comment and analysis

This is my father and it's the first time we met
This is my father and it's the first time we met
Ukraine is the biggest and most consequential of all the American betrayals
Ukraine is the biggest and most consequential of all the American betrayals
As the war enters its fifth year, it’s time for Europe to take the fight to Putin on its own terms and tell Trump to get lost

Tue, 24 Feb, 2026

EE BAFTA Film Awards 2026 - London
With N-word incident, Bafta have shot themselves in the foot
In not editing out Tourette syndrome campaigner John Davidson’s shouted tics, Bafta have allowed their successful diversity drive to be overshadowed

Mon, 23 Feb, 2026

Russia Ukraine War
Dark money is a threat to national security that Ireland can no longer afford to ignore
Ireland may features among those countries perceived to be least affected by political corruption, but our company formation regime and light-touch regulation of corporate vehicles present opportunities for hostile state actors and organised crime, writes John Devitt.

Mon, 23 Feb, 2026

Emma deSouza: So much more needs to be done to support rural resettlement
Emma deSouza: So much more needs to be done to support rural resettlement
It is a privilege to be a part of a rural community, but it's not without its challenges

Mon, 23 Feb, 2026

Future Cork: Is the city ready to enter the 21st century?
Future Cork: Is the city ready to enter the 21st century?
Five years into our 10-year vision for the city, there has been real progress but the biggest eyesores remain, while city centre green space has been decimated, write Jude Sherry and Frank O'Connor

Sun, 22 Feb, 2026

Drawing
David O'Mahony: Perhaps ‘going in the book’ is the best way to deal with our emotions
Any time I annoy her — usually with such heinous crimes as saying 'you need to tidy all your stuff away' — there’s a high chance we’ll find Daughter scribbling in a notebook, sketching sad faces or rain clouds, usually annotated for clarity

Sat, 21 Feb, 2026

Colin Sheridan: Defence Forces funding increase must not erode Ireland’s neutrality
Colin Sheridan: Defence Forces funding increase must not erode Ireland’s neutrality
Former Defence Forces officer, Colin Sheridan, argues Ireland must prioritise human capital and measured policy over reflexive militarisation

Sat, 21 Feb, 2026

Is Ireland drifting from neutrality amid Europe’s €381bn rearmament drive?
Is Ireland drifting from neutrality amid Europe’s €381bn rearmament drive?
As Europe embarks on historic military expansion, Ireland faces mounting pressure to reconsider neutrality and defence spending priorities

Sat, 21 Feb, 2026

Abandoned Religious convent and church, Clonakilty West Cork Ireland
Future Cork: A city's vitality is more important than regulatory perfection
My absurd experience advising nuns about fire safety in a beautiful Georgian convent taught me the most important thing about a building is the life inside it

Sat, 21 Feb, 2026

Road flooded
After the floods, climate obligations cannot be optional
A recent Supreme Court decision confirmed all public bodies must perform their functions in a manner consistent with national climate plans and objectives

Fri, 20 Feb, 2026

Future Cork: The city centre enters a new golden age after decades of change
Future Cork: The city centre enters a new golden age after decades of change
Cork has seen war and peace, boom and bust, and on more than one occasion the flat of the city has risen Phoenix-like from the ashes of total annihilation, writes Cónal Creedon

Fri, 20 Feb, 2026

European Court of Human Rights
Why is the Irish Government getting involved in a Spanish medical negligence case?
The Department of Health is seeking to reverse a European court decision a Spanish woman's human rights were violated when her nipple was removed during breast cancer surgery. Why? To restrict medical negligence claims in Ireland

Thu, 19 Feb, 2026

Tired Unhappy Warehouse Worker
AI won’t decide Ireland’s future, workers will 
If a generation raised on technology sees AI as a threat, not opportunity, it is a sign we’re mismanaging this transition

Thu, 19 Feb, 2026

Woman, nurse or student writing with book for internship, studying or research at med school. Female person, healthcare candidat
The HPAT has turned out to be a failure. Back to the Leaving Cert
If being able to assess information and make important decisions in a timely fashion in a pressurised environment is not preparation for a career in medicine, what is?

