Fianna Fáil Spokesperson on Social Protection, Willie O’Dea TD, says that the suggestion by Minister Joan Burton that people earning over €100,000 should pay tax on any child benefit they receive is just “gesture politics of the worst kind”. “The idea that you could have

AS we have seen time and again since it came into office, this government is absolutely obsessed with communications. Its capacity for announcements, reannouncements and repackaged repeat reannouncements has been something to behold. But they would perhaps do well to remember that being obsessed with

A few months ago I wrote about how ministers in this Government could be divided into three distinct categories: the High Flyers, the Passengers and the Weak Links. At the time I identified Phil Hogan and Alan Shatter as two of the Government’s weakest links.

IN Switzerland they managed to find a particle so infinitesimally small that it once only existed in theory; while in Ulster Bank they cannot find their customers’ lodgement details. The ongoing chaos in Ulster Bank reminds us how dependent we are on the banks, not

THE publication of the new Dail constituency boundaries had TDs and commentators transfixed for most of last Thursday. The fact that the report was due was one of the worst kept secrets in Leinster House. If you believe the “informed sources” the report had been

FOR the past few weeks political debate has focused on bank debt, bond rates and the future of the euro. These are all vitally important for our future, but they do not have the immediacy or impact of the ongoing job crisis. I say ongoing,