While government advisors earn a 6 figure salary, the median average income in Ireland is €48,900. Meanwhile these are the starting salaries for a: Clerical Officer (civil service): €31,811. Staff Nurse/Midwife: €33,370. Garda: €39,194. Special Needs Assistant (SNA): €31,664.

Tony - Pod Guy - Groves@tonygroves.bsky.social · 17h ago

Simon Harris has 10 Special Advisers, each being paid a minimum of €100k, and up to a maximum of €182k. His Govt has just announced that they are scrapping the living wage their own low pay commission recommended. You’re not angry enough.

Gotten little attention in foreign media so far but Ireland is facing one of the biggest days of strikes in history on Wednesday with large parts of the public sector about to engage in industrial action. www.rte.ie/news/2026/10...

Public service strike 'can be avoided', says minister

Wednesday's strike by public service workers "can still be avoided", the Minister for Higher Education has said, asking unions to engage and "come to the table with a blank sheet of paper."

rte.ie

Today’s Business Post front page. What on earth are our politicians doing?

Why does Joey kinda look like Ally McCoist here

Aidan O’Brien@aidanobrien.bsky.social · yesterday

🇮🇪: Watching Americans have a conversation about red diesel

🇮🇪: Watching Americans have a conversation about red diesel

Down observing the AI Counter Summit today for something I’m working on. It’s been organised by the CWU as a response to the Government’s AI Summit next week - which is predominantly based around speakers from corporations, with just one union rep on any of the panels.

Wee Seamus, who has been banging on about "the rule of law" incessantly for 2 weeks now, is having trouble digesting the whole concept of "higher court ruling" when it comes to the Garvaghy Road parade. Hard to believe the man's never actually acquired any substantive legal qualifications isn't it?

Lee Hurley@hleehurley.com · 2d ago

www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/norther...

Trump has just thrown Putin an economic lifeline at a absolutely pivotal moment. The implications of this decision may define global geopolitics for the next century...

Gavan Reilly@gavreilly.com · 2d ago

…and Russia gets fresh revenue for its war effort

You know the xkcd strip about how all modern internet architecture is eventually built on something a hobbyist maintains for free? Someone went out and found them all. sheets.works/data-viz/hol...

Irish solidarity with striking unions still goes strong 52 light-years from Earth and 400 years into the future.

Cathal Malone@cathalmalone.bsky.social · 2d ago

Surely nobody will actually pass a Leinster House picket on Wednesday? I mean, I know that the lads might think that it shows mettle or whatever tf, but the idea of not passing a picket is fairly ingrained in the Irish psyche. My parents, not exactly pinkos, had it instilled in me at about age six.

Truly one of the great days!

Aidan O’Brien@aidanobrien.bsky.social · 2d ago

The anniversary of the finest piece of Bluesky trolling we have ever witnessed passed unnoticed. For shame.

Gavin has shown himself unfit to be President. This is why we should let our current President take a third term, despite his age. Who cares what the constitution says.

The anniversary of the finest piece of Bluesky trolling we have ever witnessed passed unnoticed. For shame.

Conor Smith@conorsmith.ie · last yr.

Gavin has shown himself unfit to be President. This is why we should let our current President take a third term, despite his age. Who cares what the constitution says.

This event is being promoted by pages manned by Richard Inman (Tommy Robinson's man in the north) and 'pipe bomb pastor' Clifford Peeples. The 'Immigration in Light of the Bible' document produced by Lords Work Trust calls for "mass remigration" and perpetuates White replacement conspiracy theory.

Brendan Hark! T'is nearly Halloween.@brendanjharkin.bsky.social · 4d ago

Very cool and normal that this is apparently taking place in a council building

“The US government would never interfere in foreign country” is a statement that will come as a surprise to the people of Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, Cuba, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Greece, Albania, Syria, Egypt, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, Iran, Iraq, Laos….

US lobbies allies to cut ties to anti-disinformation conference over panel critical of Washington, sources say

The US State Department lobbied Canada and European allies to withdraw support for an anti-disinformation conference because ‌it included a panel examining Washington's role as an alleged information ...

reuters.com

I have a chapter about the regulation of misinformation in a forthcoming book. The big question, unanswerable, is what to do when governments and social media companies both use and support misinformation as part of their very essence.

