Written by Foras Teamhrach
RTE: CSO data show that the unemployment rate in the third quarter of this year was 14.4%, up from 14.2% in the previous quarter. The latest Central Statistics Office report stated that the number of people at work fell by 2.5% or 46,000 over the previous 12 months to just over 1.8 million. Unemployment [...]
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Written by Foras Teamhrach
@ Irish Independent – ESRI economist John FitzGerald. Photo: Steve Humphreys “Three more tough Budgets will get us back on track, the country’s top economic think-tank predicts today. The pain of tax hikes, pay reductions and cuts to public services will ease significantly after 2014, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) forecasts. [...]
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Written by Foras Teamhrach
British government austerity measures aimed at slashing spending in local Government and the health service are likely to deliver billions of pounds of new business for private corporations. The measures planned in Ireland to downsize local Government and cut services can be viewed as being part of the same process. The article begins: “Outsourcing firms [...]
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Written by Foras Teamhrach
“Social welfare systems ideally combine income security for workers with flexibility for employers, so people can move smoothly from one job to another, with a short intervening period on social welfare where necessary, while businesses retain a capacity to adapt to changing conditions. The best combination of the security and flexibility welfare model, known as [...]
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Written by Foras Teamhrach
“The Irish government’s cap-doffing attitude to the speculators who lent money to the reckless bosses of Anglo Irish Bank and the other banks is incredible. It is costly. It is you and I who will pay. The cost is staggering. It could sink this country. It will burden all of us and our children too. [...]
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Written by Foras Teamhrach
Jeffrey Sommers is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the Department of Africology and visiting professor at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. He can be reached at: jeffrey.sommers@fulbrightmail.org Jeffery Sommers is writing about the recent Latvian election. Latvia, whose property bubble bears much similarity to Ireland’s, and whose programme for [...]
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Written by Foras Teamhrach
More than 3,000 returning Irish emigrants have been refused social welfare payments because they haven’t been living in Ireland for the two years before they made their claims. Emigrants who left Ireland in the 1960s and ’70s are being affected, as well as some who left as recently as 18 months ago but have now [...]
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Written by Foras Teamhrach
Last week, the Taoiseach defended the Government’s record on economic forecasting in the face of criticism. Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny demanded independent verification of the Government’s figures on the economy. Addressing Brian Cowen in the Dáil he stated: … “independent competent people must be brought in . . . who can validate and [...]
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Written by Foras Teamhrach
Mr Kinsella told the Irish Examiner that control over our own national destiny – over the rebuilding of our economy – is slipping out of our hands. "On present trends and in the absence of a transformational change policy, the IMF will be called upon to intervene with its own particular brand of orthodoxy. We [...]
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Written by Foras Teamhrach
“Next Tuesday will provide the biggest test yet. The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) has committed to putting at least €1 billion worth of Irish Government bonds up for auction. If there were to be any serious problem with take-up, or if the rate of return offered were much above already high rates in the [...]
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