The winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics says Ireland is bunched.
The title of Paul Krugman's column in the New York Times today is “Erin Go Broke”. Krugman is the current Noel Laureate for economics and, arguably, the most influential columnist in the US. He is writing about how bad the US economic prospects could get and he responds to his own question with: “America could turn Irish”.
Normally, it hardly matters who is running the country, no mater how incompetent. But right now it matters greatly because Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan have bet the future of the country for a generation of a bank rescue scheme and there is grave doubt that they know what they are doing.
On Friday 21 November, 2008,, at a Law Society gathering, Adrian Hardiman of the Supreme Court addressed the issues of distortion and bias that characterises the media's coverage of the courts. His remarks, which have caused some anger among the media, were actually too constrained. By Vincent Browne
Adrian Hardiman's arguments were:
At an extraordinary meeting of the Parliament of the Czech Republic on Tuesday, 9 December, it was decided to defer the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty at least until 3 February 2009.
The government spokesman who said on Tuesday (26 August) that "Nothing whatsoever has been decided" on whether there would be a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty was telling some of the truth. Dick Roche was telling more of the truth when he said on Morning Ireland on Tuesday that he believed a second referendum would be held.
Forty years ago, in August 1968, I persuaded Donal O'Donovan, then features editor of the Irish Times, to commission me to visit Eastern European countries and write about them. By Vincent Browne
Every so often, usually on the initiative of a frenzied Minister for Justice or histrionics from opposition justice spokespersons, legislation is enacted to provide for some harebrained initiative to deal with the latest crime “wave”. Such has been the electronic monitoring of known or suspected criminals. Enabling provisions allowing for this were introduced in the Criminal Justice Acts of 2006 and 2007. But nothing has happened and for reasons that might have been obvious at the time.
Over three years ago, Michael McDowell, then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, was involved in a major controversy (among others) on the establishment of a Garda Reserve force of 4,000 members. He included provisions for this in the Garda Síochána Act of that year and faced down opposition from the Garda representative bodes on the issue. Now three years later, there are just 258 members of the Garda Reserve force, less than 6.5 per cent of the targeted figure.
According To Dermot Ahern, the new Minister for Justice, he is reliably informed (presumably by Garda “intelligence”) that there are two categories of organised crime groups operating in Ireland.
One is organised crime gangs, involved in the same businesses of organised crime gangs everywhere in the world: drugs and robberies.
The upgrade to the M50, once completed is going to cost €1billion, three times the estimate given by the National Road Authority (NRA) in 2003. This gives the M50 a total bill of €2 billion and it will have taken 20 years to be completed since the first section opened.