Person: Dick Keane

A COMPREHENSIVE SERIES OF ARTICLES ON THIS TOPIC

columnists

Now improve relations with North’s Unionists

President Michael D Higgins’ successful State visit to Britain marks the normalising of relations between us and our near neighbours. That was the easy bit.

We must renounce our united Ireland dream

Why we can’t balance the books

Current Account deficit no joking matter

On the glorious 12th of July Ministers Noonan and Howlin merrilly anounced that the troika found that we had met all our fiscal targets to date.

Sat, 14 Jul, 2012

Government borrowing heading way off target

The statement by Minister Michael Noonan that the Exchequer figures for the first three months were on target, is pure hogwash.

Sat, 07 Apr, 2012

Government spending and deficit rising

WHAT austerity measures? What cutbacks?

Mon, 11 Jul, 2011

Within our rights

HOW dare Alan Shatter chide us for criticising the judiciary.

Tue, 29 Mar, 2011

Bailout won't save us

THERE are two huge elephants in our electoral room. One is our social welfare spend of €20bn and the second is the public service pay bill of €20bn.

Fri, 11 Feb, 2011

IN response to Dick Keane (Letters, October 30), what on earth is “right-wing” or indeed “Catholic” about a religious fanatic who allegedly supported the High Court case which supposedly prevented the HSE from doing its duty and taking children out of a situation in which they were being horribly abused in Roscommon?

Mon, 15 Nov, 2010

Will the ‘Catholic Taliban’ say we’re sorry?

IN 2000, when right-wing Catholic fundamentalists were orchestrating a High Court injunction preventing the health board from taking the six Roscommon abuse victims into care, they were also vehemently opposing the introduction of the Stay Safe programme in primary schools.

Sat, 30 Oct, 2010

Send for the IMF

OUR clueless politicians are surprised that the figures are worse than expected. Unless they were trapped on Mars for the past two years they would know that the fiscal gap to be closed is €20bn (not €7.5bn or €10.3bn).

Fri, 22 Oct, 2010

Delusional thinking on national debt

KEVIN McCarthy wrongly states (Letters, September 3) that “our public service has contributed massively to the reduction of our national debt”.

Wed, 08 Sep, 2010

More public service pay cuts would be lunacy

FOR Dick Keane (Letters, August 28) to equate the billions being poured into Anglo Irish Bank with the wages earned by public service workers shows a shocking level of ignorance.

Fri, 03 Sep, 2010

Electricity levy aids the wind moguls

THE new 5% levy on electricity puts the tin hat on the greatest scam of the past 50 years, ie, wind power.

Mon, 30 Aug, 2010

Deficit disaster

MOST commentators focus on the €25bn Anglo Irish black hole. Of course it’s bad, but it’s a one-off.

Sat, 28 Aug, 2010

Tallaght X-ray ‘hysteria’

THE media hysteria last week surrounding the Tallaght X-rays was amazing.

Tue, 16 Mar, 2010

Low tax rates cause public finance shortfall

DICK KEANE (Letters, February 22) is right to be worried about the size of our budget deficit, but to link this to public service pay is misleading.

Tue, 02 Mar, 2010

If our €24bn gap doesn’t start to close soon, we’ll make the Greeks look prudent

LISTENING to Brian Lenihan, and many commentators, you would think we are well on the way to sorting our €24bn fiscal deficit.

Mon, 22 Feb, 2010

Why the unseemly rush to establish NAMA?

WHY the rush to establish NAMA?

Mon, 14 Sep, 2009

Public service ‘fiction’

IN his letter (July 15), Dick Keane describes our public service as “bloated”. This is complete fiction.

Wed, 29 Jul, 2009

Postponing the evil day

I WAS astonished to hear Taoiseach Brian Cowen say we are borrowing a staggering €70 million per day to fund our bloated public services and in the next breath explain that the Government would not even debate savings recommended by An Bord Snip Nua until next October.

Wed, 15 Jul, 2009

All schools must introduce Stay Safe guidelines

IT’S always too easy to blame “them” for past scandals and avoid doing what’s necessary right now.

