In case you missed it, Ruairi Quinn called for the establishment of a Minister for Public Service Reform the other day. I’m going to claim partial credit for that idea. I can’t remember whether I actually said it to Ruairi himself, but I was punting the idea around the Labour Party backrooms for a couple [...]
July 21st, 2009 at
08:53 in
Politics (Ireland) | tags:
election,
general election,
ireland,
labour party,
mandate,
manifesto,
minister,
policy,
public sector reform,
public service reform,
ruairi quinn,
unions |
10 Comments
Waah, waah, waah. The cries from the media (and many of the assembled public) that nobody told them there was anything wrong with the economy are becoming annoying now. They were told – but they chose to ignore the warnings. Two years ago, in January 2007 (yes, despite the media’s insistence that nobody said anything [...]
February 8th, 2009 at
11:51 in
Politics (Ireland) | tags:
2007,
banking crisis,
economic crisis,
fianna fáil,
finance,
journalism,
journalists,
labour party,
media,
pat rabbitte,
RTÉ,
ruairi quinn,
the irish times |
No Comments
While there was no money left to fund school books for disadvantaged children and school libraries are now to receive no funding at all, Fianna Fáil somehow managed to scrape together €69.7m (that’s €69.7 million) to pay for the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund. That money is used to pay for Horse Racing Ireland and [...]
October 21st, 2008 at
20:44 in
Politics (Ireland) | tags:
bord na gcon,
budget 2009,
builders,
children,
corruption,
cut backs,
developers,
dig outs,
education,
fianna fáil,
horse racing ireland,
ruairi quinn,
scandal,
school books,
school building,
schools |
2 Comments
PRSI Ceiling removal would pay for medical card reinstatement three times over As we all know by now, Fianna Fáil have taken the medical card away from pensioners, causing huge consternation and uproar. Just as bad was the bare-faced bailout for developers, where the Government will now provide mortgages to those who can’t get bank [...]
October 18th, 2008 at
18:00 in
Politics (Ireland) | tags:
air travel tax,
bail out,
brian lenihan,
budget 2009,
developer bailout,
excise,
fianna fáil,
mary harney,
medical card,
mortgages,
older people,
parliamentary question,
pensioners,
petrol,
ruairi quinn,
sunday tribune,
tax,
VAT |
No Comments
Following yesterday’s revelation by Ruairi Quinn TD that the Government has lost even more laptops this year, The Irish Times reports today that Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern is considering introducing a mandatory reporting system when data or data-storage devices go missing. That’s welcome, and long overdue. Bruce Schneier wrote about it back in 2006. [...]
October 2nd, 2008 at
09:41 in
Politics (Ireland),
Security | tags:
bruce schneier,
data protection,
dermot ahern,
labour,
labour party,
laptop,
laptops,
Politics (Ireland),
ruairi quinn |
No Comments
Parliamentary Questions from Ruairi Quinn TD have shown that there’s been a significant increase this year in the number of laptops and other data devices stolen or missing from Government hands. Back in January, he put down a series of Dáil questions (PQs) which showed that more than 100 devices had gone missing between 2002 [...]
October 1st, 2008 at
17:08 in
Politics (Ireland),
Security | tags:
batt o'keefe,
data protection,
eamon ryan,
encryption,
government,
labour,
labour party,
laptops,
parliamentary questions,
Politics (Ireland),
ruairi quinn,
Security,
truecrypt |
2 Comments
