A few weeks after I was made business editor of the Sunday Independent I went out to lunch with editor Aengus Fanning and a senior management type. On the agenda was the progress of this newspaper’s attempt to compete with the dull business supplements then emerging from our competitors. As so often happened with Aengus, …
Category Archive
for: ‘Other Issues’
Anglo from the Horse’s Mouth
HAD the Irish Times turned tabloid? Last week, ex-editors of the paper of record turned in their graves. The lead item on a front page that frowns on sensationalism had gone walkabout.
Bankers Haunt Queen’s Visit
Monday A wonderful week is haunted by the ghosts of bankers past. The Queen may come and the Queen may go, but Ireland’s bankers are still calling the shots. As I head for London on the early Cityjet flight I spot the first ghost. Former Bank of Ireland chief Richard Burrows is sitting at the …
The Irish Dinosaurs Never Die
TAOISEACH Enda Kenny is playing a blinder; no one in the Dail has yet landed a glove on Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore; old hands like Pat Rabbitte and Michael Noonan are brushing aside challenges in the chamber. While government U-turns are two a penny, the main players are managing to emerge unscathed.
Change? Don’t Count on it.
THE scene: a private room in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin, Sunday, February 27. Present are Enda Kenny leader of Fine Gael and Eamon Gilmore leader of Labour Party. Eamon: Congratulations Enda, great result. Let’s talk.
Invitation: Join a Unique Dáil Campaign
Two weeks ago I announced that I will run as an Independent candidate in the constituency of Dublin South. I have been heartened by the support I have already received from constituents and indeed from people all over the country. Thank you. This is a critical time in Ireland’s history. Citizens are rightly angry. For …
Cowen Caught in Crony Curse
BRIAN Cowen is a thoroughly decent man. He is good fun, loyal, honest and able. He does not deserve the personal humiliation inflicted on him in the past week. Yet he is a politician paralysed in the ethos of a bygone age.
Wasters
Together with Nick Webb, I have written a new book, ‘Wasters’, that has just been published (in shops now, retailing for aprox. €15). ‘Wasters’ tells the story of the scandal of public waste in Ireland, as exemplified by our exposés of extravagance and junketry in public bodies FAS and CIE, amongst others. An exclusive extract …
AIB Follows the Anglo Road
‘The bank is dead. Long live the bank.’ LAST week they came to bury Anglo. And they came to rescue AIB. Brian Lenihan’s insistence that if he had allowed Anglo to go to the wall it would have torpedoed AIB, began to ring true. The accepted view in government circles was that abandoning Anglo would …
Cowen Flees into the Arms of FAS
ON Monday evening last, Brian Lenihan released Brian Cowen from political bondage. The Taoiseach — reprieved by his Finance Minister — instantly bolted to a safer haven. No, not to Offaly. Nor into the arms of his demoralised Fianna Fail tribe; but in his mission to save his skin, he turned to a different type …