Articles in the Comment Category

The Government are now setting about a task they have been repeatedly urging businesses and employers throughout the country to do in recent times – budgeting for Brexit. Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe TD yesterday briefed his fellow Cabinet members on the approach he will be taking to the frameworking of the national finances for 2020, indicating that the Budget to be announced on October 8 will be prepared in the expectation that there will be a no-deal outcome to the UK’s messy divorce from the European Union. Opponents of the Government ...

Whether it’s the beef crisis or Brexit or job losses or the interconnector issue, one thing shines through very clearly from the variously grim-shaded clouds surrounding the major news stories vying for local, national and international attention this week: the art of constructive dialogue seems to be becoming a vanishing one. Hopefully the emergence this week of a new representative entity for the beef farmers conceived to give them an effective voice in any resumption of the discussions towards resolving the crisis in their sector will help defrost the climate sufficiently ...

Following the disquiet and concern generated by last week’s bomb explosion at Wattle Bridge, it was timely and heartening to see and hear manifestations of peace-building and cross- community solidarity among the people of the Border community at an event in Ballyjamesduff on Sunday. The gathering of ex-Defence Forces members from the Republic and Northern Ireland for a military parade and formal ceremony at Cavan Co Museum had symbolic resonance as it celebrated the work they had come together to engage in for the advancement of mutual community understanding. The contribution ...

The bomb which exploded in Co Fermanagh near the main Clones-Cavan road on Monday has created ominous reverberations. Echoes of the dark and not-too-distant past and a troubling prediction of what a post no-deal Brexit landscape might portend for our Border region were audible within the detonation, responsibility for which has been laid at the door of dissident republicanism. The sound was answered with emphatic condemnation from across the political spectrum – these answering calls made clear the distaste among all right- thinking sections of our communities for the actions of ...

There seems to be a praiseworthy intensification of activities across Co Monaghan aimed at celebrating the increasing diversity of our population and breaking down barriers of mutual distrust and misunderstanding that can impede the process of integration and sometimes provoke community disharmony. The Irish network for migrant women, AkiDwA, recently held a gathering in Monaghan Town umbrellaed by the theme “Embrace Our Diversity”. This Saturday, the county capital is again the host for an interesting social inclusion initiative – a Summer Solidarity Dinner involving the people of the St Patrick’s Accommodation ...

At a time when producers in Ireland’s embattled beef sector are having to resort to increasingly militant action to highlight the seriousness of the challenges confronting them, when the nation’s prized competitiveness and high quality standards in food production are in danger of being compromised by the EU’s controversial Mercosur trade deal, when farmers find themselves increasingly in the climate change firing line, and when every aspect of farming must cope with the uncertainty of Brexit, the arrival of the agricultural show season is both a relief from the routine ...

DEAD MAN’S HAND The message from the Central Bank could not be starker: “A disorderly Brexit would present an enormous challenge for the Irish economy, especially in the near term, and would result in a loss of output and employment compared to a scenario where the UK remained in the EU.” Yesterday’s Quarterly Bulletin assessment from the nation’s financial regulator pulled no punches, predicting 34,000 job losses by the end of the year, and 110,000 fewer jobs over the next ten years, if the outcome of Boris Johnson’s brinkmanship is the ...

British Prime Minister Theresa May’s request to European Council President Donald Tusk yesterday for an extension of the now balefully looming Brexit deadline of March 29 will no doubt be widely interpreted and presented as a somewhat desperate attempt by an embattled political leader to kick a smoking can with devastating explosive consequences just a little further down the road. But surely it presents a moment for this sad, silly, maddeningly protracted political mess to be put out of everyone’s collective misery. Acceding to Ms May’s request for an extension ...

The launch at Combilift in Monaghan on Monday of the new OEM or Original Equipment Manufacturing apprenticeship initiative marks both a significant advancement in the development of training opportunities for young people but also an important shift in the way in which the apprenticeship option is regarded and presented. The hosting of the event at the global headquarters of one of Co Monaghan’s most eminent and successful business concerns was appropriate. Combilift have, in concert with the Cavan and Monaghan Education and Training Board, done much to mould and refine the ...

The soothsaying that traditionally goes on when one year turns into another has been in full swing over recent days, and in some respects its focus suggests that the months ahead will be preoccupied with much of the same concerns that came to define 2018 for the people of Co Monaghan and Ireland as a whole. The shadow of Brexit that grew increasingly larger over the course of last year certainly looms with somewhat menacing aspect as 2019 starts its course. As our story on page one this week illustrates, the ...