Loyalty to Fianna Fáil and its leader was Brian Lenihan snr’s lodestone. His son must take a new direction, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the IRISH TIMES April 27 2010
 
‘WILL THE Taoiseach indicate when the legislation on wandering horses will be introduced in the House?”
 
When Brian Lenihan made his first, rather unremarkable, Dáil contribution 14 years [...]

We cannot fix what is permanently broken – we must fundamentally reconstitute our political and economic systems, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the IRISH TIMES January 5, 2010
 
THE FIRST Irish Times editorial of 2010 stated that “at least there is a balance to be debated between optimism and pessimism instead of unrelieved gloom”. This is the [...]

THE ECONOMIST magazine recently described Ireland as a “sometimes inward-looking island nation”. Have we become more insular and parochial as a country since the onset of the recession? Has economic insecurity bred introspective short-term sectional thinking? asks ELAINE BYRNE in the IRISH TIMES December 15, 2009
 
For instance, the run-up to the Budget was dominated by [...]

Endemic localism and our whip system ends up reducing budget day to a theatrical exercise in parliamentary voting, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the IRISH TIMES December 8, 2009
 
IT IS of course entirely coincidental that International Anti-Corruption Day falls tomorrow, the same day as budget day. By a quirky twist of fate, tomorrow is also the [...]