Absolutely excellent and also absolutely going to fall on the deaf ears of our resolutely populist and amoral government

Rebuttal to John Collison's highly contested Irish Times “sermon to the nation", by lawyer @andrewlrjackson.bsky.social. A fact-check pushing back on the tech-optimist, deregulation-first vision - defending environmental law, democratic oversight & evidence-based planning elajucd.com/2025/11/21/o...

A whole host of Garda Stations on the Moon you say?

🙋 Who else?

What about engineers who are lawyers? Asking for a friend. www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025...

Brilliant take down of Collison.

Absolutely a must read, even if just for this paragraph:

It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face, and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and mortal terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies t o be feared. They are truly enemies.

Ireland's "gold plated" implementation of EU law on show in Luxembourg this week cc @progressireland.bsky.social

"Neither ABP nor the bats can be blamed for the fact that the developer hasn’t delivered on the planning permission in Killarney, just as they can’t be blamed for the estimated 90,000 other homes nationally (including c.45,000 in Dublin) which reportedly had unused planning permissions in 2025." 💯

I’ve written something on John Collison’s Op-Ed and environmental democracy Next time you’re out in Dublin, check if you’re being “socially de-risked” by a friendly face from his think-tank elajucd.com/2025/11/21/o...

Fact check by Dr Orla Kelleher www.irishlegal.com/articles/opi... & my podcast with Irish Times & Progress Ireland www.irishtimes.com/podcasts/ins...

related: Fact check by @fplogue.bsky.social www.linkedin.com/pulse/money-... Fact check by Attracta Uí Bhroin @attractaub.bsky.social www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm...

🔖 Must read “On Environmental Democracy & the Collisons’ “Abundance-Verse” a fact-packed response by Dr Andrew Jackson, UCD ..to the fact-free claims of John Collison’s Irish Times essay #Planning #Housing #Speirgorm @ucddublin.bsky.social @andrewlrjackson.bsky.social elajucd.com/2025/11/21/o...

The current quality of Cork city's drinking water is a "potentially serious public health concern", according to a legal submission made by prominent public health specialist, Professor Gabriel Scally. www.rte.ie/news/munster...

Our tap water is not as bad as it was when I posted this photo, but it still is not nearly clean. Half this city has been fed rust and manganese for years now, and we've been lied to about it. In any normal country this would be an emergency, but it's fine for the north side of Cork.

It's hard to express how problematic non-transposition, and non-implementation of environmental law is. It creates a legal vacuum that means decision makers don't know how to handle planning applications, enforcement agencies can't enforce, and the courts are often called in to plug the gap

The EU Court has found that we have failed to even bring in the laws we’d need to comply with our obligations to combat water pollution.

This goes hard

David Graeber, Utopia of Rules.

Councillors win key High Court concession against government plan for smaller apartment sizes www.thejournal.ie/apartments-c...

Civil legal aid review failed to see scheme as a tool for social change, conference told Moves to restrict access to judicial review criticised www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/20...

The misinformation and lies about access to justice extends to criticising an access to information case about a wind farm whose planning permission was allowed expire by Coillte. Yet another article where lies are presented as facts and the people involved ignored

“He accused the Dáil of being the only forum in Ireland where it was not discussed” well when your party (and Labour) were running the Dáil the International Protection Bill was guillotined before it could be fully debated

Judicial reviews are very often the last resort local communities have in defending nature against greedy corporate interests + rotten planning. The gov. wants to undermine that via false blame for the housing crisis, etc. Must read by @attractaub.bsky.social www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm...

Climate breakdown is driven by a storm of lies. This lying is systemic, funded and coordinated, and operates across almost all media, old and new. This week's column argues that we cannot fight the climate crisis without also fighting the epistemic crisis. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This car-free neighborhood was designed to revolutionize American cities yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/11/this...

Watch Ireland side with the tech industry against the victims of scammers. www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025...

Delighted to be at the @uniofgalway.bsky.social Law school conference on public interest litigation & access to justice

“Rebuilding Ireland” (2016 housing plan) has disappeared for the web, so shared here for anyone who’d like a look back drive.google.com/file/d/1wEZJ...

The Authoritarian Stack www.authoritarian-stack.info

Here are the Irish MEPs who just sided with the far-right (fascists, racists, sexists, homophobes, climate deniers) from across the EU They've voted to gut protections that would have made businesses check and report their supply chains for child labour, human rights abuse or nature destruction

Money talks, bullshit walks We shouldn't let the money talk us into autocracy, a 🧵 www.linkedin.com/pulse/money-...

Today, the conservatives (EPP) passed a major piece of EU legislation with the far-right groups in the EU Parliament, marking the breakdown of the cordon sanitaire. The EPP, under Weber, has decided to sacrifice long-term principles and stability for short-term political gains. Thread:

Firewall against extreme right is broken.

Important decision of the Commissioner for Environmental Information - information on compliance of an individual farm with agricultural schemes is accessible under #AIE www.ocei.ie/en/ombudsman...

“This narrative on judicial reviews is to create a distraction from Government’s ongoing failures by scapegoating the public and the courts.” - Attracta Uí Bhroin www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm...

Referred above 📰 John Collison article www.irishtimes.com/life-style/p... 💻 Fred Logue article Judicial Review @fplogue.bsky.social www.linkedin.com/pulse/money-... 🎤 Tortoise Shack Echo Chamber @tonygroves.bsky.social & Sabrina Joyce-Kemper public participation tortoiseshack.ie/the-collison...

Loving some of the X commentary on my appearance on TV3

Misleading headline, this site has a very long backstory #Planning

Laois group takes Coillte windfarm plan to European Court again People Over Wind (POW) from Cullenagh south of Portlaoise, say they are "challenging secrecy over state wind farm plans in Laois". www.ireland-live.ie/news/laois-l...

Interesting and accurate data here on current legal challenges (and trends) to permitted developments from @fplogue.bsky.social share.google/UgrRnSFOhjnQ...

Costs against a *successful* party?

Fundamentally this measure is to stop people complaining to the courts that the state has acted unlawfully This would apply when you complain about the unlawful behaviour and the High Court agrees with you Rather than work within the law the state decides to stop people telling the courts about it

You'd also be led to believe that only "objectors" will be affected, but presumably the 100s of developers and landowners that that judicial reviews will also have to pony up to correct legal errors

The Government's new stated aim is to make it so unattractive for lawyers to take good cases against the State that they will stop. Not bad cases. Good ones. Successful ones. This new rule only applies if you *win* your case. Doesn't that worry anyone slightly? m.independent.ie/irish-news/o...

No they won’t because this is unlawful in about five different ways m.independent.ie/irish-news/o...

The foundation of enshittification is the enshittogenic policy environment

Schooled the NIMBY @fplogue.bsky.social and so-called planning expert Sabrina Joyce-Kemper on the podcast this week. #IStandWithJohnCollison #TechBrosBeforeHedgeRows Listen: podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/t...

Meeting with EU Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall "We’re calling on the Commissioner to champion the science and the law in her decision on Ireland’s next nitrates derogation ... Irish people care very deeply about clean and healthy waters" Dr Elaine McGoff www.antaisce.org/news/an-tais...