The Government’s Competitiveness and Productivity Action Plan (C&PAP) was published yesterday. Irish domestic productivity is the lowest among our EU peer group. Yet the C&PAP largely glossed over this and ignored real drivers of competitiveness. Here is a thread. 1/

So many reasons this proposal is objectionable, but here’s one - Around 50,000 kids would be pushed further into poverty if their parent doesn’t move into work or work more hours.

It is claimed that cutting VAT (cost: €700 million) will help restaurants and coffee shops. Yet, less than 20% of that tax cut will benefit those businesses. 60% will go to fast-food outlets and meals in hotels. This is highly wasteful and inefficient.

The hospitality sector continues to have the lowest average hourly earnings for workers and the lowest average total labour costs for business.

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🚨 New article! Women's rugby is booming — but are safety practices keeping up? 🏉 My first @ConversationCA article for @SIPRC_ 🇨🇦 Really enjoyed writing this one with @westy1609 and @isla_j_s 🥳 https://t.co/ooLlpyoeoK

Thinking of Clodagh Hawe, her boys & her incredible sister Jacqueline today. I hope the family of the three murder victims in Fermanagh receive sensitive trauma informed support & vital information, something Jacqueline and her mother did not get from gardai, media or parish.

Direct action is the only way now.

"This is not a #famine born of drought. This is not the chaos of a failed state. This is a crime in progress – carried out with eyes wide open, under the protective cover of global indifference." writes Fuad of @UAWC1986 and @via_campesina https://t.co/0Bb6UTTLoz

🚼 What if making paternity leave mandatory could actually move the needle on gender equality? In a new working paper, we study Spain’s paternity leave reforms from 2017 to 2021 — and the effects are remarkable. 📄

Tax breaks were given to developers of private nursing homes by successive governments- the estimated cost of the State subsidy was €10 billion. Investors were attracted by tax breaks, rather than an interest or understanding of older people and their care #RTEInvestigates

New technologies such as facial recognition could worsen the problem, experts have suggested. #EuropeNews

The world is waking up.

Hey @IAFFE, @FeministEcon communities! Ebru Kongar and I just published @LevyEcon WP https://t.co/bDD3nY60K7 We document who's recognizing #feminist #macroeconomics. Heterodox econs unite! Join me in bluesky!

Over 15,400 people in emergency accommodation in March via @RTENews

Most teachers think schools should not prepare pupils for church sacraments, survey finds

Children deserve qualified, committed workers in their early learning years. It can't be at the expense of workers. We can't offer qualified staff a .15c wage above min. wage for such an important role. Solidarity to the workers. https://t.co/EYLBOjKIsZ

Hannah Arendt: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction [.] and the distinction between true and false [.] no longer exists.”

Dr Bambrick said the combination of delays to increases to the minimum wage and the rowing back on commitments to increase the number of paid sick days for employees, along with the new delay to auto-enrolment, represented “an assault on workers” https://t.co/AXbXSrU4ee

"It is a basic tenet of news reporting, dating back over a century, that an article leads with ... the who, what, when, where, why and how of a story ... When it comes to reporting on Gaza and the West Bank, the who, why and how are often missing in Western media."