Amil Khan@londonstani.bsky.social · 4d ago

There’s been a whispered question circulating amongst the disinformation tracking community in recent months: “Has the US become a ‘state user of disinformation’ along the lines of Russia, China, Iran, Israel etc That question is no longer being whispered: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Update: Germany will not support the current compromise text on the Digital Omnibus. Jasper Bennink, Ellen O'Regan and Anouk Schlung learned this from government circles. www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Luis Alberto Montezuma 路易斯·阿尔贝托·蒙特祖玛@montezumachavez.bsky.social · 5d ago

It’s Wednesday, October 7, at 7:36 Colombian time, and I’m feeling nervous about the EU Council (COREPER) discussion of the Irish presidency’s revised compromise proposal on the Digital Omnibus.

The bulk (80%) of the money the Irish government give to the racing industry is in the form of prize money (ie race winners get the cash), which is an *objectively* an inefficient and unfair way to distribute government subsidies…

Darach Ó Séaghdha@darach.bsky.social · 5d ago

We’ve had to listen to some very unimpressive TDs talk shit about public sector workers needing to prove their worth and up their game. Meanwhile the sight of an almost-empty greyhound track and the yelping of mistreated animals gets them humming the national anthem as a tear rolls down their cheek

The main takeaway from this year’s #Disinfo2026 conference will be about Streisand effect.

Rather curious, to say the least!

Aidan O’Brien@aidanobrien.bsky.social · 5d ago

It appears that the US government pressured the Canadian and Lithuanian governments (as well as the EEAS) to pull their support and representives from the @disinfo.eu conference in Vilnius. This decision happened at the absolute last minute.

always a good time to reup this www.techpolicy.press/the-trump-li...

David Kaye@davidakaye.bsky.social · 5d ago

this is real, USG censorship, ironically in the context of a conference about disinformation

@globalaffairs.canada.ca - can you tell us why you pulled support from this important academic #disinformation conference at the last minute? Despite high profile gestures of solidarity with the #EU, it seem pressure from the #USA still scares you.

Aidan O’Brien@aidanobrien.bsky.social · 5d ago

It appears that the US government pressured the Canadian and Lithuanian governments (as well as the EEAS) to pull their support and representives from the @disinfo.eu conference in Vilnius. This decision happened at the absolute last minute.

To counter AI, an illustrator in Balbriggan offers to draw posters for barter. Lauren Fernandes noticed menus and flyers all over with the same sterile look, and thought: what if she could help out small businesses which can't afford creative work, usually? www.dublininquirer.com/to-counter-a...

To counter AI, an illustrator in Balbriggan offers to draw posters for barter

Lauren Fernandes noticed menus and flyers all over with the same sterile look, and thought: what if she could help out small businesses which can't afford creative work, usually?

dublininquirer.com

It appears that the US government pressured the Canadian and Lithuanian governments (as well as the EEAS) to pull their support and representives from the @disinfo.eu conference in Vilnius. This decision happened at the absolute last minute.

Maarten Schenk@mschenk.bsky.social · 5d ago

An example of FIMI (Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference) in action at the @disinfo.eu conference? Apparently someone in the U.S. did not agree with the topic of a session named "USA as a FIMI threat: acknowledge, adapt, push back" and applied pressure on the sponsors...

We should not look up to billionaires and seek their fickle and capricious “generosity”, we *should* tax billionaires into oblivion….

The Irish Times@irishtimes.com · 6d ago

Could Zuckerberg’s Waterford GAA club donations be a new wave of philanthropy in Ireland?

Horse and greyhound fund up €3m in the budget, up to €102m - split €81.6m horseracing, €20.4m greyhound racing. In 2020, the fund stood at €84m, so it's gone up 21% over the past six years...

Can't wait to spend less time with patients and more time doing efficiency paperwork

The Journal@thejournal.ie · 6d ago

Minister announces new public spending efficiency taskforce to "extensively scrutinise day-to-day public spending". It will identify areas across public spending where there is scope for more efficiency, and recommend actions that can deliver better services and greater value for money.

Get in babe, we're doing the dodgy dossier again.

Lee Hurley@hleehurley.com · 6d ago

I'm so tired