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A COMPREHENSIVE SERIES OF ARTICLES ON THIS TOPIC

<p>It seems certain further action will be needed from the authorities to save many businesses and the jobs they provide. File Picture</p>

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Businesses once again in jeopardy

We should expect to see plenty more lobbying for a 9% VAT rate for certain sectors as Budget 2025 plans start to take shape

<p> From July to December last year, the months after the RTÉ controversy became public, 378,974 TV licences were bought, of which 345,303 were renewals. This compares to 502,495 in the same six-month period in 2022, of which 443,442 were renewals. Picture: Liam McBurney/PA</p>

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Irish Examiner view: TV licence figures offer cold comfort

<p>A smoke plume erupts during Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on December 12. Picture: Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty</p>

opinion

Irish Examiner view: Pushing for peace in Palestine

Poland Politics

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Irish Examiner view: Powerhouse Poland is at a political crossroads

Irish Examiner view: Unbending abortion laws penalise women

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Irish Examiner view: Unbending abortion laws penalise women

Irish Examiner view: The wait goes on for Cork Event Centre

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Irish Examiner view: The wait goes on for Cork Event Centre

Irish Examiner view: Stifling debate benefits the extremists

Irish Examiner view: Stifling debate benefits the extremists

The rise of a far-right party in Sweden has been linked to the narrow 'opinion corridor' deemed acceptable in that democracy

Fri, 16 Sep, 2022

Pope Francis visit to Ireland - Day 1

Irish Examiner view: Br Kevin Crowley is a living saint

On his retirement, we salute Br Kevin of the Capuchin Day Centre, who has been a tireless campaigner against want

Tue, 16 Aug, 2022

Irish Examiner View: Yeats memorial fitting for current times

Irish Examiner View: Yeats memorial fitting for current times

Henry Moore's iconic 'Knife Edge' bronze sculpture was unveiled to the public in 1967 by the then Taoiseach Jack Lynch.

Thu, 09 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner View: Questions still unanswered for Barry Cowen

Irish Examiner View: Questions still unanswered for Barry Cowen

Whatever about his fitness for high office, Mr Cowen should not be allowed to continue to characterise his actions as "a mistake".

Thu, 09 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner View: Solidarity will help Ireland fight coronavirus

Irish Examiner View: Solidarity will help Ireland fight coronavirus

In a remarkable display of social solidarity, the public are placing faith in the organs of the State to protect their privacy as well as their health.

Thu, 09 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner View: Showing the way

Irish Examiner View: Showing the way

Housing needs can be satisfied in ways that enrich an environment as well as providing badly needed homes.

Wed, 08 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner View: Labour - divided, and all but irrelevant

Irish Examiner View: Labour - divided, and all but irrelevant

Labour fall to a sorry pitch

Wed, 08 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner View: Dodging our way to the next crisis

Irish Examiner View: Dodging our way to the next crisis

We seem to hope that the Sugar Plum Fairy might provide a solution before rationing begins, before vital industries close.

Wed, 08 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner View: Crowds ignore distance rules

Irish Examiner View: Crowds ignore distance rules

Unfortunately, there was a flagrant disregard for social distancing long before alcohol challenged discipline.

Tue, 07 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner View: A complex task

Irish Examiner View: A complex task

This is a gargantuan task and its complexity probably more challenging than is obvious, an impression underlined by Education Minister Norma Foley suggesting that guidelines will provide a good platform for further discussion to allow for only the “optimum” return to school.

Tue, 07 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner View: Term limits may be key to renewal

Irish Examiner View: Term limits may be key to renewal

They and many of their Oireachtas contemporaries epitomise that long-accepted truth: Once a public representative gains a certain experience and understands how resources might be distributed, they can cling like a limpet to a seat.

Tue, 07 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner View: EU shows our destructive ways endure

Irish Examiner View: EU shows our destructive ways endure

Protecting the environment.

Mon, 06 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner View: Credibility on the line already

Irish Examiner View: Credibility on the line already

Barry Cowen’s confession.

Mon, 06 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner View: Public spending demands public oversight

Irish Examiner View: Public spending demands public oversight

Keeping public payments secret.

