Ireland’s corporate tax policy is no “sacred cow”
Emmanuel Macron, in the course of his successful election campaign, cited Irish corporate taxation policy as an issue which he believed that a refocused EU might address. This opinion is hardly startling, given Macron’s enthusiasm for rekindling the campaign for further EU integration. When you consider the French electoral system, its shortcomings become apparent. Rather […]
No monopoly on imagination or flexibility in Ireland’s response to Brexit
The warm and attentive reception given to Michel Barnier by the two Houses of the Oireachtas underlined the seriousness of Brexit as an issue for Ireland and the Irish hope that the UK’s departure from the EU will take place on terms that will not set back the political settlement on this island and the […]
When you see life-saving surgery denied over cost, tax residency for sale is a gamble Ireland can ill afford
At the height of the financial crisis, we changed our tax laws to provide for a domicile levy on certain Irish citizens whose worldwide income exceeded €1 million, whose property in Ireland was greater in value than €5 million, and whose liability to Irish income tax in a relevant tax year was less then €200,000. […]
Tuam is a by-product of the deeper scandal of a religious and social culture that seems so cruel, and yet so recent, to the modern world
One of the less edifying aspects of politics is the tendency of some practitioners to engage in the rhetoric of competitive moral outrage. The Tuam Mothers and Babies Home scandal is a case in point. The Oireachtas has heard in each House genuine and moving personal accounts from survivors of the Irish system of dealing […]
Brexit may not deliver a united Ireland soon, but it’s a challenge that should unite us all
One of the perennial problems in discussing the future of Northern Ireland is that the discussion of itself has a seriously polarising effect on the two main communities there. The underlying conflict of aspirations comes to the surface, however peacefully, and the process of normalising relations between those two communities is set back. On the […]
Real reconciliation with the orange in our tricolour must mean more than just indifference
When I wrote here last week about the spirit of the “Chuckle Brothers” being needed for a resolution of the impasse that has left Northern Ireland without a government and without a functioning assembly, I was not conscious that Martin McGuinness was about to join Ian Paisley in eternity, although I knew he was very […]