Search Results for 'Brian Cowen'

The human life cycle is a strange beast that can be thrown off course by myriad factors along the way from good luck to chance meetings and unexpected times of adversity. All things being equal though it is believed that our life cycle — from the moment we are born until the moment we die — falls into seven-year cycles, with new phases occurring from ages one to seven, seven to 14, 14 to 21, 21 to 28, 28 to 35, and so on. When you think about it and apply these religious/spiritually driven beliefs to your own life, you may very well find they ring true. At age 21 you may have been a completely different person to what and who you are now, or perhaps, at age 34 or 49 this year, you are experiencing a certain restlessness that is difficult to explain, but harder again to deny. Whatever the reason, you are driven to begin another new phase in your life — this time perhaps in a completely different direction.

For the moment Brian Cowen is safe in his position as Taoiseach, but let no one be fooled, he is a dead man walking. He says he is not “on probation” but the only one who believes that is himself.

Irish sport was dealt a severe blow this week when Micheál O Muircheartaigh retired from his vocation of enriching the Sunday afternoons of the nation. For over half a century his insightful, energetic and witty commentary on radio set the bar for GAA commentary at an impossibly high level. The alternative commentators on RTE TV simply could not compete with a man of such eloquent genius. Hence an entire generation turned down the sound on the TV and tuned into RTE Radio 1. It was a pleasure and an honour to listen to a man such as this, poetic, cultured with an innate sense of history and humanity. He became the sound of Sunday.

The much maligned Fianna Fáil ‘drink-in’ think-in held in Galway this week proved more memorable for what happened outside the confines of the Ardilaun Hotel than inside, concluding with An Taoiseach Brian Cowen becoming an international figure of ridicule.

This week cannot go by without making mention of Brian! The life of Brian - it cuold be a good movie... or a bad one, depending on your taste.

Brian Cowen and his colleagues should have nothing to fear from John McGuinness’s new book, but readers can expect an ‘honest review’ of the controversial local TD’s political life, the author confirmed last evening.

Brian Cowen sounded as rough as a bear’s arse on Morning Ireland following his all night revelling in The Ardilaun during this week’s Fianna Fáil think-in in Galway.

The SFA National Small Business Awards 2011 have been launched by An Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, TD. The aim of the awards is to celebrate the achievements of small business in Ireland, and to recognise the vital contribution of the small business sector to the Irish economy.

A “dictator” is a head of state who exercises arbitrary authority over the lives of his citizens and who cannot be removed from power through legal means. Kim Jong-Il of North Korea, Than Shew of Burma and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe are all dictators. They rule not because they have the approval of their citizens but because they want to rule. Brian Cowen’s democratic credentials are becoming increasingly suspect in this regard. This is a worrying development because the Taoiseach should be committed to democracy by its definition and not just on his own terms.

We now live in an age of cutbacks, economic austerity and diminished financial reward. We are told that we are all in this together and that we are all feeling the pain. That some people will not feel the financial pain to the same degree as others is a fact of life. Some of these are the very highly paid, such as senior executives from some of the larger companies who will take home huge salaries. They will take home these salaries if and only if they do their jobs effectively, generate acceptable results and display high levels of competence. If not they will be fired. That is the way the real world works.