Top Issue 1-2024

2 July 2012 Edition

Leadership and vision

2 July 2012

THE Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle last week decided that deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness should accept an invitation by Co-Operation Ireland to attend an engagement in Belfast which was also attended by Úachtarán na hÉireann, the Queen of England and First Minister Peter Robinson. The engagement was not connected to the queen’s jubilee events. Free article

FG and Labour TDs block Sinn Féin bid to axe Household Charge

2 July 2012

THE Fine Gael/Labour Government has voted down a Bill put forward by Sinn Féin which would have seen the scrapping of the flat-rate Household Charge and refunding householders who have already paid. Premium service article

South Armagh Volunteers Day

2 July 2012

UPWARDS OF 500 people turned out on Sunday 24 June to remember fallen friends and comrades at the annual Volunteers Day Commemoration in South Armagh. Free article

Fears for Offaly fire cover

2 July 2012

THERE ISN’T a town or villages across the state that has escaped from the impact of cutbacks to local government funding. Yet three Offaly towns still reeling from a decision which saw their fire stations shut down last year are facing further cutbacks as their libraries opening hours are severely reduced. Premium service article

An Ciste Infheistíochta Gaeilge – Ag treisiú le tógáil na Gaeilge

2 July 2012

Is léir le fada an lá go bhfuil bac ar chuid de na heagrais mhaoinithe cuidiú a sholáthar do thionscadail chaipitil fhorbartha Gaeilge de réir na gcritéir lena n-oibríonn siad. Free article

Fine Gael and Labour lead attacks on Irish

2 July 2012

Firstly, there is the threat from the Labour Party Minister for Education, Ruairí Quinn, that “too much time” is being spent on teaching Irish in our schools, despite the obvious failure of the current levels and methods of teaching. This, of course, comes after the now-deferred abolition of the requirement to study Irish at Leaving Cert level as proposed by Taoiseach Enda Kenny. Free article

Gerrymandered boundaries to nation building

2 July 2012

I WAS BORN into a large working-class Northern Catholic family from the Falls Road in nationalist west Belfast. I grew up in a community burdened by the political weight of state repression and treated as second-class citizens inside gerrymandered electoral boundaries and subjected to the practice of structural discrimination in housing and in the workplace. Premium service article

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A civil right, not a religious act

2 July 2012

Giving the same rights as marriage but calling it a ‘partnership’ means that it is a two-tiered system of legal rights. Why even have two pieces of legislation for the same law? Is it to show that there is something different between the two acts? That one means less than the other? Free article

Cíos, cás & cathú?

2 July 2012

TÁ AN RIALTAS ag cur tionónta i gcoinne tiarna talúna ar bhealach atá éagóireach, éagcothrom agus míthrócaireach. Tá an laghdú atá déanta ag Joan Burton ar na liúntais cíosa a fhaigheann daoine ón Roinn Coimirce Sóisialaí ag díbirt daoine óna gcuid tithe, páistí amach as scoileanna agus clanna amach as na pobail ina gcónaíonn siad. Caithfear cur ina choinne seo go láidir. Free article

We’re showing leadership

2 July 2012

North Belfast Sinn Féin Mla Gerry Kelly answers critics Free article

Between graveyards and goalposts

2 July 2012

EVERY YEAR, at the end of July, a group of cyclists set off from Belfast to Monaghan. Their journey is in memory of a young man from the local community who was 25 years old when he died. Premium service article

Nuclear winter

2 July 2012

2012 should have been the year to sound the death knell of nuclear power in Europe. In the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown in Japan, decades of cost over-runs, accidents, leaks, still rising multi-billion euro reactor decommissioning costs, electricity surcharges for customers to subsidise nuclear power, they all signalled the end. Free article

ACTA’s counterfeit arguments

2 July 2012

GUE/NGL MEPs in the European Parliament accept the fight against counterfeiting is necessary but say the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) “is being used here to extend the domination of rich countries and corporations over trademarks, patents and copyright using specific criminal laws”. Free article


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