Politics | Business Post

Michael Brennan: Is the government’s new housing scheme a smart policy, or just plain ‘bonkers’?

Tánaiste did not vigorously defend €450 million Croí Conaithe scheme when pushed by Sinn Féin

John Walsh: Any would-be government must be honest with voters about what it can achieve

The DPP’s decision on Leo Varadkar’s leaking of a confidential document may well be the deciding factor on whether this government runs its full term, but any incoming administration has major challenges ahead

Deirdre Heenan: DUP pays a big political price for playing high-stakes poker

Jeffrey Donaldson was foolish to think that Boris Johnson’ s government would give in to the DUP’s wrecking-ball politics and now the future appears bleak for his party

Elaine Byrne: French vote tells us that politicians must pay heed to those who abstain

Emmanuel Macron’s speech following his victory over Marine Le Pen reflected an awareness of the level of democratic rejection, and there’s a lesson in that for our own politicians

Lucinda Creighton: Having spent 12 years in politics, I have no doubt that women face different and often greater obstacles than their male counterparts

The accusation that Angela Rayner, the deputy leader of the British Labour Party, was ‘goading’ Boris Johnson by crossing and uncrossing her legs is an extreme example of the way women in politics are held to different standards than men

Seána Glennon: Is a referendum the ultimate exercise in democracy or autocracy?

Far-right politician Marine Le Pen has promised a ‘referendum revolution’ if she wins the French presidential election later today, but are referendums the will of the people, or the tool of the authoritarian?

Elaine Byrne: How the people’s champions became tools of the Kremlin propaganda machine

In their Dáil days, Mick Wallace and Clare Daly were fearless in the public interest, but their subsequent tenure in Europe has amplified their controversial world view

Aidan Regan: In a world of carbon inequality, the biggest challenge is to develop a working-class climate politics

If our climate politics focuses on taxation rather than investment to generate the public financing conditions for behavioural change, then we can expect nothing less than a Le Pen-style backlash

Elaine Byrne: Watt isn’t the only one who needs to learn lessons from the Holohan debacle

Top civil servant Robert Watt, whose salary has earned him some notoriety, may be a convenient scapegoat in the secondment controversy but politicians, including the Taoiseach and some junior ministers, are not without blame

Chuka Umunna interview: ‘What helps move the needle is us having a very intense dialogue with our clients on their business from a carbon-emitting point of view’

A former rising star in Britain’s Labour Party, Chuka Umunna is now tasked with achieving sustainable targets and promoting diversity in JP Morgan Chase bank while at the same time continuing to deliver for shareholders

Dan O’Brien: What has led to the explosive rise in support for Sinn Féin?

The answer could lie in the algorithms of social media platforms which have become generators and amplifiers of anger, driving followers to blame anything and everything on the politicians in power

Pat Rabbitte: Holohan debacle shows we need to look again at 100-year-old act

The Ministers and Secretaries Act of 1924, which governs the relationship between ministers and heads of departments, is at the root of the current controversy about the CMO’s appointment to Trinity

Ian Guider: Public sector pay rises will only dig us deeper into inflation crisis

Benchmarking social welfare rates to inflation would make more sense than an across-the-board percentage pay rise for all

Ireland-Israel Alliance accuses Amnesty of seeking to ‘delegitimise’ the state of Israel

Amnesty Ireland has rejected the accusations as baseless and a ‘distraction’ from the findings of a recent report, which concluded that Israel was an apartheid state

Richard Colwell: Bread-and-butter concerns are more important to voters than left-right dogma

Support is gravitating to Sinn Féin not because of its political ideology, but because more and more people believe it is the party best placed to effect real change

Pat Rabbitte: Will Bacik’s campaigning record be enough to change the fortunes of battered Labour?

Labour bears the brunt of blame for a myriad of ills, but like its expected new leader, the party has been behind some of this country’s most important moves towards social and economic justice

Tony O’Brien: PAC’s mistreatment of those before it damages its own standing

The disrespect and haranguing of officials and the wasting of time on constituency matters is a problem the Public Accounts Committee and the Dáil must address

James McDermott: Unfairness of Trinity vote is a recurring theme

As rivals jockey to replace Ivana Bacik in Seanad Éireann, it’s worth reminding ourselves that the very concept of a university senator is an anachronistic one

Brown bins for food waste could get a nationwide rollout

Some 500,000 households around the country do not have a brown bin as part of their waste collection service

John Walsh: The future of Labour depends on offering a real alternative to populism and avoiding gimmicky solutions

The incoming leadership would be well advised to observe the fate of its sister party in Britain