LATEST ARTICLES
Viewpoints
50,000 football fans fly in for Aviva fixture
Colm McCarthy
Summer arrives on cue for airports and Dublin does not have spare parking stands for a once-off influx.
8 May 2024 Viewpoints
Colm McCarthy: can Ireland become a large-scale exporter of electricity?
Across the Mediterranean, north African countries are eyeing up export opportunities for solar, as have locations in the Middle East.
1 May 2024 Viewpoints
Ireland's offshore wind potential
Ireland already has expensive electricity by European standards.
Colm McCarthy: how many airports is enough?
Some countries subsidise regional airports for understandable reasons – the Scottish and Greek islands or the remote Arctic provinces of Scandinavia are examples.
24 April 2024 Viewpoints
Data centre targets do not compute
There is a threatened shortage of power with regular orange warnings of possible outages from Eirgrid. There is scepticism from climate experts that 2030 targets can be met.
17 April 2024 Opinion
Colm McCarthy: our water and electricity shortages
The two national utilities responsible for electric power and water are clearly uncomfortable with the IDA’s enthusiasm for more data centres.
10 April 2024 Viewpoints
Prospects for Ireland's capital budget
It is a gamble to promise indefinite expansion of the capital programme.
3 April 2024 Viewpoints
Funding our water and electricity infrastructure
Ireland is the only European country in which water is free, and even the Green Party has backed off charging for water.
27 March 2024 Viewpoints
Colm McCarthy - Green diesel should not be seen as a handout to farmers
The farm organisations should be concerned that the Irish arrangements for green diesel are being characterised as a subsidy to farming.
20 March 2024 Viewpoints
Colm McCarthy: misfortune strikes hardest for the unprepared
There is a long record in Ireland of a boom-and-bust pattern in the capital budget.
13 March 2024 Viewpoints
Colm McCarthy: farming emissions figures
Ireland is not well placed to be offering electricity exports, since generating capacity is tight.
6 March 2024 Viewpoints
A solution in search of a problem
Colm McCarthy - the capital cost of MetroLink could be more than the €9.5bn most often cited by journalists.
28 February 2024 Viewpoints