Justine McCarthy spot-on on proposals for reform of IP family reunification: “To keep parents apart from their children for three additional years for no better reason than that you can is exactly what the Minister says it is not. It is simply cruel.” www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

I'm genuinely flabbergasted at the poor judgement & incoherence on display by the Taoiseach & those advising him. The function of making CSAM by X/Grok won't be banned by Govt but private app store companies should remove Grok app?! #Spéirghorm

May, depressingly, lead to increased revenue for him.

One reason I feel like I'm going mad is, even if Musk did immediately halt Grok and issue a grovelling apology - rather than PAYWALLING IT - he should *still* be prosecuted and his website banned. Very obviously! You don't get out of CSAM charges by just stopping. AND HE STILL HASN'T STOPPED.

Section 5(1)(f) of the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998 (as amended) makes it a criminal offence to knowingly facilitate the production or distribution of sexualised images of children. The problem here isn't the law - it's the political willingnesss to enforce it against X.

Hard to know where to start with this? I would love to live in a world where government ministers treated the abuse of women en masse as being as important as, say, Irish beef.

Shocking response from the Minister, essentially the "guns don't kill, people do" defence of Musk's CSAM machine. Also spectacular cognitive dissonance, when only last month he was claiming we all need to give up our digital rights to protect children online. #Spéirghorm

‘What is considered as the darkest and most disturbing of online harms is now happening in plain sight, and it is utterly immoral. It is more proof that big tech cannot be trusted to keep children safe online.’ Children’s Rights Alliance Press Release: bit.ly/4qc3tLZ

Woman arrested live on air by Donald Trump's thugs just because she says she doesn't want her tax dollars used to commit war crimes in Venezuela. This is far worse repression than they have in Venezuela.

Tell me we should trust AI to give us the facts. Tell me it's a future we can put our faith in. Come at me. I'm right here, waiting.

AI Santa just delivered a whole bunch of LERGO and BRABIEs to the house. He also knicked all the RAM out of the games consoles.

Morning Ireland explaining how Santa uses AI to make it round the world in one night. Please, can we not just let Santa be magic?! #Spéirghorm

This is the malaise in Ireland’s democracy. A Democracy where politicians are in constant office, but do not respond to citizens’ wishes (or even just their own voters’ interests) but just advance the policies that suit monied lobbies is a disaffection machine. Because people lose hope.

Sanctuary Runners reject Justice Minister’s claims of a breakdown in social cohesion caused by people seeking international protection

Ireland second highest in EU for greenhouse gas emissions per person www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025...

Was the Department of Justice using experimental chatbots to give immigration advice? “The public should not be used as guinea pigs, particularly vulnerable groups in a legal process which could be impacted by a chatbot giving an incorrect answer.” www.dublininquirer.c...

“He claimed that he learned from a comment by Taoiseach Micheál Martin and from RTÉ News that 80pc of asylum seekers were economic migrants” Lies told by politicians have real consequences www.independent.ie/irish-news/c...

Every journalist doing any interview on the housing crisis with a member of the Oireachtas, especially ones from the government parties, needs to check in advance if that person is a landlord and take them to task on it. Anything else isn't journalism. #speirgorm

There's been a great deal of debate about how safe Dublin city centre is, but when we @dublininquirer.com looked for data to resolve this, we couldn't find much useful – so we commissioned a survey to try to add some facts/data to the debate. Today we've published five articles about the results. 1/

Despite the click-bait headline my contribution has been accurately reported in this piece by @eithnedodd.bsky.social unfortunately on the industry side the wool has been pulled over her eyes by the usual self-serving rhetoric By way of followup a short 🧵

Every far-right riot and protest that was tolerated, every racist dog whistle from public reps, every bit of hate and misinformation allowed to spread by social media companies, all led to this moment in Drogheda last night where someone felt emboldened enough to try to burn children alive.

Bhí seisear ó Ghaelscoil Bharra i gCabra i mBaile Átha Cliath agus iomaitheoir amháin ó Dhoire san iomaíocht, agus bhuaigh Piaras Mac Dúglais ó Ghaelscoil Bharra an chéad duais. jrnl.ie/6861093

It takes a strange sort of worldview to watch the Irish public elect a socialist, with the largest mandate in the history of the state, and conclude that what they really want is a tougher line on immigration.

The utter affront to humanity of murdering scores of people over the remains of one is horrifying, especially as the remains of thousands of Palestinians will never be recovered from the rubble of their homes.

