Dan O'Brien argues that abandoning the four year plan to reduce the deficit to 3% of GDP by 2014 would be insanity (Irish Times Oct 21 2010). He is wrong. By Eoin Ó Broin.
This policy consensus is shared by Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour. If implemented, it will damage our economy and society. And ironically it will also do nothing to reduce the deficit.
Mental health is allocated 5.3% of the total health budget, 3% less than the minimum 8.24% recommended in the policy document 'A Vision for Change'. Cross-political and cross-societal groups met yesterday to call on government to protect Mental Health from further cuts. By Eamonn Costello
Campaigners gathered outside Leinster House yesterday in an effort to protect the mental health budget, described as the “Cinderella” of the health services.
Fact and fiction are separated in Kitty Ferguson's account of Pythagoras. By Clare Lanigan.
World-changers don't come around very often. The world can be chugging along just fine, adjusted to whatever level of development it's at, and then someone appears from nowhere with a whole batch of new ideas and abilities that leave the world different, forever.
ESRI CEO Frances Ruane (pictured) chaired an expert group on Resource Allocation in the health sector set up by Mary Harney in April 2008. They have published two volumes of research as well as the report of the working group. Here are some interesting findings from the 800-page report. By Sara Burke.
Seven days ago at the ESRI conference on resource allocation in the health sector, Mary Harney said that the HSE is facing cuts 'between €600,000 and one billion'.
I asked Mary Harney would the cuts be higher than €600,000, she said she did not want to speculate, but €600,000 would certainly be a minimum figure. I asked will it be up to one billion – she said 'I am not certain it will be that high, it will be somewhere between €600k and one billion'.
On Friday 22 October, RTE will announce the winner of the Ireland's Greatest poll. Each of the five finalists were the subject of hour-long documentaries, broadcast from September onwards. By Eoin Ó Broin.
Michael McDowell made the case for Michael Collins, Dave Fanning for Bono, Joe Duffy for James Connolly, Miriam O'Callaghan for John Hume and David McWilliams for Mary Robinson. The winner will be chosen, as was the shortlist of finalists, by popular ballot.
A Dublin Film Festival marked EU Anti-Trafficking Day with two films and a discussion at Liberty Hall Theatre yesterday evening. By Alison Spillane.
Speaking at the film presentation was Nick Kinsella, head of the UK Human Trafficking Centre (UKHTU). He said that human trafficking is an international phenomenon but "very much a local crime". He highlighted the need for co-operation between the various agencies involved in combating trafficking, adding that that co-operation was needed at both domestic and international levels.
The authors of The Spirit Level believe Sweden has the best health outcomes in Europe. They are right, but for the wrong reason. By Joseph Mahon.
Sweden has consistently had the best health outcomes in Europe since the European Health Consumer Index was established in 2005. As Dr Arne Bjornberg, lead author of the report, put it in an interview with Clare MacCarthy, "Sweden has been the European champion in treatment quality since this index was launched."
Of the many commentators who have examined the global economic collapse few have looked outside the business sector at the wider forces which have brought it about.
