Seán Quinn is an able, personable fellow - and an exasperating interviewee. By Vincent Browne.
There is a charm about Seán Quinn, and a quiet sense of humour. He is very much in control of himself, but there is an anger there too, which seems to be distorting his judgment, giving rise to a strong sense of victimhood and an impulse to strike back.
The 2012 London Olympics have been heralded as the best Olympics yet for women, although gender inequalities remain, from sexist media commentary and gender-based bullying to less sponsorship and media coverage for female athletes than male athletes. Here, a gender score-card of the winners and losers so far. By Heather McRobie.
It’s the silly season. During July and August, the standard of tripe churned out in TV-land becomes unbearable. You would imagine our friends in Channel 4, as an alternative to the Olympics, would be using this opportunity to develop a new audience. Is this their intent with “Thelma’s Gypsy Girls”? By Rosaleen McDonagh.
Sebastian Coe's response to an appeal from the Vietnam Women's Union that he and his colleagues in the IOC reconsider their decision to accept sponsorship from Dow Chemical exemplifies the London Olympics’ razor-wired, public relations and money-fuelled totalitarian state within a state. By John Pilger.
Raising the income floor for low-income households is not just about equity, or sharing the pain, or ‘too poor to pay more’. It’s also about a growth strategy. By Michael Taft.
Ad on the window of an abandoned building on North King St. The building was erected during the property boom
If the Government fashioned a set of tax measures – rates, reduction of tax expenditures, new taxes, etc. – to bring the disposable income of the top 10% to EU averages, it would take in between €3 billion and €3.5 billion, enough to reach their Budget 2013 deficit target. By Michael Taft.
A highly disturbing report released today may go to the core of the financial mess we find ourselves in. According to Reuters, “a quarter of Wall Street (and UK) executives see wrongdoing as a key to success, according to a survey by whistleblower law firm Labaton Sucharow.”
The “survey of 500 senior executives” also found that:
A critical assessment of Germany's stance during the Euro Crisis is clearly called for. The trick is to produce it without falling prey to generalisations that are both politically odious and analytically misleading. By Yanis Varoufakis.
Members of the Quinn family deployed every possible ruse to stick us, the Irish public, with the debt they recklessly amassed. By Vincent Browne.
Sean Quinn concocted an elaborate miasma of companies, at least in part, to transfer ownership of hugely valuable property assets into the names of his children. Presumably this was done for tax reasons, at least in the initial stages.