Yesterday, Joan Burton declared JobBridge a roaring success based on the fact that 797 people of the 6,840 who have started internships under the scheme have managed to find jobs. This figure is misleading, however, because it includes people who got positions with companies they weren’t doing their internship with.
Their current job may have little or nothing to do with their internship. And even putting that aside, you’d think this was a rather modest conversion rate after what was in effect a six to nine month interview. I began a JobBridge internship, myself, as a journalist with Changing Ireland last October. I knew that it was unlikely to be converted into a permanent position as the magazine is publicly funded. But I had been unemployed for several months up to that point and any gaps in a journalist’s CV can be fatal.
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The recent furore over 
The crisis that has brought us to the dire economic situation we face today is not one caused by a few rogue bankers or reckless policy decisions made by successive finance ministers.
From the moment you cross the border at Rafah you realise that there is something particularly striking about Gaza. It isn't the bombed out shells of what used to be peoples homes and places of work that struck you the hardest. It isn't even the sounds of the fighter jets flying overhead, or the Israeli gunfire in the bay preventing Palestinian fishermen from making a living in their own waters. It isn't the bullet holes that riddled the cities or the man made poverty and squalor that people were forced to live in. It isn't the hum of the spy drones overhead. It is the beauty of Gaza and the children of Palestine. By Cathal Óg Donnelly.
We are bombarded with warnings that if the Household Charge of €100 isn’t paid by 31 March 31 the penalties will kick in – but what are the penalties? Delay until 30 June and it’s 10%, that’s €10; delay until 31 December and it’s 20%, that’s €20; delay beyond that and it’s 30% and 1% per month. So, I ask: what’s the panic? If you pay now your money is gone; if you don’t want to pay and you aren’t yet certain about making a stand, why not hold off for a few months? Yes, you're risking €10 – it might turn out to be the best tenner you (n)ever spent.
The Irish Times headline on Saturday 17 March: “
Great fanfare was made of the recent visit to these shores of Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping. China has undoubtedly been the economic star of the 21st century thus far, and Mr Jinping’s visit was no doubt arranged in the hope that he would sprinkle some much needed economic fairy dust over little ol’ Ireland, and in doing so resuscitate a comatose economy. However, with Ireland is in the throes of economic conflagration, what the country needs is not so much a sprinkling of fairy dust as a fleet of fire engines.
In John Patrick Shanley's excellent play, "Doubt" (