Thu, 19 Feb, 2026

Managing retention and exit of personnel is key to resolving Defence Forces staffing issue 
Managing retention and exit of personnel is key to resolving Defence Forces staffing issue 
Private industry swoops in to hire highly-trained members of the Defence Forces. So the taxpayer is paying for that training while industry captures the return, writes Tony Geraghty

Wed, 18 Feb, 2026

Bank holiday getaway
Who really benefits from lifting the Dublin Airport passenger cap?
Figures from the tourism industry shows increasing passenger numbers are not driving GDP growth — it's the other way around

Wed, 18 Feb, 2026

School stock
Ciara Reilly: Definition of need has changed to save money on SNAs
Pause to planned special needs assistant allocation review feels neither reassuring nor meaningful. We’ll be here again unless big changes happen, writes teacher Ciara Reilly

Tue, 17 Feb, 2026

Unequal access to remote work is a policy failure
Unequal access to remote work is a policy failure
New figures suggest the push-back to the office could collapse one of the most significant innovations in modern working life, and also risks hardening inequality within the workforce if remote work becomes an exclusive perk for higher-paid staff

Tue, 17 Feb, 2026

Man in suit confronted by media
Garda Powers Bill has puzzling treatment of journalistic privilege
Surely the minister for justice wants the best protections for the rights of journalists in fulfilling their essential democratic role, writes Cian Ó Concubhair

Tue, 17 Feb, 2026

Giant waves and violent storm jumping over the pier in the seaside town of Tramore, Waterford, Ireland. horizontal format
Rolling back environmental regulation is the ultimate act of self-harm
Across the world, right-wing political forces are working to dismantle decades of environmental and social progress, writes Ciaran Brennan 

Tue, 17 Feb, 2026

Change in disability care is possible — it just requires planning
Change in disability care is possible — it just requires planning
Young people with disabilities face a cliff edge when their parents die. It doesn't have to be this way 

Mon, 16 Feb, 2026

Leaving Certificate results
Feeder school data is misleading and old-fashioned
Narrow framing of 'success' in education is based on a flawed understanding of how modern schools work — and how children really thrive

Mon, 16 Feb, 2026

Italy Politics
Shona Murray: Europe at risk if it does not become a 'genuine federation'
Now that reality of Donald Trumps second administration has set in, Shona Murray asks what should Europe do?

Sat, 14 Feb, 2026

US HERCULES TRANSPORTER
Shannon Airport and ICE deportation flights raise fresh questions over Irish neutrality
ICE deportation stopovers at Shannon Airport reignite debate about neutrality, accountability and Ireland’s complicity in US removals

Sat, 14 Feb, 2026

Wuthering Heights photocall
David O'Mahony: Better to be bloody, bold, and resolute when adapting for the silver screen
The strongest adaptations are ones that show a love and understanding of the source material, even if they don’t manifest it literally

Sat, 14 Feb, 2026

Joanna Donnelly: Focus for forecasters is on how to communicate uncertainty
Joanna Donnelly: Focus for forecasters is on how to communicate uncertainty
Limitations in how far we can predict the weather, and how accurately we can describe the future changed climate, has been limited by chaos at the starting point or description of the boundary conditions

Sat, 14 Feb, 2026

UK-Ireland Summit
Louise Burne: Our 'do nothing Dáil' is much more appealing than Britain's omnishambles
With the British government seemingly in chaos every week, Louise Burne reflects on our sull, but stable, Government in Leinster House

Sat, 14 Feb, 2026

Airbnb Website Ahead Of Earnings Figures
Rory Hearne: U-turn on short-term lets is cynical
The Government's roll back on its restrictions for short-term lets shows the Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael coalition has capitulated to parish pump politics, writes Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne

Fri, 13 Feb, 2026

Garda stock. A generic stock photo of a Garda in Dublin.
New Garda powers bill could conceal abuses
Gardaí can consistently deny racial profiling because there is no data on who is stopped and searched — but the new powers bill doesn't allow this data to be collected. Why, asks Cian Ó Concubhair

Fri, 13 Feb, 2026

Taoiseach visit to the US
Why don't we showcase Ireland properly on St Patrick's Day, by bringing dignitaries here?
The annual export of all our ministers around the world on St Patrick's Day misses the point, argues Simon Tierney

Fri, 13 Feb, 2026

Ireland’s prison system under fire over treatment of inmates with mental illness
Ireland’s prison system under fire over treatment of inmates with mental illness
RTÉ documentary lays bare how prisoners with severe mental illness are failed by the State, with devastating consequences for families

