John Spain: The Irish Catholic Church is imploding

It's almost beyond belief. Over the weekend it was revealed that the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, was deeply implicated in a cover-up of serious sex abuse by a priest.

And not just any priest, but Father Brendan Smyth, the most outrageous child abusing priest this country has ever seen. The Irish Voice featured a front page story a few weeks back about the horrors he inflicted while he was in the U.S.

Brady, who has been telling his fellow bishops here recently that they should resign if they had been part of the cover-up culture in the Catholic Church over the years, has now been revealed as the master of the cover-up himself.

Ireland is a country in public sector worker-inspired turmoil

We're a country split down the middle. Our 300,000-plus state workers have now decided to escalate their fight against the pay cuts that have been imposed on them.

Over the last few weeks they have been taking limited action which delayed or curtailed services. But on Monday of this week they agreed to increase pressure on the government by complete work stoppages to take effect on a rolling basis over the next few weeks.

Ireland is full of zombie hotels and zombie banks

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) scheme to rescue the Irish banking system from collapse was approved by the European Commission last week, much to the relief of the government. All the signs now are that Nama will start buying in billions in bad property loans from the banks within the next few weeks.

Whether that's good or bad depends on how you look at it. It's certainly the most important thing to happen in the Irish economy in years, possibly ever.

But it's also extremely boring, which is why most people here glaze over whenever Nama is mentioned.

It's time to stop the ring-kissing of Catholic bishops in Ireland

The picture of the Irish bishops gathered in conclave with the Pope in the Vatican just over a week ago summed up what is wrong with the Catholic Church, not just in Ireland but in Rome as well.

There they all were, a large group of elderly male celibates in white dresses smiling grimly for the cameras before they began their two-day discussion on sexuality and abuse.

Only for Irish government spending cuts, it would be a Greek tragedy

If you were reading your world news last week you will know that the European Union leaders came to the rescue of Greece. The Greek economy is in crisis, it has a massive budget deficit, the country is at the limit of its borrowing ability, and without EU backing it would go belly-up.

Sound familiar? There but for the Grace of God and the spending cuts goes Ireland.

Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen said as much last week after the EU summit. Greece needs to follow Ireland's example in getting its state spending under control. They have to cut their deficit.

I don't buy the Ireland-is-out-of a recession talk

One or two of the more optimistic economists here have started to predict that Ireland will emerge from recession later this year or early next year. That view is founded mainly on the fact that some of the world's major economies have already edged out of recession and started to grow a little again, and that world trade will pick up a little in the coming year as a result.

As an open economy heavily dependent on exports, we will benefit from this upturn and Ireland will come out of recession. That's the theory, anyway.

Much as I would like to, though, I'm not buying it myself. I don't think we're going to see much, if any, growth in the Irish economy this year or next year, and we'll be lucky to see it in the year after that.

Back to the dour old past in Northern Ireland politics

Flying blind in the Irish recession

We got the perfect example of what's wrong with the Irish economy last week when our air traffic controllers went on strike.

The four-hour stoppage last Wednesday shut down our three main airports, grounding 150 flights. Over 20,000 passengers were affected, with missed connections, screwed up holidays, appointments abroad that could not be kept and so on.

Ireland, the country of empty ghost houses

Time was in Ireland when we used to bring tourists to stay in haunted castles. These days we have haunted houses of a different kind, so-called ghost estates on the outskirts of many towns around Ireland. And they're not the kind of places that tourists would want to stay in.

The new ghost estates don't actually have ghosts. They're called ghost estates because they're empty.

The boom to bust decade

Greetings from the North Pole. Well, not exactly, but that's what it feels like.

Catholic Church has lost all credibility, making me a pagan in Ireland

Good pagan that I am, I don't darken the door of my local church from one end of the year to the next. But Christmas is different.

You need the little bit of religion at Christmas time. There's something about going to church on Christmas morning that makes the day complete, even for us atheists and agnostics.

For my teenagers it's a glimpse into a weird world of ritual, of men in frocks and old folk on their knees mumbling strange incantations. At least that's how they see it. It's like stepping into Harry Potter, one of the teens told me last year.

