Stephen Kinsella

While nominal incomes have risen sharply, the real value of those incomes has increased only slightly. It is the source of our discontent. 

The Aer Lingus dispute is emblematic of the broader challenges facing Ireland in 2024. As the country emerges from the turmoil of recent years, we're seeing the complex interplay of factors shaping the labour market and the economy. 

Targeted investment in infrastructure can demonstrably deliver social inclusion and bridge the remaining gaps in an otherwise healthy economy. Can the Government listen to this advice in an election year?

The right’s consolidation is the story of the local and European elections in 2024, not Sinn Féin. However, based on experience elsewhere, there is not enough time to create a concrete, well-organised, hard-right or populist alternative for the coming general election.

Democracy is always interesting. It is rarely experimental. Limerick’s mayoral election is different. 

The path forward for Sinn Féin is unclear. The degree to which it toes the government’s line on immigration while castigating its failure to deliver more housing will likely determine its success. The party needs to innovate – and unlike Switzerland, it doesn’t have centuries.

There are three big reasons migration is forever: Our economy will continue to need migrants, inward migration is rising secularly over the last decade into Europe thanks to waves of conflict and change, and millions more will be further displaced by climate change in the coming years.   

Trying to balance strict border controls with a duty to treat asylum seekers humanely seems nearly impossible with a right-learning parliament. Should they come to power, Sinn Féin will have no choice but to deal with these realities.

What are their economic incentives? What are the institutional questions they pose? Why are independents absorbing the votes of the angry?

Local areas in the UK that experienced sharper rates of demographic change were more likely to vote to leave the EU at the 2016 referendum. That exact dynamic is playing out in Ireland today.