Thu, 12 Feb, 2026

Every abuse story has the same dynamic — power vs vulnerability
Every abuse story has the same dynamic — power vs vulnerability
While we talk about Epstein and the powerful men in his orbit it's easy to forget this abuse is happening all over society, all the time, writes Niamh Ní Dhomhnaill

Thu, 12 Feb, 2026

Mentally ill people in prisons are being failed
Mentally ill people in prisons are being failed
Difficulties facing mentally ill prisoners are not news to those working on the front lines

Thu, 12 Feb, 2026

Hospital
What have we learnt about spinal care at Children’s Health Ireland?
Some 62 child spinal care patients are to be recalled due to queries about their results

Wed, 11 Feb, 2026

Refugees
Why is the Government targeting refugee families?
Since 2022, just 2,530 immediate family members have been allowed to come to Ireland through international protection family reunification

Wed, 11 Feb, 2026

The tricolour's contested origins show how myths are made
The tricolour's contested origins show how myths are made
The first to combine orange, white and green was forgotten patriot Emilia Eleanor Hamilton, who crafted an orange, white and green cockade to be ‘worn near the heart of every Irishman’, writes John Crotty

Wed, 11 Feb, 2026

Seattle Seahawks v New England Patriots - Super Bowl LX - Levi's Stadium
Colin Sheridan: Bad Bunny's show spoke the language of the colonised 
Bad Bunny's Super Bowl half-time show was full of cultural codes that many viewers would’ve missed because it was performed in one of the most conservative spaces in American life — the NFL, writes Colin Sheridan 

Wed, 11 Feb, 2026

Draft drugs strategy prioritises health over enforcement — but at what cost?
Draft drugs strategy prioritises health over enforcement — but at what cost?
A draft drugs strategy signals a health-led shift, but raises questions about policing, poverty, and community voices

Tue, 10 Feb, 2026

Financial problems
New child maintenance guidelines don't add up
Reform of the child maintenance system is welcome, but the new formula ignores education, childcare, medical and disability related costs and may disadvantage the poorest

Tue, 10 Feb, 2026

Volodymyr Zelensky visit to UK
Morgan McSweeney isn't the first Irish person behind the scenes of British power
The ousted Macroom man follows a long line of Irish people who were indispensable to British Prime Ministers — until they weren't

Tue, 10 Feb, 2026

Boy with smartphone indoors. Preteen boy using a phone checking social media. Concept of children using the smartphone
After 23 years of Safer Internet Days, are children any safer?
Governments say the era of self-regulation is over, but until we tackle the 'launch first, figure out the harm later' thinking, nothing will change, writes Alex Cooney of CyberSafeKids

Tue, 10 Feb, 2026

Students 'denied full college experience' by lack of apartments
Students 'denied full college experience' by lack of apartments
While thousands of apartments have been built in Cork recently, high costs and regulatory uncertainty have slowed delivery of much-needed student accommodation, writes Emer Walsh

Mon, 09 Feb, 2026

Sustainability firm folds due to shift in climate policy
Sustainability firm folds due to shift in climate policy
Change By Degrees co-founder Tara Shine explains how its market all but vanished after the EU's omnibus measure scaled back key sustainability directives

Mon, 09 Feb, 2026

Mark Carney
Karol Balfe: A multilateral world is worth fighting for, it must start with justice for Palestine
Ceasefires that don’t provide safety and a mechanism to rebuild a shattered land are not steps toward peace

Mon, 09 Feb, 2026

Priory Hall Residents Leave
It’s time to tackle Celtic Tiger era building defects once and for all
Will 2026 be the year when owners and tenants living in Celtic Tiger-era buildings with fire safety and structural defects finally get to live in safe homes?

Mon, 09 Feb, 2026

New social media apps formerly twitter x and threads on smart phone screen
Government bodies need to get off X, now
Nobody in Ireland should be exposed to hate speech, bullying, or child sexual abuse images on X just to find out if their train is delayed, writes Clare O'Donoghue Velikic

Mon, 09 Feb, 2026

Latest

Suzanne Harrington
Suzanne Harrington

Lifestyle

Lunchtime News

Newsletter

Keep up with stories of the day with our lunchtime news wrap and important breaking news alerts.

Revoiced

Newsletter

Sign up to the best reads of the week from irishexaminer.com selected just for you.

Mick Clifford
IE_Podcast_Logo

The Mick Clifford Podcast

Most Read

Cookie Policy Privacy Policy Brand Safety FAQ Help Contact Us Terms and Conditions

© Examiner Echo Group Limited