Scaling back remote working should be on the agenda as payback for public sector pay risesMoney, no matter how many billions are involved, is the least important part of what is really at stake in the pay talks
What to do if you suspect a spy in your midst in IrelandSix easy steps, plus appendix, to root out foreign intelligence assets operating in Ireland
Will the ‘Michael Lowry gambit’ work for Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage?Worldview: One thing all populists agree on is that an election can make awkward questions go away
Sarah Moss on audiobooks: I’m happy for readers and listeners to meet my writing in whatever form suitsSome writers are wary of translations and adaptations - I’m just curious
Stories win elections. So why are some politicians so bad at telling them?Overconfidence is our enemy. A lesson from ancient Greece can be repurposed today
Garden cabins, rural sprawl and tiny apartments: housing has become a numbers gameThe push is for more supply, any supply - but at what cost?
Nothing in my adult life can match the visceral joy and ecstatic anxiety of sportThere is a pure escape, a total transportation, that no other field of human endeavour is quite so capable of providing
Why Simon Harris will really struggle to move the dial on income tax in the BudgetFine Gael aspirations to help ‘people who get up early in the morning’ might be kept in check by realpolitik
Ann Widdecombe defended free speech. But it’s hard to defend some reactions to her deathAI-generated memes were posted of her in her famous yellow Strictly Come Dancing costume, being dragged into hell by the devil
Knock on the wall: A vision of Irish America in New York’s St Patrick’s CathedralRite & Reason: A new mural at the cathedral was commissioned by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, retired archbishop of New York, and is by the American artist Adam Cvijanovic
Should you put your Dryrobe on Vinted? 11 pressing heatwave-related questionsIn proof, if any were needed, of the human capacity for finding novel ways to hasten our own demise, the hashtag #tanlines is trending on social media
If you get up at a ridiculous hour to sit in horrendous traffic, there may be good news in the budgetBut you might not want to get too excited
What caused the Lorcan Murphy I knew to become a killer? Describing what they believe to be part of normal sex, boys name slapping, whipping, strangulation and gagging - all acts they report seeing in pornography
David McWilliams: Is the US AI bonanza a fundamentally secure investment or an old-fashioned bubble?Could China – as it has done with cars, drones and phones – simply undercut the Americans, providing better AI models more cheaply to the world?
Italia 90 changed Ireland, but the untold story of that year was the women’s gameWhile the country partied, the Girls in Green overcame neglect and prejudice. Now they could be off to the World Cup
Neither Martin nor Harris dared rebuke the US ambassador. Varadkar had no such qualmsAre we going to go on ducking behind clichés to safeguard the economy or, when needs be, are we going to speak and act against injustices?
Will Donald Trump get a bigger Irish welcome than Ronald Reagan?It will be interesting to see if those disgusted at his monstrous rule will manage to make their voices heard
Newton Emerson: Common travel area can’t become an excuse for hard borders on land or seaMainstream parties of government should be able to sell the CTA as a way to regulate immigration while minimising internal borders
The hosepipe snitches of suburban Ireland: It’s just not very ‘love thy neighbour’ Every country has its psychic hang-up. Is inter-citizen policing Ireland’s?
Despite renewed strikes and Trump’s bluster, both sides want an end to Iran conflict Points of contention and much ambiguity surround the memorandum of understanding that underpins the ceasefire, but there are some positive signs
If 166 brothels can operate openly in Ireland, the ban on paying for sex is not workingThere is a lot of money to be made from prostitution. The legal twilight world we have created suits the purposes of unscrupulous figures
The ‘rough sex’ defence didn’t work for Lorcan Murphy. He wasn’t the first to try itMurphy, jailed for murder this week in Budapest, is clearly a dangerous, determined predator, but the kind of violence he used is normalised in mainstream pornography
Politicians bemoan RTÉ’s failures, then make them worseNo enterprise could absorb an 18-year price freeze on its primary revenue stream while costs keep climbing
Child benefit reform is a no-brainer. So why has the Government not done it?Feckless inertia has become actively malign
What Vienna and Marino can teach Ireland about making housing affordableThe lesson from Austria is that tenants here pay too much for cost rentals. But as the past examples of Marino and Cabra showed, there is a better solution
We live on an island where we drink, swim and wash in water laced with our own excrementSome 800,000 rural dwellers rely on their own private wells, and 38 per cent of these regularly fail to meet contamination standards
What Enoch Burke saga teaches us about the Irish justice systemJustice system is expected to remedy everything from poverty to addiction. It was never designed to carry this load - and does not do it well
Referendums aren’t always a good idea. Ever tried to vote out ‘the people’?Every discretionary referendum is a government declining to exercise the judgment we hired it for
Why do goalkeepers dive right when their team is losing?Why do goalkeepers dive right and left equally often - except when their team is losing?
Little House on the Prairie makes for uneasy reading as an adultThese books are politically wrong, but they’re also well written
The Norwegian refusing to row at the World Cup highlights a serious issueWhatever the situation, you have the power to fold your arms across your chest and say: I’m not going along with this
Irish Presbyterians still coming to terms with fallout from safeguarding issuesRite & reason: Presbyterian Church in Ireland is still under scrutiny by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI)
Many factors contribute to rising road deaths. Squeamishness can’t be one of themThe Road Safety Authority avoids anything that might be perceived ‘as insensitive or prematurely apportioning blame’ in reporting road deaths
As public opinion toughens on migration, politicians have shifted to the rightNew system for assessing the claims of people who arrive here to claim asylum is doing what was intended - turning down most of those who apply
I’ve had near misses as a journalist. But a holiday swim was the closest I came to dyingI write this column as a cautionary tale, because most of us forget how easy it is to die
There are few things more life-affirming than a dancing robot going haywireIt functions, among other things, as an antidote to the relentless propagandising of the tech world, with its insistence on AI as an inevitable replacement of human labour
For 18 years nothing happened - now the State will try to revive Dublin’s O’Connell StreetA key test of infrastructure and housing ambitions is about to take place in the north inner city
Ireland’s attitude to a ‘flutter on the horses’ is wrecking livesWe have spent too long treating gambling harm as a failure of character. A ruthless approach to regulation is needed
Norway the clear economic winners after England’s own goal with North Sea oilScandinavian nation’s mature political system in stark contrast to greed, cronyism and economic mismanagement
Life in France in 40 degree heat: Parisian heat traps are only part of the equationWorldview: Paris has invested heavily in efforts to mitigate the urban heat island effect - planting trees and redesigning public spaces - but there is no quick fix when the temperature goes beyond 40 degrees
The big questions we’re busy ignoring about what it means to be EuropeanEU presidency a chance for Ireland to depart from vacuous scripts on underpinning the bloc’s ‘shared values’
Irish people are 13th happiest in the world yet loneliest in the EU. It doesn’t add upWe should do what the Finns do: give ourselves a pat on the back for all that is good in this country of ours
EU presidency is a double-edged sword for the GovernmentDoing it well is important for the country’s standing in the world, but there is little or no political bonus for getting it right
The Government is trying to undermine climate laws. President Connolly could stop itThe potentially irreversible impacts of climate change will be experienced by our children and grandchildren
DUP may be destroyed by Jeffrey Donaldson scandalUnhappy voters stay at home, so unionism could cease to be Stormont’s largest designation next May
Why it’s totally fine to hate England during the World CupSuch tournaments are an excuse to flaunt nationalistic tendencies in a low-stakes way
Letters to the Editor, July 20th: on public servants taking responsibility, exempted development and ten reasons to enjoy the good weather