Colm McCarthy

Daniel Kahneman (right) offers fascinating insights. Photo: Craig Barritt/Getty Images

Noise review: A fascinating study of the flaws in our decision-making powers

Noise

Campaigner Paddy Diver from Co Donegal holding mica outside Leinster House during a recent demonstration. Picture by Niall Carson/PA Wire

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Colm McCarthy Opinion The Irish State cannot afford to be a pop-up insurance company indefinitely

When there are wrongs to be righted, democracies can sometimes go populist. Governments are tempted to act like pop-up insurance companies, compensating those affected by every misfortune which strikes, including historical injustices, regardless of legal liability and without adjudication by the courts.

Obituary: Peter Neary, economist at UCD and Oxford

Rarely involved in controversies about policy and hence not widely known to the public, Peter Neary was regarded by his colleagues as the outstanding Irish economist of his generation and one of the few to have established a truly worldwide reputation.

Vaccination continues apace in the UK this weekend as the Delta variant causes increasing concern. Picture by Andrew Milligan/PA

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Colm McCarthy Opinion There is a chilling sense of deja vu with the Delta variant

No durable economic recovery is likely until the virus has been suppressed, and exceptional monetary and budget measures will be in place until then.

The Government needs to think carefully where cash is spent. Photo: Getty Images

Colm McCarthy Opinion Rash spending, not borrowing, is the problem

Emergency measures get withdrawn when the emergency ends. Government interventions, costly to the State’s finances, undertaken in extreme circumstances and designed in a hurry, were never intended to be sustained.

Hedging their bets: the decision to allow full crowds into the Cheltenham Festival in 2020 backfired on the UK government. Picture by Michael Steele/Getty Images

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Colm McCarthy Opinion UK is not alone in its Covid failures

New cases, hospitalisations and deaths from the virus have all risen somewhat in the UK over the last week. Given the rapid roll-out of vaccination, the best in Europe, this should not have been happening. The reason seems to be the so-called Indian variant, more infectious and more widespread in Britain, and some experts are worried the government may be forced to pause, or even reverse, the lifting of restrictions.

Glanbia's current plant in Belview, Co Kilkenny

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Our broken planning system holds development to ransom

A cheese plant in Kilkenny or a housing development in the Dublin suburbs cannot proceed without planning permission. Permission can be denied by decision of the planning experts at the local authority or at An Bord Pleanála. It can also be withheld indefinitely to the point where the project is placed in jeopardy despite positive verdicts from both, through the persistence of objectors through the courts.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion It’s time to consider charging drivers for using urban roads

Last week’s report from the OECD, the Paris-based think-tank for developed countries, furnished a checklist of environmental policy decisions bottled by Irish governments over the years, usually with all-party agreement.

'The city is now surrounded by an enormous accidental green belt and the indulgence of nimby opposition to all new development’

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Housing crisis and climate change will be the revenge of the Millennials at the next general election

Any credible strategy needs clear targets and specific measures designed to achieve them. Two of the great challenges for modern Ireland are climate change and unaffordable housing.

A billboard presents a solution to the problems that have emerged from Brexit. Photo: Paul Faith/AFP via Getty.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Reunification will ask taxing questions of our republic

Brexit and the fallout over the Northern Ireland protocol have reminded everyone the Good Friday Agreement promises, or threatens, a process of constitutional change with destabilising potential.

Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan. Picture by Colin Keegan/Collins Dublin

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Colm McCarthy Opinion If you are not explaining it properly, then you are losing

When a policy cannot be explained to a receptive audience, the problem is most likely the policy itself rather than the communications strategy. Voluntary adherence to the recommended public health measures, and willingness to accept vaccination when offered, will be critical determinants of this country’s success or failure in containing the pandemic and getting people back to work.

Nurse Jane Abas tends to a Covid-19 variant patient who is intubated and on a ventilator in the intensive care unit at the Humber River Hospital in Toronto, Canada. Photo: Nathan Denette/AP

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Why ‘abundance of caution’ undermines vaccine strategy

When a policy is unclear about its targets and about the measures chosen to achi eve them, no amount of communications effort can furnish the missing clarity.

A patient with Covid-19 being treated in the ICU unit of Limerick Hopsital. Picture by Gerry Mooney

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Lockdown fatigue is real and should be taken into account

Twice during 2020, premature exits from lockdowns in European countries, designed to rescue economic activity and to restore personal freedoms, achieved neither objective. Instead, they have weakened public compliance.

People enjoy warm weather on the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris, France, last week. Photo: Getty

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Colm McCarthy Opinion What are the chances of another surge?

Extra public health restrictions, including curfews and school closures, are being imposed in France, Germany, Italy and in several other EU countries in response to a new surge in infections.

