THE Fianna Fáil/Green Party Government is about to bring in what is widely expected to be one of the harshest Budgets in the history of the state.
In backing the Government’s 2014 deadline for cutting the deficit to 3% of GDP, Fine Gael and the Labour Party have effectively given their support to the austerity measures planned by the Government.
Health, social welfare and... Free article

BY MÍCHEÁL Mac DONNCHA

IT ALL BEGAN with a statement from Green Party leader and Environment Minister John Gormley that he was going to invite the party leaders in the Dáil to seek a consensus on the economy. It looked like a plea from the Greens for a group hug as they faced the prospect of imposing a savage budget with their senior coalition partners in Fianna Fáil.
But, as it... Free article

BY JENNIFER McCANN MLA

AS tens of thousands of people attend rallies and campaign events against the Westminster Government’s sweeping cuts of public and social services, health, education and income supports, the Conservative Party and Liberal Democrats would have us believe that the cuts are based on ‘economic necessity’. They are not. They are part of an ideologically-driven... Free article

AGAINST a backdrop of increasingly conflicting messages from the Government around when they plan to introduce water charges and what form these extra burdens on families will take, Sinn Féin’s Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD, spokesperson for the No Water Charges campaign said:
“We recognise that clean water is a precious resource that costs money to produce. But water charges are not about... Free article

BY ROBBIE SMYTH

“NOT FAIR, rational or right” is how Sinn Féin’s Leinster House team sum up the ‘out of their depth’ Fianna Fáil/Green Party Coalition Budget plans.
The party will launch a wide-ranging Budget submission in November, maintaining a tradition of offering a republican alternative begun when Caoimhghín Ó Caolain was elected a TD in 1997 and now copied by other... Free article

Friday 22^nd October

TODAY we travelled through Granma province, making our way to the historical landing site of the Granma boat.  This was the boat commanded by Fidel which set sail from Mexico in 1956 thus beginning the Cuban Revolution.

On our way to the site we had the opportunity to visit the Demajagua the site of Carlos Manuel Cespedes sugar plantation. This was the... Free article

BY TOM O’CONNOR
Economist at Cork Institute of Technology

IF WE update the Bank of Ireland Asset Management Report on the ‘Wealth of the Nation’ (2006), we can get a pretty accurate picture of how much wealth there still is in the country.
That report stated that there were 33,000 millionaires in Ireland in 2006.
Firstly, the report estimated that there were 330 individuals whose... Free article

Irish republicans and the fight for the Spanish Republic

"WE pay tribute today to the memory of the some 70 Irishmen who as members of the International Brigades gave their lives with comrades from across the world in defence of the Spanish Republic over the years - 1936 to 1939
We remember in particular Charlie Donnelly from our neighbouring County Tyrone who died in the... Free article

PETER ROBINSON’S speech at the installation of the Mayor of Castlereagh last month about Catholic schools in the North receiving state funding - which the First Minister described as “a benign form of apartheid” - was really “little more than a thinly-disguised sectarian attack on Catholic education, parents and children”,  Sinn Féin Assembly member John O’Dowd has said.
Peter... Free article

A CROWD of over 500 people attending a vigil in West Belfast on Thursday night, October 21st, supported calls for more action to tackle the rising tide of suicides throughout the city.
In the previous week, four young men had died by suicide in the greater west Belfast area, highlighting the crisis facing communities trying to come to grips with what is being seen as an epidemic.Free article