Columns - Irish Examiner

Fergus Finlay

Fergus Finlay is a former political activist and adviser to three governments, the former head of the children's charity Barnardos, a writer and a broadcaster.

Banking inquiry is vital because Anglo tapes are only telling half the story

WE ARE indebted to two types of whistleblowers — the deliberate and the accidental.

Tue, 02 Jul, 2013

Taking the tribal element out of Dáil will help process of reform

BACK in the Nineties I went to visit the Bundestag.

Tue, 25 Jun, 2013

Snowden deserves our thanks for revealing world of surveillance

PRESUMABLY, if Edward Snowden ever returns to America, or is captured and brought there, he will meet at least the same fate as Jim Larkin.

Tue, 18 Jun, 2013

The Seanad has never been a seat of democracy and should be abolished

MY neighbour, Hamish McKean, and I shared a unique experience the other night, at 11.29pm.

Tue, 11 Jun, 2013

Latest creche fiasco gives us an opportunity to finally get things right

THANK you Prime Time, for a powerful and brilliant piece of public service broadcasting.

Tue, 04 Jun, 2013

At sixes and sevens and shattered from the Shattergate shenanigans

ALL my life (as far back as I can remember, anyway), I’ve had a theory that we live our lives in seven year cycles.

Tue, 28 May, 2013

Government badly needs to change its tune and inspire some optimism

THAT was a really disappointing Eurovision, wasn’t it? I found it really hard to figure out.

Tue, 21 May, 2013

Investing in pre-school education today will secure a better tomorrow

I STILL have the pen I got for speaking at a conference of managers in the public service back in 2009.

Tue, 14 May, 2013

We need a national conversation to plan for the country’s future

I WAS undergoing a series of medical tests recently.

Tue, 07 May, 2013

Why Martin’s self-serving ard fheis speech left me in a spin

THERE was a great little campaign in Ireland for media literacy a few years ago.

Tue, 30 Apr, 2013