We have buried our heads in the sand. Our deluded scoffing at Farage, at Trump, at Le Pen, at Orban, at Meloni, at Wilders and every other tribal shaman is over. Our deluded denial of the tribal beast slouching in our midst should be over too.
Fine Gael began its run as a major player in coalition governments just ten months after the Tories became the lead players in Downing Street. Is mental fatigue a factor in Dáil Eireann as well as in Westminster? In both jurisdictions, the business season is approaching.
Fintan Drury suggests that President Michael D Higgins broke his word to the electorate when he ran for President a second time and that he is continually over-reaching his role by straying into the political arena.
Tommie Gorman sees the hub of political power in the UK begin to drift away from the Tories towards a rejuvenated Labour Party. Prime Minister-in-waiting Keir Starmer is leaving nothing to chance and has surrounded himself with political heavyweights, many with an Irish heritage.
The fiscal costs of climate change are going to be very large, there is no getting around that. We just need to decide when to incur the costs, and at what speed to adjust our way of life. We have chosen, so far, to do neither.
It was notable that the two themes that have dominated political discourse in recent years – housing and health – were not the dominant themes in the budget. With an election on the horizon, the Government wants to focus attention elsewhere.
Paschal Donohoe has been involved in crafting the last eight budgets. In a major interview, he addresses the risks of fuelling inflation and baking in non-core expenditure, his change of heart on mortgage interest relief and the limits to health spending.
Minister for Finance Michael McGrath has just unwrapped a €14bn budget package. In an in-depth interview, he explains the political and economic philosophies that underpin it.
We have the money to do something about infrastructure, climate change and ageing, and that much must be celebrated, even as its allocation under a coherent plan is yet to come.
A major new report from the Fiscal Advisory Council has modelled the impact of climate change on our finances and it is not pretty. It is high time our politicians started explaining those costs to people as honestly as possible.
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