Place: Haddington Park Glenageary Co

A COMPREHENSIVE SERIES OF ARTICLES ON THIS TOPIC

columnists

Gombeen politics

DEPUTY Ned O’Keeffe is to be congratulated on the honesty of his stance regarding Rathcormac national school in Co Cork. It is good to see an elected representative publicly demonstrate the type of self-serving gombeenism which many of us have long suspected to be common currency in national and local politics.

‘Non-recourse’ mortgages could be the answer

Let’s have fewer U-turns and more leadership

Illogical speed limits should be changed

Minister throws toys out of the pram

SF’s abstentionist MPs can’t serve the voters

Sinn Féin MPs must sit in House of Commons

IF the nationalist community in the North, and we in the south, needed a confidence-building measure from the DUP then surely Ian Paisley’s visit last week was it in spades.

Thu, 12 Apr, 2007

Airport high-fliers pay the price

MATTHEW O’MEARA (Irish Examiner letters, April 4) has a good moan about Cork’s lack of political clout with regard to the airport and its debt, concluding that “maybe Roy Keane is right: Cork doesn’t matter”.

Mon, 09 Apr, 2007

Child’s right and mother’s right to choose

THE proposal to enshrine the rights of the child in the constitution will require considerable debate.

Tue, 13 Mar, 2007

Kenny’s immigration speech moderate and balanced — unlike McDowell’s

INTRIGUED by the reaction to Enda Kenny’s recent speech on immigration, I took the trouble to go back and read the full text. Far from being a right-wing, nationalist diatribe, I found it to be a moderate and balanced call for development of coherent policies and measures to help immigrants.

Fri, 02 Feb, 2007

Health service must not be held to ransom by powerful, wealthy clique

IT’S increasingly difficult not to see hospital consultants as arrogant and greedy professionals with a stranglehold on the health service and a willingness to hold hostage the most vulnerable members of our community — those in need of hospital care.

Tue, 30 Jan, 2007

Suitable gift for a great propagandist

ALL the year-end reviews of politics in 2006 included Justice Minister Michael McDowell’s extraordinary ‘Dr Goebbels’ outburst, which was quite ironic coming from the most prolific propagandist seen for many decades in Irish politics.

Thu, 04 Jan, 2007

BUPA departing with a healthy surplus

BUPA claims risk equalisation would cost it €161m over the next three years compared with projected profits of €64m under the current system.

Thu, 21 Dec, 2006

Bigger Dáil chamber a waste of public money

IT’S reported that construction of a new state-of-the-art Dáil chamber is to be considered as part of a major review of the Leinster House complex.

Tue, 05 Dec, 2006

Government addicted to tax on bad habits

THE European Court of Justice has dashed hopes of cheap imports of alcohol and tobacco from other EU member states. Now, as the budget approaches, we can expect calls for excise duty increases to help wean us off our multiple addictions — alcohol, tobacco and oil.

Wed, 29 Nov, 2006

PDs as morally bankrupt as their allies

WHAT has happened to political integrity in the Progressive Democrats since Des O’Malley took a back seat in the organisation?

Wed, 27 Sep, 2006

Feeling uncomfortable in the city centre

RECENT reports of drunk and disorderly behaviour on the ‘Paris-style’ Liffey boardwalk will hardly come as a surprise to anyone who frequents Dublin city centre, especially in the evening.

Mon, 28 Aug, 2006

Taxing Bono: why not paying fair share amounts to anti-social behaviour

PITY poor Bono — he spends half his life working to relieve poverty and disease in the Third World and, in an instant, his tax advisers have people calling for his head.

Sat, 19 Aug, 2006

Civil service chiefs should be held to account

THE findings of the Commission on Electronic Voting have been seized on by all sides in the debate as proof of the validity of their position.

Thu, 20 Jul, 2006

Sheepish revolt

TO paraphrase Denis Healey, the former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Bertie Ahern seems to have found his backbenchers’ revolt to be equivalent to being savaged by a flock of dead sheep.

Thu, 06 Jul, 2006

One-man-band

IF necessary, in the national interest, Michael McDowell will leave the PDs and form his own party, which will be known as Mé Féin.

Tue, 27 Jun, 2006

Public service reform is the real issue

SIPTU president Jack O’Connor claims that the Government’s badly botched decentralisation scheme has now put at risk his union’s willingness to conclude a new social partnership agreement. However, the damage is probably much worse than this.

Mon, 29 May, 2006

Old fans are best value

GOOD to hear that the real Munster supporters in Cardiff last weekend could be identified by the Bank of Ireland logo on their jerseys, while those wearing jerseys bearing the Toyota logo were clearly just blow-ins.

Fri, 26 May, 2006

McDaid’s admission raises questions about the role of deputies

DEPUTY Jim McDaid has done us all a favour, perhaps inadvertently. His announcement that he has returned to a full-time medical career and will not be standing for re-election next year seems to have taken everyone by surprise.

Wed, 03 May, 2006

PDs show a taste for gombeen politics

ON RTÉ radio recently, Justice Minister Michael McDowell admitted he’d had his arm twisted by PD deputy Mae Sexton to decentralise the Prison Service HQ to her constituency.

Tue, 02 May, 2006

Maths of the merger

DESPITE all the talk about the possible amalgamation of the three teacher unions, my old maths teacher could tell you that ASTI INTO TUI won’t go.

Fri, 21 Apr, 2006

Fearless? More like a fear of flying

YESTERDAY, the Ryanair website listed 80 flights into and out of France, which were cancelled because of the threatened general strike. It added: ‘Ryanair sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused by these flight cancellations.’

Wed, 05 Apr, 2006

Restrictive clauses impediment to progress

TUESDAY’S launch of the joint Fine Gael/Labour proposal to clarify the respective roles and responsibilities of both ministers and civil servants and also to set ministerial performance targets is to be welcomed as a step in the right direction.

Fri, 17 Mar, 2006

TDs are part of the medical card problem

THE low take-up of the doctor-only medical cards surely can’t be due to a lack of demand, given that your local GP might well charge you €50 for a 5-10 minute visit to the surgery.

Mon, 13 Mar, 2006

Doctors and misters

THE recent controversy about the validity of PhDs awarded by Pacific Western University highlights a curious anomaly.

Sat, 10 Dec, 2005

‘800-year men’ need to take a history lesson

THE extraordinary outburst by Fr Alex Reid has perhaps served to expose just how distorted and exaggerated is the sense of grievance felt by some nationalists.

Mon, 17 Oct, 2005

Bad news for media?

JUDGING from the cynical tone of questions at Gen de Chastelain’s press conference on IRA decommissioning, one might get the impression that those with most to fear from eventual peace in Northern Ireland are the reporters and their media masters.

Fri, 07 Oct, 2005

Swipe card rip-off

THE recent Cap Gemini international banking survey showed that the average consumer pays €59 in bank fees per annum in Ireland.

Sat, 10 Sep, 2005

No yellow-pack GPs

REPRESENTATIVES of the Irish Medical Organisation have referred to the proposed new medical card as “yellow-pack.”

Mon, 15 Aug, 2005