Mon, 06 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner View: No easy answers post-Covid-19, so patience is essential

Irish Examiner View: No easy answers post-Covid-19, so patience is essential

A defining characteristic of crisis is uncertainty. Crisis can mean not knowing what might or could happen next and this, naturally, intensifies frustration and generates stress, occasionally panic. Heightened tension at a time of war, natural disaster, famine, economic implosion, or like today, during a pandemic is inevitable.

Sat, 04 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner View: Minister promises M20 motorway will be delivered

Irish Examiner View: Minister promises M20 motorway will be delivered

The M20 — a motorway connecting Limerick and Cork — has assumed mythical, almost holy grail status. Everyone knows it might some day come to pass but no one knows when. Indeed, some sections of the road were cleared to facilitate its development so very long ago that they have, to use a contemporary phrase, naturally rewilded. Felled trees have been replaced and a second clearing will be necessary if the M20 is to be finalised.

Sat, 04 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner View: Thoughts and best wishes with Dr Holohan and his wife

Irish Examiner View: Thoughts and best wishes with Dr Holohan and his wife

Underlining that fate is indeed blind, Dr Holohan has had to step back from his role as chief medical officer to care for his wife Dr Emer Feely who has multiple myeloma, a blood cancer. She entered palliative care last Saturday.

Sat, 04 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner View: Just as empires come and go, democracy may not last forever

Irish Examiner View: Just as empires come and go, democracy may not last forever

Events in China, Russia, and beyond suggest that we can't take our democratic institutions for granted

Fri, 03 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner View: Appointment of junior ministers - goalposts have been moved

Irish Examiner View: Appointment of junior ministers - goalposts have been moved

Willie O’Dea, the venerable Fianna Fáil TD from Limerick, yesterday became the latest of that party’s senior figures to attack Taoiseach Micheál Martin over junior ministerial appointments.

Fri, 03 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner view: Coronavirus requires us to stay focused

Irish Examiner view: Coronavirus requires us to stay focused

Even if it is a glass-half-empty view of humanity, it is hard not to be disappointed, even if unsurprised, that less than half of those who, on arrival in the country, offered phone numbers so they might be tracked to help contain Covid-19 could not be contacted.

Fri, 03 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner view: Is Sinn Féin on the wrong path?

Irish Examiner view: Is Sinn Féin on the wrong path?

IT was Harold Wilson, the late British Labour Party prime minister, who declared that a week is a long time in politics. Make that three days.

Thu, 02 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner View: Taoiseach's initiative for 'consensus on a shared island' is respectful of all traditions

Irish Examiner View: Taoiseach's initiative for 'consensus on a shared island' is respectful of all traditions

Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill has accused the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin of “ignoring the people of the north” by not nominating Ian Marshall to the Seanad.

Thu, 02 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner View: Stephen Donnelly must act to make health system fit for purpose

Irish Examiner View: Stephen Donnelly must act to make health system fit for purpose

An elderly woman with a suspected broken hip being forced to wait for three hours in an ambulance outside Cork University Hospital’s emergency department is a situation that is intolerable and shameful.

Thu, 02 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner view: Cahirciveen is just the latest example - we’ve dodged public accountability for too long

Irish Examiner view: Cahirciveen is just the latest example - we’ve dodged public accountability for too long

The most important discussions are sometimes the most difficult to have.

Wed, 01 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner view: Consumers need better protection

Irish Examiner view: Consumers need better protection

Covid-19 has changed our world. The changes are dramatic, sobering, and humbling — they remind us emphatically of our vulnerability, of our dust-to-dust inevitability.

Wed, 01 Jul, 2020

Irish Examiner view: Ireland needs a new kind of opposition

Irish Examiner view: Ireland needs a new kind of opposition

Success might encourage a happy union, failure might make a marriage the shotgun option of last resort

Tue, 30 Jun, 2020

Irish Examiner view: Local culture and arts under digital fire

Irish Examiner view: Local culture and arts under digital fire

The Covid-19 lockdown brought that reality home in a hard way for many professional artists.

Tue, 30 Jun, 2020

Irish Examiner View: Forever young

Irish Examiner View: Forever young

Bob Dylan’s 39th album, Rough And Rowdy Ways, topped the charts, while Neil Young’s Homegrown landed at number two.

Mon, 29 Jun, 2020

Irish Examiner View: Be careful out there

Irish Examiner View: Be careful out there

Good governance is an aspiration, but unless Covid-19’s grip is broken, this government will be limited in its effectiveness.

