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‘We want to make sure work pays and you can keep more of your own disposable income’: Tánaiste and Finance Minister Simon Harris promises tax cuts in the upcoming Budget.

The latest excavation at the former Tuam mother and baby home this week uncovered 22 remains. It is, I think, worth putting it on the record here that all remains were in coffins and not in a septic tank. It was in 2014 that news first surfaced that 796 children had died in the Mother and Baby home, and that no burial records existed although death records did.

The Women’s Rights Network has announced that it is taking legal action against the taxpayer-funded Féile an Phobail after it refused to reinstate the group’s panel discussion, to take place next month. Their event, ‘Respect, Rights, and Reality’ was billed as a discussion exploring sex-based rights, single-sex spaces and fairness in women’s sports – issues which have come to the fore as transgender activism has led to clashes with women’s rights.

“Nomen est omen”, as the Romans used to say: “a name is a sign”. Like many things, it’s as true today as it was then. Across the world, “Karen” has come to capture a very particular type of woman: middle-class, officious, and always demanding to see the manager. Similarly, for the past few years, people in my circles have been using the term “Derek”, not for a universal type of man to be found as easily in Philadelphia as in Manchester or Munich, but for a very particular type of Irish man.

Despite all of their Councillors on the neighbouring Fingal County Council having voted to approve the plan for a vast ‘Dunsink City Quarter,’ the Sinn Féin, Social Democrat, Fianna Fáil and People Before Profit Councillors for the Finglas ward on Dublin City Council have called for an extension to the public consultation on the proposal to the end of September.

For decades, the gender pay gap has been presented as one of the defining economic inequalities of modern society. Politicians promise to reduce it, employers are required to report it, and campaigners often cite it as evidence that women continue to face systemic disadvantage in the workplace. Yet one important distinction is frequently overlooked: equal pay and the gender pay gap are not the same thing.

The State took in a record €5.9 billion in environment taxes in 2025, the Central Statistics Office has revealed. In a new data release published today, the CSO confirmed that this collection was an increase of 7% on the previous year, with households paying the “largest share” of the total. The new statistics demonstrate that households accounted for 59% of these taxes, contributing €3.5 billion to the total amount collected in 2025.

Jihadist terrorist attacks remained the deadliest terror threat in the European Union in 2025 by a significant margin, according to new data. In its annual Terrorism Situation and Trend report published this week, Europol also revealed that Leftwing terror incidents were far more common across the bloc than Rightwing ones. The report highlighted that Islamist extremists accounted for the vast majority of violence and arrests over the course of the year.

The next generation of Euro banknotes could star the European Commission building, the bloc’s central bank has confirmed. Proposed designs for the new series of bills put images of the Commission’s Brussels headquarters centre stage, along with the buildings of other EU institutions, such as the European Council and Parliament.

Independent TD for Cork North Central Ken O’Flynn has said that claims made by the Minister for Justice that he was “obliged” to ensure the confidentiality of the identities of criminally charged asylum seekers are “ludicrous”.