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Colm McCarthy: Ireland doesn't have its own atmosphere so plan to halve emissions will fail if others do not do the same

Burnishing a national self-image, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar re-baptised the country as 'Global Ireland' in a speech last year. Politicians and media have commenced, with the publication of the latest climate bill on Wednesday, the next round in a hopelessly parochial debate about climate policy. If the country has a serious global perspective, climate policy needs to be about foreign policy, not just about what can be done here.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Parochial response will not solve a global crisis

Burnishing a national self-image, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar re-baptised the country as 'Global Ireland' in a speech last year. Politicians and media have commenced, with the publication of the latest climate bill on Wednesday, the next round in a hopelessly parochial debate about climate policy. If the country has a serious global perspective, climate policy needs to be about foreign policy, not just about what can be done here.

A Worker with the Arbeiter Samariter Bund charity administers rapid antigen COVID tests to high school students at the Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus Gymnasium high school in Dresden, Germany. Photo: Jens Schlueter/Getty Images

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Explain rules that matter, and modify ones that don't

Governments in continental Europe are tightening rather than loosening restrictions. In this country, ministers and officials have been dialling down speculation about reopening the economy, and the chart should help to explain why.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion We must make sure the right people pay the price

Following the disastrous failure of management and supervision in the Irish banking system in the years leading up to the 2008 collapse, a referendum in October 2011 proposed extended powers for Oireachtas inquiries, the better to investigate what happened and to allocate corporate and personal responsibility.

'Neither the ICTU nor Ibec will have to stand for re-election, but Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party will have to account for their stewardship. Be choosy about partners' Photo: Gerry Mooney

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Government should choose its friends wisely as we emerge from Covid crisis

A blast from the past called Social Partnership, the fall-back system for running the country behind the curtain, is making a comeback. Never waste a good crisis.

UNEQUAL TREATMENT: Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe, left, and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath. Photo: Gerry Mooney

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Colm McCarthy Opinion We may be all in this together, but some are in premium seats

If the first principle of economics is that resources are scarce, the first principle of politics is to pretend otherwise. Employment, and hence income for many households, has suffered severely from the pandemic, and there will be more pain, even in the best-case scenario. The Government has wisely let the deficit soar, to tide people over the emergency. But it has also loosened the purse strings generally, racking up long-term commitments which have nothing to do with Covid. The most recent example, a new pay round for the public service, is another mixed message: we are all in this together, but some have secured premium seats.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion If we want a serious climate policy, we need to accept the costs and trade-offs

A post-Covid strategy for economic policy is already in formation. The Government is reviewing the 2040 National Development Plan (NDP) and a revised version is due mid-year. The NDP, released early in 2018, is the framework for public capital investment out to 2040.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion If we want a serious climate policy, we need to accept the costs and trade-offs

A post-Covid strategy for economic policy is already in formation. The Government is reviewing the 2040 National Development Plan (NDP) and a revised version is due mid-year. The NDP, released early in 2018, is the framework for public capital investment out to 2040.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Any policy to revive economy must take risk of a fourth lockdown into account

At the end of May last year, European governments had been wrestling with the virus for around three months - only a few had taken major action before March.

Shuttered: Shops on Dublin's Grafton Street were forced to close by the pandemic. Photo: Leon Farrell/RollingNews.ie

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Premature relaxation of restrictions will only serve to tighten Covid's grip

Since Covid is capable of unpredictable surges, European governments have found themselves pursuing stop-go policies. As the capacity of the hospitals is approached, governments resort to restrictive measures with high short-term economic costs. Without either a cure or a vaccine, there has been no alternative.

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA

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Colm McCarthy Opinion UK strain here shows travel to blame, no matter how Varadkar twists data

On RTÉ radio last Wednesday, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar was asked about restrictions on international travel. He noted (optimistically) that new infections had been running at 1,000 per day and went on to claim that the portion attributable to international travel was "very, very small, maybe as little as 1pc, maybe less".

Dublin's Grafton Street, still and shuttered. Photo: Leon Farrell/RollingNews.ie

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Endless trade-off between lives and livelihoods won't win war on Covid

An obscure branch of macroeconomics is called the 'theory of economic policy'. It works like this. Governments have multiple objectives and they also have numerous policy levers.

'The preservation of a functioning hospital system is the immediate priority'

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Another premature reopening is a potent risk to be avoided at all costs

During October Belgium experienced Europe's most alarming escalation in new Covid cases while Irish officials were claiming, accurately, that incidence here had been falling faster than in other European countries.

Pat Kenny brings rigour to debate. Photo: Steve Humphreys

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Covid thrives in a welter of partisan views and agendas

Even for numerate people who breeze through honours maths, understanding the flood of numbers released by the pandemic is a challenge, and conflicting interpretations of the figures feed the confused response.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Christmas gamble failed and we're paying the terrible price now

The first wave of Covid-19 in Ireland provoked a policy response when new infections reached 34 per day. Pubs were closed on March 15 last year and a full lockdown, complete with a two-kilometre rule, was in place by March 27, when daily infections had reached 264.

‘TAKE BACK CONTROL’: Boris Johnson. Photo: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Britain can't deny that this is a hard Brexit and the cost remains to be seen

Relief at the conclusion of a post-Brexit trade deal, any deal, cannot conceal that this is a hard Brexit. It does only a little to contain the economic damage to the United Kingdom and to Ireland, the EU country most adversely affected.