Now that women have secured a basic human right denied them by the constitutional caprice of the now defunct 8th amendment, what is the next step?  It depends on how…

I was at a meeting a few days ago where a torrent of good news on the equality front was expressed; in particular, how Irish equality is reaching Swedish levels…

There are a number of reasons being put forward to justify limiting the amount of budgetary resources available for repairing the social and economic damage of the recession years:  an…

The Government produced their draft Stability Programme Update containing projections for the economy and the budget up to 2021.  They will firm up on these numbers – along with the…

Measuring wages in an economy is pretty straight-forward – take the total amount of wages and find the proportion it makes up of GDP.  That is called the ‘labour share’. …

Ah, the fiscal rules.  They brought us fiscal space, the expenditure benchmark and the structural deficit.  They were supposed to bring us sustainable and balanced fiscal policy to see us…

Following an exchange of graphs on Twitter with Seamus Coffey (@seamuscoffey), chair of the Irish Advisory Fiscal Council, I did some looking around Eurostat’s Structural Earnings Survey database.  This dataset…

Just a short follow-up to the previous post outlining the dismal facts about the housing crisis.  Lest anyone say that those campaigning over the crisis are great at pointing out…

The National Homeless and Housing Coalition is holding a demonstration on Saturday, April 7th over the housing crisis.  It has the support of dozens of organisations spanning civil society groups,…

First rule of analysis:  data tells you what it tells you.  One should be cautious about making general assumptions.  For when you ‘look under the hood’ you may find the…

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has produced a useful analysis of spending on housing; in particular, the rent subsidy schemes.  When we put this next to the targets…

Precarious working is rising, pervading a number sectors:  hospitality, retail, construction, financial, education (including childcare) and health.  A major difficulty, though, is that there is no official or agreed definition. …

A couple of days ago I discussed a proposal to make childcare affordable.  We all know that Irish childcare is one of the most expensive in Europe.  However, when it…

The Sunday Independent devoted three pages to the escalating cost of childcare.  This was based on a Departmental document made available to the paper, along with a new Eurostat study…

It is curious how little debate there has been regarding Ireland’s banking system (apart from being scandalised by continuous scandals).  The bank guarantee was brought in practically overnight while the…

The two conservative parties – particularly, Fine Gael – are increasing their grip on Irish politics.  Three polls in January – Red C, Ipsos MRBI and Behaviour & Attitudes –…

Will the age of automation, AI (artificial intelligence), and robots produce a utopian or dystopian future; or, which is more likely, a bit from column A and a bit from…

Employment rising, wages rising, moving away from the bad ol’ recession days:  the recovery is sinking roots in the economy.  However, there is no one measurement that can wrap all…

The following is a story about how a single stat that seemingly tells a positive story actually conceals a structural economic flaw.  Ever since the OECD produced a table (you…

As part of a drive to bring a little bit of democratic accountability over multi-nationals, the EU Commission is proposing that multi-national country-by-country reporting be made public.  This refers to…