This is a difficult time to be involved in organisations that seek a more equal, environmentally sustainable and participative society. Poverty, unemployment and emigration are increasing. Key public services and welfare provisions are being diminished. Funding for ‘civil society’ is being cut with organisations closing or reducing their work. The political system is increasingly unresponsive
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Miriam Cotton surveys the political web forums causing a stir Bondwatch Ireland / The Chattering Magpie 14 Editor: Diarmuid O’Flynn Describe your website/what made you decide to set it up? Thechatteringmagpie14 is a blog of short articles explaining/updating our protest in Ballyhea. BondwatchIreland is about the next 12 bonds due for payment, the ‘Dirty Dozen’
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An appeal from Friends of the Irish Turf Cutters not to take the fall for Government inaction and incompetence and go jail because successive elected officials and civil servants have undermined their way of life. Why should they punish themselves by going to jail when it is the Ministers of the time and the civil servants – many of them still there – who should be suffering for the lose of their traditional rights? False hope was what they have been given – and up the garden path they have been led.

The minister for Justice, Equality and Defence – Alan Shatter – has announced a working group to advise him on the merging of the Equality
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The Irish Red Cross fired me for detailing its delinquencies. By Noel Wardick In July 2005 I came home after seven months in Darfur and seven years working in Africa. I accepted a job with the Irish Red Cross (IRC) as Head of its International Department, based in Dublin. Perhaps I should have listened to
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The Mahon Tribunal, perhaps to avoid discrediting chief witness Frank Dunlop, failed comprehensively to investigate the Cherrywood rezoning that led to its establishment. By Michael Smith In 1995 Colm MacEochaidh and I sponsored a £10,000 reward for “information leading to the conviction of persons for rezoning corruption” after I had been involved in a long
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Despite malpractice and unlawfulness, Carlow planning boss merely shifted sideways. Minister Hogan decides against even appointing inspectors in national planning review. By  Michael Smith Former Louth Co Manager, John Quinlivan, completed a report on planning irregularities in Carlow in November 2010. The  report was commissioned after a Local Government Audit Service review of 2008 noted 
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Our new Minister for the Environment blew it in Brussels when it transpired that his claim that Ireland was protecting its raised bogs was exposed as dramatically false by an NGO Report with more than 700 photos of savage destruction covered in the current Village magazine. In trying to undo the damage, he and his climate sceptic sidekick Conor Sheehan encouraged unrealistic ‘compromises’ to benefit the turf cutters that they know Europe will not allow. Tony Lowes’ blog asks why.

Jerusalem in South County Dublin “the’best’ schools in the country are off limits to the children of  immigrants, members of the Travelling community or those with special needs” By Mark Lonergan The growing fiscal crisis demands cuts in State expenditure. One cut would actually enhance the common good. What better place to start than the
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Interview: Phil Hogan wants to be Minister for the Environment but has a cautious agenda Fine Gael’s environment spokesperson would leave well enough alone at local authority level Tony Lowes Phil Hogan entered politics as a Kilkenny County Councillor on the death of his father,  when he was 22 years old, rising to be Chairman
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Green/FF Legacy on environmental funding Cuts, cuts, cuts…and apathy By Tony Lowes Of all the species, man is the most destructive to the environment. Almost everything we do damages air, water, or soil. And other species are disappearing at an astonishing rate as mankind proliferates. Our water quality continues to fall, costing the exchequer more
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Micheál Martin is a non-ideological constitutional republican who derides equality of outcome and believes in equality of opportunity How would you describe your political philosophy? I’m a constitutional republican and believe strongly that economic growth and social progress are closely linked.  I believe the old left/right ideological divide has no real relevance for the 21st
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Silvio Berlusconi matted down the  hair-like thing between his tentacles with his fat slimy fingers, removed himself from an Umbrian nineteen-year old, and slithered down in the lapping waters of the bath just run for him by a harem of Tuscan sexworkers.  It was very late. The water gurgled gleefully in the Carrara-marbled lavatorium of
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North’s planning and environmental protection as bad as Republic’s by Anton McCabe Environmental issues have been low in the North’s political agenda. They have, however, had political repercussions. First Minister Peter Robinson was perceived as close to developers in his East Belfast constituency. The main reason for his losing one of the safest seats in
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We don’t just have uninhabited estates, we have a largely uninhabited country by Terrence McDonough Recently several auctions around the country have been forestalled by hostility from  locals.  For example the auction of a farm in County Meath failed in the teeth of local opposition.  The auction, instituted by a bank in payment of arrears,
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Prosecute a banker (A DIY guide for Village readers) By Gary Fitzgerald Since the beginning of the banking crisis in September 2008, the government’s strategy has been to protect the banks at all costs.  With the IMF/EU deal announced recently, it is now clear that the government intends that the taxpayer will pay for bank
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Interview by Paul Dillon Michael D Higgins, veteran polymath TD for Galway West,  was born in Limerick in 1941. His father, a lifelong republican, had been sentenced to death by the Free State for blowing up Mallow Bridge, but reprieved, the Cork Examiner having called for his execution.  His father left his family and the
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United Left Alliance Michael Smith interviews Joe Higgins about a new electoral force on the left I meet Joe Higgins over tea and a brownie, on a grim afternoon in December in Dublin City Centre.  He doesn’t want to talk about his background – people are sick of it – he wants to talk about 
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A journey through the complexity of former Yugoslavia By Frank Shouldice Agnostic Yugoslavs suddenly became Catholic Croatians, Orthodox Serbs or Bosnian Moslems. These differences were masterfully exploited by political leaders clinging to nationalist agendas – most especially by Milosevic in Serbia and Franco Tudjman in Croatia. The train that flits through the backwaters of northern
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