The system we have now quite literally embeds the income and wealth inequalities HE is supposed to alleviate. It is outrageous and incredible that a progressive govt could describe it in any way as “fair.” Too many senior politicians today think we have Plan 1 loans. They just don’t understand it.

How the government became a student loan shark Podcast Episode · The News Agents · 06/02/2026 · 50m

Three years ago we made an early News Agents on the student loan scandal and the sky high marginal tax rates it creates. Three years on, govts since have made it all worse still. We’ve made a special follow up, centred on our listeners own experiences.

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

Sport Ireland Outsider Of The Year - Outsider Awards Nominees - Outsider Magazine The Sport Ireland Outsider Of The Year is the culmination of all of the amazing achievements in the Irish Outdoors in the past 12 months.

Accessible Adventures Ireland has been nominated for an Outsider award for our work on providing adventure activities to people with a disability.
Voting link below. Your support helps us to raise the profile of inclusion across Ireland

outsider.ie/outsider-awa...

Northern Ireland patients three times more likely to be on hospital waiting lists than those in the Republic Northern Ireland patients are three times as likely to be waiting for hospital treatment as those in the Republic, according to the latest official statistics.

Northern Ireland patients three times more likely to be on hospital waiting lists than those in the Republic

www.irishnews.com/news/norther...

My prediction on the next sequence of events. China will exploit this situation and move on Taiwan. While everyone is still declaring their shock, Trump will take Greenland and Putin will look ever west. International order will collapse if it hasn’t already

Look at this chart.

Still wondering if inequality is a problem throughout the world?

Wealth doesn’t just beget more wealth — it begets more power. www.theguardian.com/news/2025/dec/10/visual-...

Great weekend running Mountain Skills Training in Sligo-Leitrim.

A seal pup lying on its side on a pebbly beach, facing the camera and appearing to have a massive grin on its face.

Petition to make 'as happy as a seal pup' the new 'as happy as a clam'

“A” em. Perhaps a few more 🫣

"You left Europe because you wanted less boats. You have more boats. You left Europe because you wanted more investment. You have less investment."

Prime Minister Edi Rama of Albania on the UK's decision to leave the European Union.

Watch in full ➡️ bit.ly/4qkZnS0

A very rotund squirrel holding an acorn in his paws and looking very happy. He is surrounded by piles of acorns

the National Trust said it’s an unprecedented year for acorns and I love this for him

Autumn. Lough Erne. #AutumnColours

3/3 Particularly by politicians and policymakers who feel the need to do something—
#DecisionMaking #Phones #Youth
#KidsTheseDays

The systems response to children is often more rules, where we need more listening, more compassion and understanding.
The data below is from America so cultural fit but the post phone ban increase in bullying, mental health referral and relatively little if any grade gain needs consideration.

Sorry, Wrong Numbers: Early Stats Don't Support School Cellphone Bans Increasingly banned at school. Photo By: Kaboompics.com Cellphone bans in schools are all the rage. Recently, New York became the fourth state to embark on one, as part of a budget deal

Banning phones in schools seems simple doesn’t it?
But it’s not. Like many of the challenges facing our young people it’s complicated and nuanced.

www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/202...

#DecisionMaking #Phones #Youth
#KidsTheseDays

Over half of £2 billion UK tax break goes to just ten companies... Previously undisclosed figures show that a single large pharmaceutical company has received a £3.4 billion tax cut - including £486 million in 2024 alone - from a little-scrutinised tax incentive supp...

Where does all the money go? Tax breaks for the already rich www.taxwatchuk.org/taxwatch-inv...

Chancellor says she ‘can’t leave welfare untouched’ this parliament as budget looms Rachel Reeves understood to be eyeing cuts to Motability scheme as she tries to plug hole in country’s finances

@uklabourparty.bsky.social under the leadership of Starmer continues to follow the same failed Tory mantra of austerity and attacking the most vulnerable in society. Another proposal to cut disability support by Reeves. Meanwhile corporate profits soar

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

A moment of calm. Sea caves and waterfalls #Donegal

Britain's youth clubs have been quietly decimated. What's most revealing is that few seem to care | John Harris These vital spaces have been the first targets of cuts in a nation that favours age over youth – despite being the remedy for blights such as social division, polarisation and loneliness, says Guardia...

How austerity hit young people.

In the decade after 2010 councils’ funding for youth services in England and Wales suffered a real-terms cut of 70%.

By 2023, 1,200 publicly run youth centres closed.

Young people abandoned to fund tax cuts for corporations the rich.

What a strange country where peaceful protest about genocide is outlawed whilst foreign billionaires attempt to overthrow the government and Russian money flows through the corridors of power

A wee trip to Ireland. Soda bread, potato bread, fruit brack, wheaten bread. And in my local bakery Scones so big they identify as loaves. I think I’ve seen cheesy donuts somewhere as well

Emily Maitlis asking some really important questions about Starmers judgement

There were a pod of feeding Whales here earlier in the week. Sadly not about this evening

Out West. Donegal bay from my kayak #wildatlanticway

Sunset on Lough Erne eclipsed behind the round tower of Devenish monastery #Fermanaghlakelands

Israel's engineered famine in Gaza is only the latest episode in a long and dark history, from Ireland to north America, of colonial regimes using enforced starvation as a weapon of war against Indigenous peoples, to drive them out and steal their lands.
theconversation.com/the-dark-his...

Sunset on the wild Atlantic Way. #Ireland

Ever shifting light mirrored in wet sand. #wildatlanticway

Right to buy in England ‘fuelled housing crisis and cost taxpayers £200bn’ Common Wealth report calls discounted sales of council homes one of the ‘largest giveaways in UK history’

Amazed it took 40 years to reach this conclusion. It was obvious in the 80s, if you bothered to look.

Thatcher used the working-classes' own money to bribe them into voting to destroy their futures, and the Tories have been worshipping her for it ever since.

www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

New report shows 24 million people in the UK are below minimum socially acceptable living standards New research reveals a sharp rise in the number of individuals in the UK living in households with incomes below the Minimum Income Standard (MIS).

The state we are in.

24m Britons, 36% of the population, live below minimum socially acceptable living standard.

Wealth systematically transferred to the rich - 1% have more than 70% of the population combined.

Can't rebuild without improving spending power of the bottom 50% of population.