The Buyers Show Up Before the Policy Lands
Five separate Chinese-European factory moves landed in April-May 2026: VW cutting 3M units of capacity, Geely talks for Ford Almussafes, Stellantis-Dongfeng $1.2bn Wuhan JV, SAIC/MG …
xbard
Analysis
Deep dives into complex issues, examining what the data and evidence actually show.
xbard
Have You Looked Out Your Window Lately?
On 28 May 2026 two pieces of news arrived in parallel. The UK's Alan Milburn warned of a 'lost generation' of more than a million …
xbard
The Opening Above Labour
On 26 May 2026 Ivana Bacik wrote to the Social Democrats and Greens only, proposing a narrow left coordination on a Seanad by-election. On 27 …
xbard
Houses for the Kids of Those Who Own Assets
On 27 May 2026, Tánaiste and Minister for Finance Simon Harris announced a rural-housing planning overhaul that removes caps on homes per farm holding, lifts …
xbard
Cleanest and Dirtiest
Ireland sits 12th on the Corruption Perceptions Index 2025 and 9th on the Corporate Tax Haven Index 2024. Two reputable international indices, the same country, …
xbard
The Standards Were Never Meant to Be Met
Irish public-policy standards are not aspirational goals being inadequately pursued. They are theatrical artefacts written with engineered holes by the lobbyists who help draft them, …
xbard
A Poor Politician with Excellent Media Training
On 27 May 2026, with a fresh EPA report showing Ireland on track to deliver only half the greenhouse-gas reductions required by 2030, the Taoiseach …
xbard
The Office Is the Dose
Henry Adams in 1907 called power a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim's sympathies. Twenty years of neuroscience have confirmed it with …
xbard
The Wealth Tax Ireland Already Has
Ireland implements a 15% minimum effective tax on multinationals via OECD Pillar Two. The same logic applied to individuals worth over 100 million euros is …
xbard
What the Finance Minister Already Knew
Paschal Donohoe reviewed Piketty's Capital and Ideology in The Irish Times in March 2020 and concluded Piketty triumphs. The Irish political class has read the …
xbard
Forward deterrence: what Macron actually said at Île-Longue
Macron's 2 March 2026 speech at the Île-Longue submarine base did four things at once: announced the first French nuclear arsenal expansion since 1992, stopped …
xbard
What the ESRI says, and what the State does
The ESRI is the State-funded independent research institute Ireland established in 1960 to provide evidence for public policy. The State engages its work selectively — …
xbard