UCD Sociologist, Kieran Allen, has called on TDs to hold a similar investigation into corporate tax dodging in Ireland as the one currently being held in the US through the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Sub-Committee of Investigations.

‘Irish politicians have proclaimed that a defence of the 12.5% profits tax regime is central to Ireland’s development strategy.

Health Minister Edwin Poots should be removed from his position as Health Minister due to his callous approach to care homes for the elderly. Edwin Poots is the health minister and despite attempts to deflect responsibility onto chief executives of various trusts-the buck stops with him. It is he who decides whether care homes open or close in the North.

Over the past several weeks it has been announced that 18 National Health Service (NHS) care homes would close, affecting 307 residents. The reason given by Poots et al. is that they want to “Deliver care in the community”.

Calls for Western intervention in Syria are getting louder.

Last week rumours that dictator Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons against the opposition was being used as a justification for a military intervention.

Now the accusation has been thrown at the rebels.

Western powers want to retain influence in the region and help usher in a post Assad regime that will cooperate with them.

But interference from the West will not stop the suffering of ordinary Syrians resisting Assad’s dictatorship.

The PSNI has promised “numerous arrests” when the G8 leaders descend on Fermanagh next month.

The Belfast Telegraph reports that an additional 2,500 police are being drafted in from Britain. Three hundred new cells are being readied at Maghaberry and Magilligan prisons, the Hydebank Young Offenders Centre and the women’s prison in Belfast to handle the numbers the police expect to arrest.

For the first time ever in the North, courts will sit late at night and on Sunday. So much for the DUP’s commitment to “keeping the Sabbath holy”.

The Syrian revolution is portrayed as degenerating into anarchy and sectarianism at the mercy of outside powers. But as Simon Assaf reveals in this series of interviews, revolutionaries are taking part in committees determined to take control of their own lives in the midst of the fighting

Syrians jealously guard the independence of their movement, and the local councils and revolutionary committees that emerged out of the popular uprising.

About 7,000 people marched in Dublin on Saturday against the Labour Fine Gael home tax and the prospect of water charges in the near future.

The protest saw thousands of people march to Dublin Castle where finance ministers from across Europe were being fed at our expense. The architects of austerity and cuts shouldn't be allowed to go without hearing the voices of the victims of their policies.

Margaret Thatcher died on the morning of April 8 and tributes to her have poured in from ruling class politicians the world over.

‘We have lost a great leader, a great prime minister and a great Briton.’ said David Cameron.

‘The world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend’, said Barack Obama.

The TUI held their annual conference in Galway last week. Around 400 delegates amassed in the Clayton Hotel and before a word had even been spoken it was clear that this would be a conference to remember.

TUI is the first union in the country to give its verdict on Croke Park 2 and the message going back is loud and clear – Enough is Enough.

Report from Tom Hendy of the Wexford Campaign against Home & Water Taxes:

Today myself and 15 other anti property tax campaigners proceeded to occupy Wexford county council while a meeting was in progress, we were prevented from entering the chamber, as they had locked internal doors, and gardai were present, but we entered the main lobby, and assembled ourselves directly outside the chamber.

We engaged with many people in the building on what we were about, distributed leaflets for the protest on the 13th.