Anthony o Callaghan

[Anthony o Callaghan @anthocallaghan]

@AK40KevinR @griptmedia @Ben_Scallan Some waffler that fella ,bluffer

[Handre @Handre]

Two small island economies blew up in 2008. Iceland and Ireland. Their names differ by one letter, and their handling of the crisis differed by everything that matters.

Iceland's three big banks, Kaupthing, Landsbanki, and Glitnir, had grown assets to roughly ten times the country's GDP by 2008. Pure credit-fueled madness. When the music stopped, the Icelandic government did the unthinkable: it let them fail. Bondholders ate the losses. The state refused to socialize private bank debt onto 320,000 citizens who never signed up for it. Capital controls went up, the króna collapsed, and the politicians actually prosecuted bankers. Twenty-six of them went to prison. Sigurður Einarsson and Hreiðar Már Sigurðsson, the men who ran Kaupthing, served real sentences.

Ireland took the opposite road. In September 2008, the Irish government issued a blanket guarantee covering the liabilities of its major banks, including Anglo Irish Bank, a property-lending casino that should have been allowed to die in peace. The taxpayer absorbed the bill. By the time the rescue ended, Ireland had poured around 64 billion euros into its banks, roughly 40 percent of GDP. The state took on private gambling debts, then went to the Troika in 2010 hat in hand for an 85 billion euro bailout, and accepted years of austerity to pay for losses it had no business owning.

Both economies recovered. Both eventually grew again. The difference is who paid and who learned. Iceland made creditors and reckless bankers bear the consequences of their own decisions, which is the entire point of capitalism: profit and loss, not profit and bailout. Ireland protected the people who made the bad bets and handed the invoice to schoolteachers and shopkeepers.

You will hear economists call Ireland's GDP rebound a triumph (much of that "growth" is multinational accounting fiction, Leprechaun economics, but that's another lesson). What they skip is the moral architecture. When you guarantee bank liabilities, you abolish the discipline that makes markets work. You tell every banker in the country that downside is optional.

Iceland jailed its bankers. Ireland reimbursed theirs.

[Irish Unity 🇮🇪🇵🇸 @IrishUnity]

most days I’m convinced this is the greatest moment in irish tv

[𐌁𐌉Ᏽ 𐌕𐌉𐌌𐌉 @OrevaZSN]

I’m either at work, going to work, coming home from work, getting ready for work, sleeping so I can go to work, eating between shifts, checking emails about work, recovering from work, or thinking about how much I don’t want to go to work.

[Dr Harold News @DrHaroldNews]

Micheál Martin says for anyone wondering why there won't be a referendum on removing the Triple Lock, it’s all explained on the Government website in the section called ‘We Don't Care What The Plebs Think’.

[Dr Harold News @DrHaroldNews]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill says rising fuel costs are hitting her constituents hard.

"Many are being forced to drive to their country estates and leave their helicopters at home", she told reporters.

[Anthony o Callaghan @anthocallaghan]

@BettingKingdom Top tipping from my golf tips

[Michael Verney @mlverney]

Just gonna leave this here - Bang on the money from Donal Óg!

[Dr Harold News @DrHaroldNews]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill warns that paying striking ambulance workers the money they are owed would leave no funding for the National Children’s Hospital to have a bike shed.

[Johnny Midnight ⚡️ @its_The_Dr]

Does your dog ……

[Seóirse Sparks @SeoirseSpark2]

GAA like the Government
Greedy Shower of b###s#

[Dr Harold News @DrHaroldNews]

Simon Harris warns that providing further help with the cost of living would leave no money for Fine Gael politicians to fly Business Class.

[Eamon Melia @EamonMelia]

Everything this man touches turns to shite. He has lied to sick children and their families, He has lied to women with terminal cancer and he is responsible for the most expensive hospital in the world due entirely to his own incompetence.
A man who has built a political career on soundbites and a man who should never be trusted.

[RealIrishNews @RealIrishNews]

Dublin Lord Mayor Ray McAdam's Luxury Globetrotting: Tens of Thousands – Possibly Hundreds – on Taxpayer-Funded Trips to the French Riviera, San Jose and Beyond.