Mon, 29 Jun, 2020

Irish Examiner View: A morning for modest optimism

Irish Examiner View: A morning for modest optimism

Optimism is a fickle, mercurial thing. It can be misplaced, ultimately bruising, it involves risk.

Mon, 29 Jun, 2020

Irish Examiner View: A Government facing massive challenges

Irish Examiner View: A Government facing massive challenges

The penultimate hurdle to a new administration has been, after almost a five-month interregnum, negotiated.

Sat, 27 Jun, 2020

Irish Examiner View: Confront perjury to save court credibility

Irish Examiner View: Confront perjury to save court credibility

We will, one way or another, have a new minister for justice before long.

Sat, 27 Jun, 2020

Irish Examiner view: Truth commission - Time alone will not settle Ireland's bitter past

Irish Examiner view: Truth commission - Time alone will not settle Ireland's bitter past

The Democratic Republic of the Congo will, on Tuesday, mark the 60th anniversary of its independence from Belgium.

Fri, 26 Jun, 2020

Irish Examiner view: Controlling child abuse and asking what is abusers' motivation?

Irish Examiner view: Controlling child abuse and asking what is abusers' motivation?

Questions about how the internet is changing our world have become so general, so amorphous that the issues, especially those that cast a darkening shadow are not always examined as closely as they might be.

Fri, 26 Jun, 2020

Irish Examiner view: Will schoolchildren need masks?

Irish Examiner view: Will schoolchildren need masks?

The WHO yesterday reported a Covid-19 surge since lockdown disciplines were relaxed.

Fri, 26 Jun, 2020

Irish Examiner view: Scottish split would mean a lot for us politically

Irish Examiner view: Scottish split would mean a lot for us politically

Whatever government emerges in the coming weeks, our political leaders will have a lot to grapple with: Steering us fully out of lockdown; rebuilding a decimated economy and re-engaging with Brexit, not to mention the huge work needed in health, education and climate change.

Thu, 25 Jun, 2020

Irish Examiner view: Court ruling a blow to workers on low wages

Irish Examiner view: Court ruling a blow to workers on low wages

Legislation that allows for the setting of legally enforceable pay and conditions for thousands of workers has been ruled unconstitutional by the High Court.

Thu, 25 Jun, 2020

Irish Examiner view: Safety comes first when it comes to lifting travel restrictions

Irish Examiner view: Safety comes first when it comes to lifting travel restrictions

The chief executive of Ryanair DAC, Eddie Wilson, has criticised the Government for “fudging around” with plans for air bridges between Ireland and other countries.

Thu, 25 Jun, 2020

Irish Examiner view: Government formation - Time to be pragmatic and positive

Irish Examiner view: Government formation - Time to be pragmatic and positive

It is not necessary to be one of those self-contained souls happy to wallow in the calm that lockdown offered to wonder why anyone enters politics.

Wed, 24 Jun, 2020

Irish Examiner view: Good decision on prison visits

Irish Examiner view: Good decision on prison visits

If there was any doubt that we lived in a strange old world before coronavirus united the world almost in an unprecedented way, it can be dismissed, as we certainly live in a strange old world today.

Wed, 24 Jun, 2020

Irish Examiner view: Student parties provoke fear

Irish Examiner view: Student parties provoke fear

There is, in almost every country, a tradition of the old decrying the young.

Wed, 24 Jun, 2020

Irish Examiner view: Climate collapse means we need to work together

Irish Examiner view: Climate collapse means we need to work together

The Green Party might have forced Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to take environmental matters more seriously than they otherwise would have, but it remains to be seen if the government deal moves beyond the theoretical.

Tue, 23 Jun, 2020

Irish Examiner view: €1.8bn aid would be one hearty way to feed recovery

Irish Examiner view: €1.8bn aid would be one hearty way to feed recovery

Ireland never had, at least outside of the main urban centres, an enduring, celebratory restaurant culture comparable to other European countries.

Tue, 23 Jun, 2020

Irish Examiner view: Internet must work to benefit all

Irish Examiner view: Internet must work to benefit all

It is unlikely that any Kremlin decision-makers — if there are more than one — will filter their work through what might be called The Lenin Perspective.

Tue, 23 Jun, 2020