Mon, 08 Jun, 2009

Storing the wind

AFTER all the hot air spouted about wind power in recent years, the announcement from the Spirit of Ireland organisation last week was a breath of fresh air.

Wed, 13 May, 2009

Sectarian stance

CARDINAL Seán Brady’s insistence that the Catholic Church maintain control of schools in Northern Ireland vividly reminds us that the church remains part of the problem in this divided society.

Fri, 27 Mar, 2009

Wind power won’t reduce emissions

IN his letter (November 19), Aidan O’Regan says that by 2020, one-third of all ESB’s output will be from renewables, mostly wind power.

Mon, 15 Dec, 2008

Auditing the banks

RECENT events have shown that both the financial regulator and Central Bank are totally ineffective — the first should be put out to grass and the second abolished.

Sat, 15 Nov, 2008

Drastic action needed

GIVEN the collapse in the public finances the proposed 11-month partial freeze in the €19 billion public service wage bill is a joke.

Mon, 10 Nov, 2008

EU citizens must be told all about the end-game

IN his letter headlined ‘Above our weight’ (August 18), Anthony Levy

Tue, 26 Aug, 2008

Above our weight

THE proposal by Dick Keane (Letters, August 14) to “let all the people of Europe decide by direct vote” on the Lisbon Treaty is not in Ireland’s interest.

Mon, 18 Aug, 2008

Let Europe decide

WE Irish, like most Europeans, gladly pool a lot of national sovereignty but balk at the idea of a superstate.

Thu, 14 Aug, 2008

Simple majority not enough for a united Ireland

ON the 10th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, we should take note of one major flaw: the agreement states that a united Ireland will come about if a majority in Northern Ireland vote for it.

Mon, 14 Apr, 2008

‘Flawed’ proclamation is part of the problem

EACH Easter the Proclamation of the Irish Republic is read with great solemnity at the 1916 commemoration.

Thu, 27 Mar, 2008

Fossil fuel plants can’t be turned on and off as the wind rises or falls

LIKE the wind industry in general, Airtricity’s Eddie O’Connor (Letters, January 26) is strong on word-play, but weak on the substantive issues.

Thu, 07 Feb, 2008

Wind energy makes electricity cheaper for all of us

ISN’T it wonderful to have adversaries like Dick Keane? (‘Wind energy is just a waste of our money’, Letters, January 22).

Sat, 26 Jan, 2008

Wind energy is just a waste of our money

WHAT a windfall for the owners of Airtricity?

Tue, 22 Jan, 2008

Turbines less noisy than motorways

SARAH PRICE (Letters, October 22) asks how I dare take issue with Brigitte Schorn regarding wind turbines.

Mon, 29 Oct, 2007

Wind won’t blow on demand

JAMES McGRATH’S claim that wind power is “incredibly effective” (Letters, October 8) is totally wrong.

Mon, 22 Oct, 2007

Nationalists’ foul play

THE demand from most nationalists that our flag and anthem be imposed on unionists when they join us in all-Ireland rugby reveals our mean-spirited, intolerant, dismissive and bullying attitude towards them.

Fri, 28 Sep, 2007

Unthinking nationalists have wrong songsheet

I WISH to congratulate you on the insightful editorial on the rugby anthem debate (September 21).

Tue, 25 Sep, 2007

Church makes a clear distinction between homosexual person and homosexual act

DICK KEANE (Letters, June 26) says the Pope’s views on homosexuality are “intrinsically immoral” and “objectively disordered”.

Fri, 07 Sep, 2007

Pope never tried to cover up scandal

IN his letter headlined ‘Selective responses’, Dick Keane (July 14) claims, incorrectly, that Benedict XVI was the “chief architect” of the child sex abuse scandal. The Pope never imposed any “pontifical secrecy”.

Mon, 30 Jul, 2007

Selective responses

I THINK Fergal O’Neill (Letters, July 9) missed the point of my slightly tongue-in-cheek letter (June 26) on the contrast between nationalist anger at young Paisley’s comments on homosexuality and the virtually silent response to similar statements from the Pope.

Sat, 14 Jul, 2007