Hitting drivers with a price rise every time the insurance industry meets a speed bump has become the norm.
In 'Old Man's War', John Scalzi wrote: "The problem with ageing is not that it's one damn thing after another-it's every damn thing, all at once, all the time." That is precisely how many elderly...
Differentiating between those who take a dismal or upbeat view of the world is a science in itself. Some argue a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, while an optimist sees the...
US President Donald Trump probably cannot leap through a hoop from the back of a galloping horse, or make people laugh at will, but he has done a convincing job of turning the White House into a...
Growing old can be a struggle, but growing old and being poor is a nightmare.
As Britain embarks on its biggest political rebalancing act in generations, the infighting on the bridge over Brexit is strengthening fears about chaos at the top.
In the lifetime of this 'do-nothing Dáil', you'd think the most common complaint from the voting public would be about the inadequacies of the legislative process, the archaic nature of the proceedings...
The environment is everyone's concern. And like most things that are everyone's concern, it can often appear to be the concern of no-one. And then along comes a week like the one just gone...
In an ideal world, you might reconcile disputes with soft words and tact; unfortunately, in relations between Britain and Ireland, there is always a moment when someone spits on their hands,...
The past, they say, should only be used for reference, not residence. Nostalgia for the way we were is of dubious value in addressing the needs of today. Besides, spend too much time garnering...
Water takes on the shape of whatever holds it - any wonder it is all over the place, just like the Government charged with containing it.
Yesterday the people of Drogheda were treated to just what they had been waiting for: not the restoration of water, which they had been promised since last Friday, but a visit from...
There is always a price to be paid when leaders fail to deal with the "real issues". It seems a very long time ago now since 2010, when the Fianna Fáil-led coalition, backed by the Greens, first put water...
Open division in UK Cabinets is nothing new. Margaret Thatcher had her "wets" and Theresa May is afflicted by a small number of ministerial colleagues who each think of themselves as the best person to occupy the position she holds and so they have been consistently leaking against her...
It is said that insurance is all about selling fear. Business being business, and people being people, there is no limit on the amount of anxiety that can be bought and sold. Or so it would seem.
Publishing the mid-year review, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe yesterday said it was crucial to focus on the totality of expenditure and not just "incremental changes". But incremental changes...
Nothing is more likely to induce a sense of fatalism than the words "the Government does not underestimate the scale of what this entails". They were spoken by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar as he...
The Churchillian definition of success hinges on stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. By such a yardstick, the performance of Nóirín O'Sullivan as Garda Commissioner has...
The 'do-nothing Dáil' didn't achieve an awful lot by the time it broke up for the summer, but it managed to make a considerable amount of noise while doing it.
Although no Government has as yet had the foresight to set up a designated Ministry for Bad Ideas, the number of them that it can still generate is remarkable. The State would soon be...
It is hard to say "we told you so" with any kind of grace. But the help-to-buy-scheme unveiled in last year's Budget appears to be doing precisely what its critics warned at the time of its announcement.
Since the financial crisis, Ireland's love affair with property has waned but this is still a nation of property owners, and aspiring owners, many within the middle classes. There is little doubt the crisis threatened the security of the middle class, a threat which has still not fully receded;...
A sobering wake-up call to those sleep-walking through the political miasma in the North, and those responsible for the paralysis across the water, on Brexit, were given a timely reminder...
It is hard to tell human stories in figures alone, they do not convey the real trauma and anxiety of the threat of losing the roof over your family's head. The numbers vary, but it is estimated...
There is something portentous about the fact that the IMF and ratings agency Fitch, should be eyeing us up on the same day that the Government's Summer Economic Statement was released.
Shane Ross's crusade to impose a mandatory driving ban on all motorists convicted of drink-driving is further proof of our dysfunctional relationship with alcohol. And nowhere is that dysfunction more...
Here's a message for new Taoiseach Leo Varadkar: you need more than a pair of novelty socks to win the nation's confidence and regard. Today, just four days short of a calendar month since he...
The Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe will this week outline the Government's Summer Economic Statement, the centrepiece of which will be, as we report today, a "significant ramping up" of spending on Ireland's infrastructure to allow it to bring forward long-delayed projects. There is no...
The constant prerogative of power, they say, is to make someone wait. But like all Government prerogatives, it is open to abuse, and a delay of 18 months to set up a regulator to monitor waste...
New Taoiseach Leo Varadkar built a road to the top by being direct, and bold. Words were his stepping stones; now that he has made it to the zenith of politics he must quickly learn that their careless...
Even the most willing workhorse begins to wilt when the struggle is always uphill, and the load increased.
The G20 meets at a time when world peace and stability is suffering acutely from a leadership vacuum. As America withdraws into insularity under President Donald Trump, the need for unity and...
When an elderly person is mugged on the high street there is understandable revulsion, when it happens at institutional level, through fraud or sharp practice, there can be scarcely a murmur.
The 32nd Dáil has been widely slated for its inability to get things done, so when the Coalition did crank its rusty gears into action there was always going to be a bit of a din. Yet the...
Your reports on the ban of the ‘baptism barrier’ in Catholic schools (Irish Independent, June 28) are illuminating in the lack of questioning in the logic of the insular reaction of both the Catholic Church and mainstream politicians.
The Department of Health somehow manages to arrive at more turning points than any other, while at the same time never moving beyond crisis. Today we learn how huge areas of Ireland are...
The workers on "Ireland's permanent way" are the unsung heroes of our transport system. Frequently low on resources, they provide a reliable and quite efficient service. Above all, they have a solid...
In an interview with The Parchment, the magazine of the Dublin Solicitors Bar Association, Mr Justice Peter Kelly, the then head of the Commercial Court, said in 2012 that there should be an independent body to appoint judges. At that time, the judge, who is now President of the High...
If you have woken up to the sound of a thud this morning, it may well be the noise of somebody's jaw hitting the ground having just learned of the latest innovation to save money within the HSE.
Justice may be blind, but our trust in it cannot be. While we are lucky to live in a country where the legal scales are finely balanced, to take this as a given would be a mistake.
The country with the highest per capita income in the world is in its own year of living dangerously.
The European Commission last March presented a White Paper on the Future of Europe which also set out the main achievements of the EU, among them a peace spanning seven decades and an enlarged union of 500 million citizens living in freedom in one of the world's most prosperous economies.
Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney is seeking a special deal for Northern Ireland in the Brexit talks.
The media, as is often noted, lives by disclosure. And for all its perceived flaws, it is still a mirror that ought to reflect society and serve the needs of the public by providing accurate information.
'What would men be without women?" Mark Twain was once asked. His answer was: "Scarce, sir, very scarce." Such lucid logic could not be applied to Leinster House, where there is no scarcity of...
If all that was required of a Garda Commissioner was to have a titanium neck, and steely self-confidence, Nóirín O'Sullivan's tenure would be timeless. But chutzpah and bombast can only...
Judge Máire Whelan is now a member of the Court of Appeal. At Áras an Uachtaráin yesterday, President Michael D Higgins appointed three judges; Charles Meehan, Eileen Creedon and Ms Whelan.
Today, 362 days after British voters opted to quit the European Union, those EU-UK divorce talks finally get under way. These negotiations are starting before the UK officially forms its new...
The Constitution recognises and declares that people living in Ireland have certain fundamental rights. These rights are natural human rights and are confirmed and protected by the Constitution. The right to freedom of speech, what the polemicist and poet John Milton referred to as "flowery...
Tús maith, leath na hoibre.
