• Éamon de Buitléar (1930-2013) Defender of the Commons

    Fiscal policy is about getting our public income and expenditure in balance, in ways that are acceptable and foster the creation of employment. When expenditure dramatically exceeds income,  and crisis is upon us, extricating ourselves becomes all consuming. But it is important even in crisis to retain what is valuable about those aspects of life…

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  • Property Tax – Why Dubliners Should Pay More

    Some have complained that the residential property tax (to be applied in Ireland from 2013), and to be based on the market value of the property, will be unfair to Dubliners, because property values are higher there than elsewhere in Ireland. The value of the 298 properties sold in Dundrum, County Dublin are compared with…

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  • Budget 2013 and ‘Future Health’

    Having been in hospital in Ireland in early 1979 for minor surgery, Elizabeth Shannon, the wife of the then US ambassador to Ireland, wrote in her diary as follows : “Irish hospitals are wonderfully kind, warm places, very unlike my scanty experience with American hospitals. The nurses, many of them nuns, are patient, humane and…

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  • Budget 2013 – University Collaboration – A Modest Proposal

    Key Point Suggestions to merge Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and University College Dublin (UCD) have been rejected. But they should emulate the US precedent and provide the facility for students, both undergraduate and graduate, to take courses for credit in each other’s programmes. This should be done across the board, with a minimum of bureaucracy…

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  • Budget 2013 – Three Cheers For The Carbon Tax

    Key Point Ireland is a pioneer in the implementation of a carbon tax. This has allowed us to avoid (more) increases in income tax which would have further reduced disposable income, increased labour costs and destroyed jobs. It is also facilitating us in meeting our very demanding legally binding obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,…

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  • Budget 2013 – Insights From Daniel Kahneman

    Key Point We weigh losses far more heavily than equivalent gains, and we infer the general from the particular, rather than induce the particular from the general. These and many other features of our behaviour are elegantly documented in Thinking, Fast and Slow, authored by Nobel Prize winning Daniel Kahneman. In addition to loss aversion,…

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  • Budget 2013 – The Case For Periodic Payments

    Budget 2013 – The case for periodic instead of lump sum payments for damages arising out of alleged medical negligence. Key Point We should move right away from lump sum to periodic payments in the case of medical negligence cases in Ireland. And this should happen before Budget 2013 is presented to the Oireachtas (Parliament)…

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  • Aurora Colorado And The Importance Of Social Capital

    Social capital is that set of reflexes we absorb from our culture, religion, families and our ancestors. It shapes how we react to crisis and opportunity. In 19th century Ireland, the Quakers were famously honest in their dealings, competitive in business, but fair to employees and customers, open to new ideas and encouraging of enterprise…

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  • Airline Competition In Ireland – Back To Monopoly?

    Data and references supporting the evidence are included in detailed notes at the end of the paper. Introduction For any country, easy and efficient access to others is an important contributor to its economy and quality of life. It is particularly so when the country is an island with no land or rail links to…

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  • Water For Poor People – The Case For Affordable Water

    Henri Smets sets the international context for water pricing: “In all countries, it is now accepted that water users should pay to a very large extent for the water they use, and the amount of payment be proportionate to water consumption. The Irish model of free water for domestic users was hardly known to the…

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