Sorcha Ní Maolcróin

My views are my own

[Leo Varadkar @LeoVaradkar]

In this article @EmmaCDeSouza sets out what Northern Ireland would bring to the table economically in the event of unification. Also, I think the economy in the North would grow faster within a New Ireland and would catch up over time :- the euro (cheaper mortgages and business loans), with the IDA and low corporate tax (more investment and jobs), with higher public sector pay and pensions (more money in people's pockets and in the shops etc) https://t.co/YsPrbqMYkv

[Brigid Laffan @BrigidLaffan]

Great to have @CathCallaghanTD in the Dail. She knows what she is talking about

[Sorcha Ní Maolcróin @sorchamulchrone]

@fylesy1 @historyinmemes

[The Little Platoon @PlatoonPod]

There's a bit in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (written in 1979) where the heroes come upon an intergalactic flight has been grounded for thousands of years.

Its automated systems told it not to launch until it was fully stocked up with lemon-soaked paper napkins, for the comfort of its passengers. But the surrounding civilization collapsed, and the napkins never arrived.

Consequently it put all the passengers into hibernation (waking them once every few hundred years for coffee and biscuits) until such time as another civilization might arise, and restock its lemon-soaked paper napkins.

The Guide is a more accurate and prophetic account of modernity than most Very Serious Science Fiction writers could dream of creating.

[Lesia Dubenko 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇮🇱 @LesiaLVD]

The most popular joke in 🇭🇺A man comes to the Prime Minister’s office, knocks, walks up to security and says:
— Good afternoon! I’d like to speak with Viktor Orbán.
— He doesn’t work here anymore.
— I see…,” the man says as he leaves, but a minute later he comes back.

— Good afternoon! I’d like to speak with Viktor Orbán.
— Sir, I already told you! He doesn’t work here anymore!
— I understand…,” the man says. “It’s just so nice to hear it.”

[breanna 🇺🇸🇩🇪 @txgermanbre]

“Billionaires already pay more taxes than you ever will” is one of the most financially illiterate arguments on this app because it confuses nominal dollars with effective burden.

A billionaire paying $500M in taxes sounds enormous until you remember they gained $20B in asset value while doing it. The relevant metric is percentage, not raw dollars. A teacher paying 22% of a $60k salary is carrying a heavier proportional burden than someone paying 8% while their wealth compounds tax-deferred through stock appreciation.

And this “their money was already taxed” line is mostly fiction at billionaire scale.

Middle-class wealth is usually income that got taxed, then saved. Billionaire wealth is overwhelmingly unrealized appreciation. Tesla stock going vertical did not mean Elon “earned” $100B in taxable salary. The shares appreciated. Under current law, that appreciation can sit untaxed for decades, get borrowed against for liquidity, then receive stepped-up basis treatment at death that can erase the embedded gains entirely.

That is not “double taxation.” In many cases it is functionally zero taxation on the primary mechanism of wealth accumulation.

People also weirdly talk about billionaires like they emerged from the forest carrying capitalism on their backs with no public inputs involved.

Their companies rely on:
public roads
public courts
public contract enforcement
public utilities
public universities
public research grants
public internet infrastructure
public IP law
public military-protected trade routes
public education systems producing labor

The modern corporation is not built in isolation. It operates inside an enormous state-supported framework.

And no, asking whether someone should contribute proportionally to maintaining the system that enabled $100B fortunes is not “greed.” That framing is emotional theater designed to avoid discussing the actual structure of tax law.

The real debate is simple:
Should labor income be taxed continuously while massive asset appreciation can compound largely untouched for generations?

That’s the argument. Everything else is distraction.

[Pádraig Belton @PadraigBelton]

Some of you might know I fly a teensy bit too much (I’m in LHR now) and run a tiny group of 1,200 BA golds/GGLs who raise a glass when they overlap in the clouds and lounges, and look after each others’ friends and family when they’re travelling.

One of our members has had the excellent idea we start saving our long-haul and hotel toiletries bags, and give them, together, to a domestic violence women and children’s refuge.

