Every month you’ll hear about the number of new cars that are sold. This is usually taken as a bellweather for the health of the economy. Cars are expensive and the more that are shifted in any one month, or indeed year, the healthier the economy. Also because...
I am here at Abu Dhabi Airport. My flight was supposed to depart at 2.15am. It’s now 9am and we’ve been told the flight may take off at 11am. So you can imagine the state of the place and the state of me! There’s no point in getting angry at staff,...
Look at the chart for the latest from January 2014 and notice which cities scream crisis.They are Kiev and Istanbul. Now that President Putin has made a fool of the West and proved a point, which is that Russia is the top dog in the region, let me share with you a...
My earliest memories of Castle Street, Dalkey, were Saturday mornings in Dom McClure’s barbershop with my father. Dom cut my Grandad’s hair, my Dad’s hair and now he was shearing mine. As usual when I peeked into the shop on a Saturday morning, Dom...
This day last week a letter posted in Connacht came into the Irish Independent addressed to me. Its contents were disturbing. It describes the “new poor”– people with good jobs in our country who can’t make ends meet and who are advised by people...
On Friday morning the Germans threw the constitutional cat among the europhile pigeons by announcing that the ECB’s plan to save the bond markets of peripheral Europe, including Ireland, was unconstitutional. Yes, you read it right: any move by the ECB to save...
