Society

On any set of measurements the record of this government on jobs is a failure. By Michael Taft.

At both European and national level the best-laid plans to resolve the euro crisis can be undermined by a lack of urgency, which in turn further limits the room for manoeuvre. As time goes on, options are becoming fewer. By Michael Taft.

Michael Noonan's perspective on the world would likely be rather different if, rather than spending last weekend at the annual conference of the Bilderberg Group, he had chosen instead to spend his time with people from Moyross, Southill and Ballinacurra Weston in his Limerick constituency and heard from them the effects on those communities of the politics that the Bilderberg elite espouse. By Vincent Browne.

If the Government think they 'won' the Fiscal Treaty vote they are in denial. By John Farrell Clark.

The Government may have won the vote but they clearly did not win the confidence of a vast majority of the citizens. If they think they won and have a mandate, they are far more in a state of denial than one would have thought possible.

The establishment view in Europe is that the problem is too much debt (by profligate countries like Greece) and, therefore, that the solution must involve (a) austerity and (b) structural reforms (which increase the competitiveness of the weaker states). The problem, however, is that the establishment view is profoundly mistaken and, as a result, the proposed treatment poisons the patient. If this is so, Europe (and the world) have a lot more to fear from the ‘reasonableness’ of political parties like Fine Gael et al than from the ‘ultra-leftists’ of Syriza.

How is it that, despite their failure in their primary duty as auditors of Anglo Irish Bank, Irish Nationwide and AIB, the big auditing firms have not been brought to account? How is it that State agencies have engaged these firms, found as they were to have been so negligent in their role as auditors to the banks? By Vincent Browne.

Bloxham, the country’s oldest stockbroking firm, closed on Monday after it was found it had been lying about its profitability over a period of three years from 2007 to 2009.

This week I intend voting No in the Fiscal Compact referendum, for reasons largely tangential to the Fiscal Compact itself. I will do so in awareness of the risk there is involved were a majority to do as I will do, and in disagreement with many of the claims made by the No side in the campaign. 

I will vote No to reject the incorporation of stringent fiscal rules into our constitution, not because adherence to fiscal rules is not sensible but because, in our political culture, such adherence will be done at the expense of the lower paid.

Labour Women's recent statement calling for a Yes vote on Thursday implies, incredibly, that the solution to the problems created by Ireland's financial dependence is to sign up to more of it. By Wendy Lyon.

Establishing a cabinet sub-committee to study the problem of mortgage arrears, which Enda Kenny has indicated he’s doing, and wishing for the banks to “show a greater urgency” is simply not good enough. By John Farrell Clark.