Since taking office as Dublin Lord Mayor on 30 June 2025, Real Irish News can reveal Fine Gael councillor Ray McAdam has racked up eye-watering travel bills on the public purse, with Freedom of Information releases exposing lavish international junkets amid Dublin's housing crisis and council rent hikes.

In March 2026 alone, McAdam and Dublin City Council staff and councillors embarked on over a dozen official trips to glamorous European capitals and the US west coast including the French Riviera, Berlin, Prague, Amsterdam, Rome and San Jose in California.

The documented luxury is hard to ignore.
French Riviera, nearly €11,400 on a four-star Royal Antibes hotel with its own private beach.
Five delegates enjoyed three nights in sea-view apartments at €592 per person per night, with one extra night costing over €625.

San Jose, California: €24,000 total for a five-person, four-night trip.
McAdam flew business class at almost €5,900, while DCC chief executive Richard Shakespeare’s seat cost €4,185. The group stayed at the four-star Westin in the city centre (around €460 per room per night), with accommodation alone hitting €11,000.

Add in flights and hotels for Berlin, Prague, Amsterdam and Rome all part of the same month’s spending spree – and the March bill alone runs into tens of thousands.
When you factor in McAdam’s full term to date, including earlier trips like Toronto in December 2025, the true figure for international travel and hospitality since he took office is widely speculated to be heading into the hundreds of thousands of euros.

McAdam has defended the California jaunt as “selling Dublin” for investment, claiming it follows long-standing practice for twinned cities and that business class was council policy for long-haul flights with immediate work.

But critics including other councillors – have slammed it as “an absolute insult” to ordinary Dubliners facing spiralling rents and a cost-of-living crunch.

What exactly is the Lord Mayor doing on these trips on the public euro?

Jetting business class to sun-soaked private beaches on the French Riviera or Silicon Valley networking hubs while council tenants get rent hikes?

Sightseeing in Prague or Rome under the guise of “official business”?
With no detailed public breakdown of every trip’s outcome, no announced mega-deals or job figures tied directly to these junkets many Dubliners are left asking whether this is genuine city promotion or simply the perks of the office at taxpayers’ expense.

As McAdam campaigns in the upcoming Dublin Central by-election, these revelations raise serious questions about his value for money.

In a city battling homelessness and soaring living costs, should the Lord Mayor’s travel habits really be this lavish?
The public deserves full transparency on every euro spent and clear answers on what, if anything, these five star lifestyles are delivering for Dublin or thr Country.

[Theo McDonald @tbald101]

Dublin city council spent 11k on a hotel bill in the French Riviera at the 'Davos for Real Estate' where they encouraged foreign investors to charge higher rents on tenants

Couldn't make it up

🏠

[Dr Harold News @DrHaroldNews]

National Children's Hospital Builder Provides Progress Update:

[Gary Stevenson @garyseconomics]

They have no choice but to take all the assets from you

[Dr Harold News @DrHaroldNews]

Simon Harris says the €2.6m in salary Michael D Higgins returned will be used to buy another brick for the National Children's Hospital.

[Stella O'Malley @stellaomalley3]

Brilliant article about Ireland by @SineadOS1

“Ireland spent approximately €1.2 billion in 2025 housing 33,000 asylum seekers in hotels, at roughly €99 per night. Comparatively, the Netherlands runs purpose-built state reception centers at €13.50 per night.”

https://t.co/G0bGEfCBXq

[nwl @nwl88444048]

Disgraceful carry-on by Deputy Ken O'Flynn below, trying to deprive Fine Gael-linked recruitment agencies from making a billion a year (€832m agency staffing plus recruitment fees for nurses (€11,000 apiece) and doctors (€50,000 and upwards).

If Ken had his way, recruitment consultants wouldn't be able to make €500,000 in a single afternoon by recruiting Indian nurses 50 at a time.

If Ken has his way, you'd probably end up with the HSE going direct to Irish nursing schools and by-passing the agents, and maybe providing free accommodation to new nurses in the first year instead of shelling out a minimum of €11,000 per nurse on agency fees.

But Ken is a wrecker!