Budget 2012 “was developed with a microscope when a telescope was required” according to human rights and justice group Social Justice Ireland. The group has criticised the Government’s failure to focus on longer term and wider issues such as declining domestic demand, persistent long-term unemployment, public debt sustainability and growing poverty and inequality.
The political classes and the media seem largely indifferent to the deep inequality in Irish society. By Vincent Browne.
The Anglo-Irish Treaty which established quasi-independence for 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland was signed 90 years ago yesterday.
In an initial response to the public spending cuts announced by Minister Brendan Howlin as part of Budget 2012, director of independent economic think tank TASC Nat O’Connor said that, although some individual measures announced by Minister Howlin yesterday were to be welcomed, the overall package of cuts announced represents a continuation of an economic strategy that has not worked. O’Connor warned against embedding what he termed a “low-spend, low-tax economic model of economic development” which will render our economy less resilient and perpetuate inequality.
We should take claims that Child Benefit and child income support have been spared with a pinch of salt. By Michael Taft.
Budget 2012 will decimate employment in the State. Never mind the rhetoric. By Michael Taft.
Despite the Taoiseach’s 17 references to jobs in his national address last night, the budget presented this afternoon will cut between 15,000 and 20,000 jobs from the economy next year. In other words, there would be between 15,000 and 20,000 more people at work next year were it not for the budgetary measures announced this afternoon. This is, by any definition, a jobs destruction budget.
There has been plenty promised but little delivered by this Government on housing. By Bev Cotton.
Hundreds of people took to the streets of Dublin on Saturday (3 December) to protest against the devastation of Ireland's community sector. View a slideshow of images of the event below, and Paula Geraghty's video report here. {jathumbnailoff}
Leo Varadkar offers some handy holiday tips for the hard-pressed. By Michael Taft.
HIV and AIDS have dropped off the media's radar. While infection rates in Ireland are on a downward trend, one way to keep those rates going down is through awareness; something the media can play a role in. By David Johnson.
William Golding, the author of The Lord of the Flies, was born 100 years ago this year. A man tormented by demons both on and off the page, he was a writer with an intimate understanding of man's capacity for violence and cruelty and his brilliant and desperate novels take an uncompromising look at human evil. By Ed O'Hare.