support for the children’s rights referendum.

There is a strong argument that the Government should not introduce a house-property tax next year: the economy and hundreds of thousands of households simply cannot absorb it. By Michael Taft.

UN, international, Palestinian, and Israeli human rights organisations do important work in Palestine. But the magic 'national security' argument is always available as a tool for the government of Israel. By Michael Croydon.

Syrian activists who fear for their safety at home have left Syria for Paris in recent months. Malachy Browne met five of them in Paris. (Video below)

Reading the Observer recently (14/10/2012) brought my thinking back to the nature of political struggle and the party structures that we have in the nation state.

Lester Brown, an environmental analyst and president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington had an article in the paper. He has a new book out - Full Planet, Empty Plates – in which he predicts “…ever increasing food prices, leading to political instability, spreading hunger and, unless governments act, a catastrophic breakdown in food.”

That the family featured in an Irish Times article by Kathy Sheridan last week is going through seriously difficult times is, unfortunately, becoming ever more ordinary for hundreds of thousands of households. So why is Eilis O’Hanlon having such a go at them in the Sunday Independent? By Michael Taft.