Paul Murphy’s new group wants a new socialist movement in society. Yet even Fianna Fáil once had a self-proclaimed socialist leader in Bertie Ahern, writes Michael Clifford

In the not so very long ago confounded European Union mandarins launched a community-wide competition so an articulate European might offer a workable definition of peripherality. The layered implications, the one-man’s-meat-is-another-man’s-tofu complexity of that designation and its geographic realities were bewildering, so a prize of €100,000 was offered.

The City of Light is also the city of the night — the city of the poor, outcasts, criminals, prostitutes, eccentrics and the wilfully nonconforming. TP O’Mahony leafs through Luc Sante’s salute to his beloved Paris

There is much more scope for expanding social insurance. I have proposed merging the USC into PRSI as part of a wider tax cut and reform plan, writes Leo Varadkar.

With income tax we are dangerously out of kilter with the tax norms of countries we want to emulate, writes Gerard Howlin

Your letters, your views...

Israel may be wrong in many of its policies, especially in colonising the West Bank, but we are hypocrites, writes Gerard Howlin

WE have witnessed a political revolution. It is another seismic shift in Irish politics that reflects our changing society and views, suggests Rory Hearne.

Siptu leader Jack O’Connor has defended Labour’s record in Government amid calls for the union to stop funding the party in protest at its policies.

Who is Left, let alone ‘hard-Left’? Labour claims to be Left, while decrying the hard-Left, writes Gerard Howlin

If Kenny waits until March he leaves too much time for something to go badly wrong, and not enough time to fix it, writes Alison O’Connor

As Labour prepares to hold its annual conference, deputy leader Alan Kelly says what makes the party different is that its vision is grounded in realism and in achievement

T Murphy (Irish Examiner Letters November 29) asks Paul Murphy and other politicians of the left to justify their benefits under tax legislation not applicable to any other citizens.

Gerard Howlin’s column in yesterday’s Irish Examiner was very well-written and welcome in exposing the hypocrisy of the rent-a-crowd Left (“the habitually protesting Left”). It has astonished me to hear and read the diatribes in Ireland about Israel, from people who have never been anywhere near an indiscriminately fired Hamas rocket.

Today is a very historic day for socialism and the Left in Irish politics as the parties of the right have been thrashed at the polls by the voters who have been the victims of austerity by Fine Gael and the Labour Party who are screwing us for water charges and property tax.

I read with interest Alison O’Connor’s piece (Opinion, Jan 10), on Lucinda Creighton’s new public face. One has to agree the emergence of a new political party is somewhat passé after the bailout.

The caption under a photograph on page seven of yesterday’s edition (Dec 2) described me as having “defended Labour’s role in cuts”. Any reading of the accompanying article by Juno McEnroe would demonstrate that I did exactly the opposite.

German chancellor Angela Merkel has absolved herself of blame for the eurozone’s north-south split during the debt crisis, saying she has Europe’s best interests at heart when pressing the need to become globally competitive.

Which group the chancellor’s party will be in coalition with is her biggest conundrum, says Noah Barkin

Earlier this week, on the 1 o’clock news, the CSO gave the latest prognosis for the population of Ireland.

Socialist MEP for Dublin, Paul Murphy, has slammed employer’s body IBEC’s call for axing local wage agreements such as the Joint Labour Committees as "a greedy attempt to shore up profits at the expense of workers’ wages."

The leader of the second largest union affiliated to Labour has today called on the party to abandon negotiations to enter Government.

Left-wing Labour MP Diane Abbott announced today she was running for the leadership of the UK part, becoming the first woman to enter the race.

John Bercow pledged to heal public “anger and disappointment” over the expenses scandal as he was installed as the UK's House of Commons’ 157th Speaker.

BY far, Kanturk is the most difficult Cork County Council electoral area to call now that it has been reduced from a five-seater to a four-seater due to boundary changes.

The Hungarian Prime Minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, said tonight that his leaked comments about lying “day and night” to the people had been meant to jolt a complacent ruling party into taking action to rescue the Hungarian economy.

Controversial American film maker and author Michael Moore today repeated his solution to the problems of Northern Ireland – all Protestants should immediately convert to Catholicism.