The Overlooked Gap

We filled a complaint against Ireland to the European Commission today. Ireland has appointed an ex-Meta lobbyist as its new Data Protection Commissioner. This will be interpreted by the tech industry as a signal of impunity. The European Commission must intervene. www.iccl.ie/digital-data...

This was unique circumstances for spoiled vote: no anti-gov candidate anywhere on the right, loud online campaign, week of riots. It’s still going to end up with less than half the vote Peter Casey got as a similar protest. The “political earthquake” here is the thumping victory for the united left

Imagine the reaction if the bodies of returned Israeli hostages were handcuffed, blindfolded & showed signs of torture. It would be on the front page, leading every news bulletin, & the govt would be condemning the murderous brutality of Hamas But Palestinian bodies? Nothing

Family law shift hailed as victory for children facing domestic abuse

Them: “no one had pronouns in my day” A TV Character from their day:

This averages out at a violation roughly every four hours, around the clock, continuously since 10 October. At what point do we stop calling it a ceasefire when Israel has just literally not ceased firing

Major election coming up in Ireland next week, and election interference is a real concern. I contributed to this online resource to help inform voters about how to spot and report illegal election interference - please use and share! sites.google.com/view/electio...

“I swear to God, they didn’t feed us. They beat us while we were naked day and night. Until our last day, they cut us and hit us and abused us. We endured every kind of torture, emotional and physical. We couldn’t even sleep. They told me they killed my children.” - released Palestinian prisoner

It’s a "crisis" when immigrants "take jobs away", but "innovation" when machines do. Funny.

Not sure people realize how INSANELY DRAINING data centers will be on our planet. If you imagine data centers as their own country, they'll rank fourth in global electricity use by 2035 — outranked only by China, India, and the U.S. Read this in @bloomberg.com👇 www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

The Basic Income for the Arts Scheme is €325 a week, similar to what they gave out during the pandemic. This is how much they've deemed one needs in order to live in Ireland. So why is disability benefit only €244? Why are disabled and sick people expected to live so far below the poverty line?

They should give the flotilla the Nobel Peace Prize that Trump so desperately covets.

Last word on Jim Gavin-the former tenant & money story was important but his lack of answer/evasion around the #womenofhonour question is more revealing for me- both of Gavin & the media.The media ran with the money,the issue of violence against women,nothing, just ignored,typical #aras25 #speirgorm

VAT is a tax on luxury items, such as eating out, drinks, hotels etc. so explain to me how a wealthy lobby group has convinced the government to hand 4.5% of this tax on the consumer (approx. €700 million) to companies such as McDonald’s and Supermacs & we are not getting utterly livid? #speirgorm

People have been able to get nominated in previous elections, those tended to have a record of doing something in the community or are known. So the process works. It just doesn't work if you're an extremist or have no record of doing anything positive for the community. #aras25

"Every country was put on notice by the ICJ that there was a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza.. every country became obliged under the law.. not to speak fine words, to take action to prevent genocide.. that obligation was activated on 24th Jan 2024" Chris Sidoti spells it out

Ireland will not take part in 2026 Eurovision Song Contest if participation of Israel goes ahead, RTÉ Director-General says

Call me a snob, but I would like the next Uachtarán na hÉireann to understand basic grammar. #Aras25

From being allocated a room with stained sheets and faeces on the curtains to having to commute nearly two hours to a child's school, families in Ireland dealing with homelessness are facing massive challenges and upsetting conditions. http://jrnl.ie/6801371

The UN figure represents a jump of several hundred deaths since its last published figures at the beginning of August.

Today is the 47th anniversary of this clearly unimprovable photo, from a story so absurd that it shouldn’t be true, but is: the day a team of workers from British Waterways pulled the plug out of the Chesterfield Canal, and all the water emptied out

Fair play to whoever this is holding up a Palestinian flag with “Let the aid in” on it right behind Micheál Martin as the Sam Maguire is presented 🇵🇸❤️

We are receiving desperate messages of starvation from #Gaza, including from our colleagues. Food prices have increased 40 fold. UNRWA has enough food for the entire population for over three months, stockpiled just outside Gaza. Lift the siege and let aid in safely and at scale.

Not a single negative can be attributed to this bill. Not a single cis person has had their lives impacted by this bill. It has only helped to make life that little bit easier for trans folk & hopefully contributed somewhat to better acceptance. Especially considering terf island next door.