2010: From "Who's to blame?" to "What's next?"

As 2009 draws to a close, many column inches and front pages are still being devoted to the transgressions of the former chief executives and chairmen of our ailing banks. In the run up to Christmas, the big story was how Charlie McCreevy and other Fianna Fail politicians of varying prominence availed of generous property-related loans with the minimum of fuss and paperwork. The newspaper and broadcast media realise that the dial on the national psyche is still turned to anger and they would be fools if they failed to capitalise on this. But in my opinion they are doing us a slight disservice. While it is completely appropriate to look into the banking, regulatory and governmental failure that has helped to nobble our economy, the media should also be asking one decidedly more important question - "What's next?"

Why is there a €26 billion hole in the public finances and how do we fix it?

7th December 2006. Budget day. Brian Cowen, then Minister for Finance stands up in the Dáil and declares "The public finances have never been in better shape." We had a budget surplus of 2.3% of GDP and everything was rosy in the garden. What the hell went wrong?

The Victim Culture - What "Henrygate" tells us about the national psyche

It's the incident that's got the nation talking. And talking. And talking. It's gotten to the stage now where if I hear another word about Thierry Henry I'm going to slap the offender across the face. Twice. Because if I'm going to lose my cool, I'm not going to lose my sense of irony.