The past, we are told, is a foreign country.

Fifty years ago so much was different. The Everly Brothers were top of the charts, Spurs were league champions and a new broadcasting service called Teilifis Eireann was just turning on.

On the other hand, Tipperary held the Liam McCarthy cup and another Irish American was in the Oval Office……!

Tragically however, years of poor public policy left 1960s Ireland isolated, impoverished and ill-prepared for the challenges of a rapidly changing international marketplace.

Maybe the past isn’t such a foreign country after all. Read the full story

Speech by Fine Gael Jobs Spokesman Richard Bruton TD to the NYCI Youth Employment Conference in Croke Park

‘We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them’ – Albert Einstein.

There is a great deal of talk in the media about the obligation on the Opposition to engage constructively in the formation of a Budgetary strategy for the next four years. This is a central duty of parliament. That it should be regarded as a novel proposal just illustrates the extraordinary dysfunctional system of Budget formation that exists in Ireland. Even though the approval of a Budget should be a central role of parliament, the Irish system allows: Read the full story

SPEECH GIVEN BY DEPUTY RICHARD BRUTON TD
At IICM Awards

A high performance public service is central to all our ambitions for this country. Its reputation has been damaged in recent years. High-profile white elephants, promises unfulfilled, ambitious strategies that ended in failure, chaos in the public finances, poor use of technology, disastrous weakness of regulation – all have sapped public confidence and demoralised talented people who have committed their lives to the public service. Read the full story