So we will be doing this. If you would like to join in, please get in touch. Tiny bottles of Elemis will have never gone to better use.

[L @helllolucy]

Okay this baddie on the 1926 census thoughhhh😭😭😭 slay

[Bruce Arthur @bruce_arthur]

JD Vance is lecturing the Pope on Catholicism and Pierre Poilievre is lecturing Mark Carney on economics and RFK Jr is lecturing scientists about vaccines and Donald Trump is lecturing the world on tariffs and Pete Hegseth is quoting Pulp Fiction and thinking it’s the Bible

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

Vance has now seized the top seat in the Death of Expertise Hall of Fame: He has lectured the pope—the pope, the leader of a billion and a half Catholics—about being too sloppy with theology.

The queen of all vices: Pride.

https://t.co/GotUfLX5Nv

[James Martin, SJ @JamesMartinSJ]

Yes, he really said that.

Yesterday Vice President JD Vance criticized Pope Leo XIV for not knowing enough theology: "I think it's very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology ... If you’re going to opine on matters of theology, you’ve got to be careful, you’ve got to make sure it’s anchored in the truth," he said, at a Turning Point conference.

One of the many, many, ironies about that statement is that it came in response to Pope Leo's comments about war and peace and, specifically, the concept of "just war," which originated with St. Augustine. As many have already noted, when the Vice President was making his comments, Pope Leo XIV, a member of the Augustinian Order, and twice Prior General of the Augustinians before his election as Pope, was visiting the hometown of St. Augustine, then called "Hippo," now in Annaba, a town in modern-day Algeria. For good measure, Pope Leo XIV, the man critiqued for insufficient theological education, earned not only a master's degree in divinity, but also licentiate and a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

JD Vance's recent conversion to Catholicism is beside the point, because many converts are of course not only highly intelligent (and learned in theology) but faithful and energetic Catholics. We rejoice over everyone entering the church.

What most of us do not rejoice over, however, is a deadly combination of inaccuracy and hubris. Pace, Vice President Vance, but the current war in Iran is not a just war under Catholic doctrine. You can hear that from church leaders from across the theological spectrum, from Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the head of the military vicariate and former head of the @USCCB, to Cardinal Robert McElroy, Archbishop of Washington who holds doctorates in both theology and political science. You can look all that up online. Suffice to say, the Vice President doesn't seem to understand the tenets of just war.

Nor does he seem to understand the fundamental position of the church, which is for peace. "War is always a defeat for humanity," as St. John Paul II said. If that authority isn't enough, then turn to Jesus who said, "Blessed are the peacemakers," not "Blessed are the warmongers." And after the Resurrection, the Risen Christ says to the frightened disciples not "Vengeance is mine" but "Peace be with you."

Incidentally, the day before, the Vice President said that the Pope (and the Vatican) should stick to teaching about morality, also seeming to forget that war and peace are profoundly moral issues.

For his part, Pope Leo was focused yesterday on his spiritual father, St. Augustine. After what seemed like an emotional visit to Hippo, he celebrated Mass at the Basilica of St. Augustine in Annaba. During his homily he said, "The primary task of pastors as ministers of the Gospel is therefore to bear witness to God before the world with one heart and one soul, not permitting our concerns to lead us astray through fear, nor trends to undermine us through compromise."

Amen. Let's all continue to pray for the Holy Father as he works for peace.

(Image: Pope Leo XIV prays at the archeological ruins of Hippo, home of St. Augustine, in current-day Algeria. CNS photo).

[BUCHANAN: Dublin Time Machine @RobLooseCannon]

Think Michael Healy-Rae the wealthiest TD in the Dáil, is a man of the people? Lets have a gander at this cutest-of-hoors staggering finances and property portfolio....

He declared 14 houses for letting in Kerry, three guest houses, one rented commercial unit, a vacant premises, an apartment for letting, an unspecified number of apartments in a separate development, an unspecified number of rooms for letting, and student accommodation in Limerick. That's before you get to the rest.

