Ministers must know the game is up and that the ruling by Eurostat has completely removed the rationale for Irish Water and water charges, writes Michael Taft.

A cohort of the country’s leading academics has called on the Government to publicly back a European debt conference and offer to host the event, in a show of solidarity with Greece.

Average wages fell by less than 8% since 2008, yet disposable income, which governs people’s “living standards”, fell by as much as 20% in the last six years, a trade union economic think-tank claimed.

The fact that one-in-three children are living in deprivation is a "social and moral indictment of the priorities of a government that privileges tax cuts over poverty reduction," it has been claimed.

Targeted tax reductions for low-and middle-income workers, an increase in employer’s PRSI to pay for a new unemployment benefit, an increase in taxes through a raft of new measures and a major ramp-up in public investment are included in trade union Unite’s pre-budget submission.

The Port of Cork’s new €100m Ringaskiddy terminal expansion plan has several key differences to the scheme which was shot down six years ago, the company insisted yesterday.

One of the country’s largest trade unions has warned that the model of universal health insurance proposed by the Government will be “regressive” — placing an inequitable burden on low- and medium-income earners.

Unions have urged the Government to give €10m to charities and increase the minimum wage, claiming that food poverty affects far more people in some counties than the one in 10 national average.

Facing more music.

TOMORROW’S public demonstrations around the country have been called by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to ventilate the demand for a fair deal on bank debt and to oppose one-sided austerity.

Ireland has paid 42% of the total cost of the European banking crisis, at a cost of close to €9,000 per person, according to Eurostat.

Seven of the top ten unemployment blackspots in Ireland are in Limerick, according to the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office.

The kernels of the crisis, bank debt and growth, are not in the treaty, writes Michael Taft

The evidence for the Government being able to return to the bond markets by 2013 is positive, writes Tom O’Connor

GOVERNMENT attempts to implement cutbacks in line with European Commission demands will result in permanent damage to the fabric of society, ICTU leader David Begg told a conference of economists at the weekend.

HINTS from Brussels that Ireland can no longer enjoy such a low corporation tax rate – previously a red line which the Irish Government vowed never to cross – gives a taste of just how different the budget approach could be once the EU takes charge.

THE livelihoods of inshore fishermen will be wiped out if the Port of Cork builds a €226 million container terminal in the lower harbour, an oral hearing was told yesterday.

THE livelihoods of inshore fishermen will be wiped out if the Port of Cork builds a €226 million container terminal in the lower harbour, an oral hearing was told yesterday.