Even at €292,000, Robert Watt is arguably good value to manage a €22bn budget in the Department of Health. But the real issue is the nature of the public sector, where performance and pay are not linked.
Absent a major policy push, a drop in employment in retail opens a world of precarious gig-economy work, long term joblessness, forced migration, and the attendant anger of communities easily weaponised by populists.
Ireland has become a global platform for multinationals to shift profits to low-tax jurisdictions under the form of interest. The resumption of international tax talks following Joe Biden’s election will put this role into question.
Somewhere along the way, we forgot how to make beautiful places. We should do better.
Let’s take a step back: the real cause of the current drama is less the widely analysed actions of chat-boards and day-traders, and more the extraordinary policy environment which helped propel stock prices ever higher.
The dismissal of Frank Lampard as Chelsea manager has led to a debate which at times has split along tribal lines and offered a reminder that English football has long been a testing ground in the battle of populism versus technocrats.
A marauding gang of internet nerds has descended on the financial markets. It has already cost one hedge fund $3.75 billion, and it's not finished yet.
Colm Fagan is a retired actuary and former chairman of Standard Life International. He has a proposal for a pension system that does more, with less.
A guaranteed customer for your product makes you instantly bankable and government approval is a rubber stamp like no other. But the system is weighted towards multinationals, and not domestic businesses.
An accountant showed an average annual income of just €12,302 for ten years. Out of that, he managed to maintain a spouse, three privately educated school-going children and lived in a house complete with an indoor swimming pool which later sold for €10m.
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