I am probably one of the few people in politics today who really knows what Denis Naughten was going through last week. I had a comparable moment of truth over 20 years ago when I was faced with a similar choice to the one that

POLITICAL history suggests that Labour ministers usually don’t start to distance themselves from their government colleagues until the last few months of a government. This is why their absence from the Dail chamber last Tuesday came as a bit of a surprise. It also suggests

Brian Lenihan was a man of superb intellect with a massive store of knowledge. He was hugely read and very erudite, but he wore it lightly. Many of my colleagues at the Bar wondered what he was doing in politics — he sacrificed a huge

Amid much noise from the government benches I attempted to find out when the Government will legislate for changes to the Joint Labour Committees (JLC) system in the Dail last Wednesday, a system set up by Sean Lemass after World War Two to ensure decent

According to business mentors the key to success for a new enterprise is: don’t just copy an idea, try to improve it. Maybe the person writing Enda Kenny’s College Green speech was unaware of this mantra. Even if they were, they could be forgiven for

How is it possible that ministers who have waited so long to take power could not see that their proposed four-year smash-and-grab raid on the pension savings of thousands of private-sector workers is a bad idea? Not only does the idea sound worse every time