Based on CSO median property price data for December 2025, his residential and guest house portfolio is estimated to be worth around €5.6 million. Twelve properties in the Killarney, Kilgarvan, Kenmare and Barraduff area, where the median house price sits at €332,500, give a rough valuation of €3.99 million.

Then his six properties in the Tralee and Castleisland area, with a median of €270,000, add another €1.62 million on top. The actual figure could be higher or lower. The register isn't that specific.

On the rental income side, 14 Kerry two-bedroom houses at current market rents would generate €18,340 per month, or €220,080 per year. https://t.co/eVNC8FjlgK figures show listed monthly rents on two-bedroom houses in Kerry rose 7.3 per cent last year to €1,310, with four-bedroom houses up 8.8 per cent to €1,879.

Then there's the land. He owns 100 acres of farmland and forestry in Kilgarvan, another 42 acres of forestry, and a further 4 acres of farmland elsewhere in the area. Based on the most recent Sherry FitzGerald assessment of €14,125 per acre for southwest farmland, the 100-acre holding alone could be worth around €1.46 million. The Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers values Munster forestry at €6,960 per acre, putting the 40-acre forestry plot at approximately €278,000.

His company Roughty Properties received €470,000 from the Department of Children in 2024 for Ukrainian accommodation, paid out month by month, €49,640 in March, €52,080 in April, and so on. He also draws income from Kerry County Council's rental accommodation and housing assistance payment schemes.

He has been a landlord since he was 18. When he first entered the Dáil in 2011 he already owned 14 properties! The register shows 16 properties in 2016, 19 in 2018, 21 in 2020, 24 in 2022, and 28 for 2025, including his family home.

Public records show none of the four companies he directs, Roughty Properties, Black Cap & Co, ML Healy-Rae Properties and Roughty Plant Hire, ever drew down a mortgage. The family plant hire business, now primarily run by his nephew Johnny Healy-Rae, recorded net assets of €4.6 million at the end of 2024.

It received €501,000 for Kerry County Council work in 2025 and €384,000 in 2024. Cork County Council paid a further €334,135 across the same two years. Ah but sure begorrah, he doesn't care about money. He's a lovely wee hat and sure he only cares about de poor folk like you and me...

[Ronan McGreevy @RMcGreevy1301]

My piece in The Irish Times on the Mother and Child scheme 75 years on.
It is traditionally portrayed as a battle between Church and State, but this misses the real story.
It is really about the medical profession shafting the people of Ireland for its own selfish ends and we are still paying the price today.
https://t.co/FQ7SW87WcF

[Enda O'Halloran @EO_Halloran]

My issue with the cut carbon tax crowd is they're promising a falsehood to voters

In a supply crisis with no known end, cutting fuel taxes will explode the deficit while not keeping prices down anyway

And so good luck to any tax cuts in future budgets to pay for that deficit

[brian lucey @brianmlucey]

The majority of people blockading the roads are not 'farmers' in the sense of an old fella running some sheep and growing a few cabbage. They are businessmen, with multimillion capital investments in heavy machinery. What they want is a sectoral handout.

[David W. Higgins @higginsdavidw]

Sharing for a third day. Let's do it in numbers. The "farmers and hauliers" protesting are a tiny fraction of the workforce in these sectors.

102,510 work in farming*
55,780 work in land transport*

Most of these people are doing hard work today. Most aren't blocking roads.

[PaedsHaemDoc 🗿 @dr_barrett]

I saw this man in with his dying child nearly two decades ago - no special treatment asked or given - he carried a quite dignity ; he deserves his day with his daughter and it’s monstrous to begrudge it.

[Enda O'Halloran @EO_Halloran]

To be clear Ireland currently taxes ~50% of fuel after cutting excise duties. That's now below the EU average of 52%

Anyone claiming it's 65% is just repeating a misinformed statement. And that misinformation is fueling what these protests think can be achieved
#fuelprotest

[Sorcha Ní Maolcróin @sorchamulchrone]

@EirBalls @EO_Halloran Yes, because it is entirely their fault.