Emmet Malone has an interesting analysis in today's Irish Times about the legacy of FEMPI on public sector pay, conditions and the recruitment and services landscape as it stands today.

The same paper reports that house prices have peaked and higher borrowing costs have made renting more affordable than buying a home. The Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland has said a nurse and garda with combined gross earnings of €89,000 cannot afford to buy a 3-bed semi detached home in the Greater Dublin Area. 

Elsewhere, the Government has been urged by aid agency Trocaire to fulfill its legal obligation to prevent genocide by “urgently” assessing the case of Gaza, and to support South Africa’s legal case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Storm Jocelyn is forecast to pass the northwest of Ireland today, bringing very strong winds with severe and damaging gusts. 

Congress issued a strong statement yesterday in response to Ibec's call for a halt in progress on employment rights, while Siptu condemned ‘craven attempts’ by the employers body to "pressurise the Government into pausing further increases in the minimum wage and improvements in statutory sick pay." The union response is also reported in the Examiner and Irish Times.

Ibec's open letter to the Government comes against a backdrop of a range of improvements this year to employment rights, and a rising degree of anxiety about the rate of small business closures in recent months, most notably in the hospitality sector, which itself has been receiving rolling media coverage, in tandem with a campaign by the Restaurants Association of Ireland (RAI), which also appears to be a response to the restoration of the VAT rate in hospitality last year.

We are less than two years' away from the establishment of a National Living Wage (to be set at 60% of the median wage from 1st Jan 2026) so expect more of this in the months to come.

It makes you wonder if there is, perhaps, a role for greater social dialogue? It worked when the country's moribund economy was limping through the 1980s. Why not now when there seems to be so much relative dysfunction arising from becoming a wealthy country?

Zen

Deirdre Falvey wrote in Saturday's Irish Times about the impact of the Basic Income for the Arts pilot scheme, which is providing 2,000 creative artists with a basic income of €325 per week.

Have a super day. 

Niall