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Human Rights in Ireland
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Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link News Round-Up Wed Sep 10, 2025 00:47 | Toby Young
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Labour Must Halt its War on Pubs Tue Sep 09, 2025 19:30 | Will Jones
One pub is closing every day. And Labour's 'banter ban' ? Clause 20 of the Employment Rights Bill ? is only going to make it worse as pubs are left with the escalating bills to cover their legal costs.
The post Labour Must Halt its War on Pubs appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link What Has Gone Wrong With Books About How-Everything-Has-Gone-Wrong-and-What-To-Do-About-It And What ... Tue Sep 09, 2025 17:48 | James Alexander
Ben Ansell, in Why Politics Fails, outlines "five traps of the modern world and how to escape them". Professor James Alexander wonders how he can escape yet another book that tries to save the world with Left-wing dogma.
The post What Has Gone Wrong With Books About How-Everything-Has-Gone-Wro... And What To Do About Them appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link The African Countries Demanding Reparations Are Astonishingly Hypocritical Tue Sep 09, 2025 15:46 | Will Jones
The African Union's demand for colonial reparations is an act of cynical opportunism that ignores that slavery was already endemic in Africa, and African kingdoms resisted abolition even as the British forced it on them.
The post The African Countries Demanding Reparations Are Astonishingly Hypocritical appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Brighton Council Ignores Van With Palestine Flag for Months ? But Tows it Days After St George?s Fla... Tue Sep 09, 2025 13:04 | Will Jones
Brighton Council has been accused of "two-tier" hypocrisy after ignoring a van with a Palestine flag for months only to tow it days after a St George's flag was added.
The post Brighton Council Ignores Van With Palestine Flag for Months ? But Tows it Days After St George’s Flag Added appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

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Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

offsite link Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

offsite link The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

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Broadband: Another Privatisation Mess

category national | sci-tech | press release author Friday October 19, 2018 22:10author by pbp - People Before Profit Report this post to the editors

Press Release - People Before Profit - 17th Oct 2018

Over half a million households in rural Ireland are missing out on broadband because of a disastrous privatisation policy.

Up to 1999, the telephone network was run by a state company, Telecom Eireann. But the Fianna Fail government decided to copy Margaret Thatcher and sell it off. Ever since then, disaster has piled on disaster.

Instead of providing long term investment to install broad band, a series of private owners simply asset stripped the company, which had been re-named Eircom.


By October 2010, for example, Ireland was ranked 29 out of 30 countries, ahead only of Mexico for broadband speed. Only a fifth of the population had access on that date.

Yet this disaster presented another opportunity for private companies to further blackmail the government.

Eir, which is the latest name for the company proposed, to charge €20 for every pole that the fibre optic cables would be hung on.

It was also allowed to cherry pick the easiest houses to connect and separate these out the more difficult ones.

The result as that only one private bidder, Enet, was left to negotiate a contract for the last half a million homes. It was actually backed by money from the state’s own Irish Infrastructure Fund which was set to take control of the company.

But suddenly Enet was downgraded to becoming only a supplier to a new consortium, Granahan McCourt. A Denis O Brien controlled company was then discovered to be part of the new consortium. They set about trying to squeeze even more money from the taxpayers for the contract.

Secret meetings between the former Minister for Communication, Denis Naughton, and the company’s chairperson, David McCourt, were all about getting these extra ‘incentives’.

Behind the whole sorry affair is a tale of greed for profit.

If the state retained control of its own telecommunications company, broadband would have been completed by now.

Yet again privatisation has proved a disaster.

We need a state owned company that completes the National Broadband plan in the interests of people – not profit

Related Link: http://www.pbp.ie/broadband-another-privatisation-mess/
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