The first budget cut is the deepest for the Irish public

Given the cutbacks in last week's budget in Ireland, the reaction so far has been surprisingly muted.

It was the toughest budget ever here, with welfare payments cut, the earnings of everyone on the state payroll cut for the second time in a year, and other reductions in state spending that will have a negative impact on the standard of living of almost every citizen.

It was the kind of budget that should have caused uproar. But it didn't.

Cowen's leadership put to the test as Irish 'dead cat' bounces

October 2, 2009, 11:41 AM

You may be familiar with the term "dead cat bounce," beloved of stock market traders. They use it to describe the phenomenon of a share price that falls to the floor, then recovers somewhat for a while, before falling back to the floor again and staying there.

It's a dead cat bounce. Like when you throw a dead cat out a window to the street far below. It bounces when it hits the ground. But that doesn't mean it's alive again.

Dentists and state workers clean up in Ireland as rest of us suffer economic crisis

October 15, 2009, 8:52 AM

Last week I brought my two 16-year-old sons (twins) for their six monthly dental check-up. Amazingly, in view of all the tooth destroying garbage they eat, no fillings were necessary.

So apart from the careful visual check which took three or four minutes each, they had their teeth thoroughly cleaned with that high speed gizmo that dentists use which took another five or six minutes each, and they were done. Relief all round.

Ireland is a country with delusions of grandeur

October 21, 2009, 3:14 PM

We went to see a Manchester United match at Old Trafford a couple of weeks ago. On the short flight over I was trying to explain to my teenage son why the Irish government is about to make huge cutbacks in state spending.

It wasn't that I had a captive audience and was doing some forced education. He actually asked me, prompted by a headline in the paper he was reading saying that state support for his school is going to be reduced.

Does Irish government support driving, or drinking?

October 28, 2009, 1:54 PM

The former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, talking about being in government and holding on to power, once famously remarked that "you get over the big issues, it's the little things that trip you up."

It was a little thing that tripped him up. And it was a little thing that just over a week ago threatened the future of the government here.

Knock, Knock, who's there?

November 4, 2009, 2:04 PM

There were lots of knock, knock jokes here this week. Or even Knock, knock jokes.

Knock, knock, who's there? It's Virgin.

Dublin protest: The delusional march to nowhere

November 11, 2009, 11:40 AM

Last Friday, November 6, up to 70,000 workers in Ireland took to the streets in cities and major towns around the country in a mass protest against the cutbacks the government says must be made in state spending.

This great outpouring of frustration and anger united workers of all kinds, both those on the state payroll and those in private industry. It was a national, unified protest against government policy.

Ireland's schools log on to the future - slowly

November 20, 2009, 2:13 PM

There's nothing like a recession to concentrate the mind! One of my kids is at the stage in school where he has to make choices about the subjects he wants to do in the Leaving Cert, the exam that Irish kids do before they leave school and either go on to university or out into the world of work. Or maybe that should be the world of unemployment.

So although he's only 16, the choices are important. For example, a kid who wants to do medicine must take chemistry in the Leaving Cert and might want to do biology as well. To do engineering in college you must take higher level math.

Thierry Henry, the World Cup thief

November 25, 2009, 1:31 PM

A tidal wave of public anger swept across Ireland last Wednesday when Thierry Henry cheated us out of a possible place at the World Cup.

Then last weekend there was a real deluge when Ireland was hit by a huge storm that dumped so much rain on us half the country seemed to be under water. It never rains but it pours.

When it rains it pours; Murphy's Law prevails in Ireland

December 2, 2009, 11:29 AM

You know Murphy's Law. If something can go wrong, it will go wrong.

Well, that's the way things were in Ireland over the past week. It seemed like everything and everybody -- man, nature and God -- was conspiring against us.

Ireland prepares for Scrooge Christmas as budget axe set to fall

Published Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 9:56 AM

The axe is about to fall. On Wednesday of this week the Irish Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan will present his Budget for 2010 to the Dail (Parliament), and it is going to be the toughest since the foundation of the state.

A huge lump has to be cut out of state spending in Ireland to stop the country going bankrupt. And that means cutting back sharply in ways that are going to severely hit the living standard of every person in the country.