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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper

The Business Post

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Matt Cooper: Simon Harris’s early missteps make November 15 a likely election date

New leader is going to be the shortest-serving taoiseach in the history of the state, far shorter than he has stated as his immediate ambition

05.05.2024 20

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Helen McEntee’s car crash week sees confidence drain away from her

Justice Minister’s performance at the Oireachtas committee was baffling, given questions were flagged in a Sunday newspaper two days before

28.04.2024 40

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Matt Cooper

USC is difficult to defend when massive surpluses exist and voters want money back

Only way for Harris to turn the dial with voters is to go big on eliminating the much-hated universal social charge

21.04.2024 10

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Ask not what Eir can do for you, but what you do for Eir

The company clearly hasn’t enjoyed the publicity of the last week, but it has probably worked out that customer inertia means most people will just...

20.04.2024 30

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Sinn Féin’s ‘angry/happy’ routine last week exposes fear of being outflanked by populists

Mary Lou McDonald’s shortcomings as leader are in contrast to the sure-footed performance of Michelle O’Neill so far as the North’s first...

14.04.2024 10

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Reality of a €400bn cost to taxpayers could well doom dream of a united Ireland

Predictions about a 25% hike in taxes to pay for it a year have quickly been poo-pooed by those who are striving for an end to partition

07.04.2024 10

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: It will take more than one speech to take back tricolour from those who besmirch it

Winning ownership of the flag back from garda killers and racist thugs is no easy task

31.03.2024 20

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Matt Cooper

The 13 things Simon Harris can learn from the Kenny and Varadkar eras

The incoming Taoiseach will be the third leader of Fine Gael in almost 22 years. Changes need to be made from his predecessors

24.03.2024 7

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Matt Cooper

Criticism of Central Bank power fuels Ireland’s growing bad rap

A story in the Financial Times on the CBI’s ‘excessive’ fitness and probity regime should ring alarm bells here

10.03.2024 10

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Green ministers all facing ill-winds as controversies pollute their watch

Ryan, Martin and O’Gorman are all on the back foot over their perceived poor performance since taking office

03.03.2024 5

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Matt Cooper

Wanted: Chair for a beleaguered, embattled and broke broadcaster

RTÉ will struggle to find someone capable to fill the chair’s job after how Ní Raghallaigh was ousted, Matt Cooper writes

25.02.2024 10

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: DUP fears of Casement Park trojan horse towards a united Ireland may scupper its rebirth

Jeffrey Donaldson knows that his voters are unlikely to be upset if non-gaelic football is never played at the ground but has no problem taking cash...

25.02.2024 10

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Intel would never stand for the NCH cost overruns the state has overseen

The ballooning cost of the new National Children’s Hospital stands in stark contrast to Bam’s efficient work on Intel’s multi-billion-euro...

18.02.2024 20

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Tony Ryan’s idea of a second Dublin airport at Baldonnell has come of age

The aviation visionary Tony Ryan’s idea of making Baldonnell into a secondary airport has been shot down on several occasions, but deserves...

18.02.2024 10

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: John Bruton was a misunderstood patriot who defied his caricature

Matt Cooper was editor of the Sunday Tribune when Bruton was Taoiseach and chronicled the ups and downs of his time in office

11.02.2024 20

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Dee Forbes’ silence now deafening as her role in RTÉ shambles again front and centre

In the absence of explanations, conclusions will be drawn as to culpability, but the former RTÉ boss is not the only one with questions to answer

04.02.2024 10

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Finally, penny drops that treating drugs scourge as justice issue has utterly failed

Varadkar’s belated conversion to examining health solutions needs to be backed up with money and resources

28.01.2024 10

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Matt Cooper

Despite Sinn Féin sneering, McGrath was right to be in Davos

Should Mary Lou McDonald find herself in power, the temptation for her to hobnob with the world’s richest will be too tempting to resist

21.01.2024 10

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Matt Cooper

IDA chair Feargal O’Rourke: ‘People don’t believe me but tax is not the main reason firms come here’

The former managing partner at PWC on why he never followed his mother, Mary, into national politics

14.01.2024 8

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Matt Cooper

Housing our ageing population is about to become a serious issue

By 2030 one in five people living in Ireland will be aged 65 or over, but even modest proposals to build suitable homes for them have run into...

07.01.2024 20

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: the political players to watch in 2024

Nothing is certain for the main actors in the year ahead, with Leo Varadkar at risk of becoming a lame duck leader, Mary Lou McDonald in danger of...

31.12.2023 10

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Matt Cooper

Sinn Féin has plenty of reason to be worried about Conor McGregor’s political ambitions

The ghost of what Paul Murphy did to it in 2014 is looming, albeit this time from the extreme right rather than hard left

10.12.2023 10

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: O’Brien’s foul-mouth rant on telecoms typifies his Digicel misadventure

As retirement-age beckons, signs are that the billionaire will concentrate his efforts on his property portfolio

03.12.2023 8

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Johnny Ronan’s soaring ambitions still rising despite firm’s restructuring

The developer is planning to build Dublin’s tallest building and a deep-water port in Meath, even as he ‘invites’ Bank of Ireland to appoint a...

25.11.2023 5

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: A one-size-fits-all public sector pay deal no longer makes sense

Unions are seeking flexibility to address issues affecting specific groups of workers

19.11.2023 8

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Like in the past, we’ll need foreign capital to move the country forward

As we deal with the issues of this decade, it is extraordinary just how much of what brought us here has been forgotten or misunderstood

05.11.2023 4

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Paddy Cosgrave’s downfall was proof that freedom of speech is just fantasy

Former Web Summit boss is not unique in being ‘cancelled’ but others have been criticised for staying silent on the conflict

28.10.2023 5

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Irish criticism of Israeli wrongdoing should not be equated with antisemitism

Many Jews living outside of Israel also believe the treatment of Palestinian people living in Gaza in recent decades has been deeply wrong

22.10.2023 7

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Size clearly isn’t everything as second big spend budget falls flat with voters

In spite of a splurge of €14 billion, there is no single measure that has set tongues wagging at the cooler

14.10.2023 7

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: RTÉ needs to dig deeper to pull itself out of its ‘new low’

If its track record is anything to go by, the state broadcaster is strong on bluster but incapable of making meaningful cuts to its cost base

07.10.2023 8

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: The many faces of Elon Musk

Walter Isaacson had unprecedented access to the troubled tech entrepreneur and world’s richest man and the author’s telling tome ultimately...

30.09.2023 8

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Four reasons why Murdoch’s malign legacy is so deeply in the red

The media tycoon, who is stepping down, is responsible for much of the poisoning of American politics, British politics, British media and climate...

23.09.2023 10

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Johnny Sexton hangs up the boots to step into Paul Coulson’s €8bn packaging behemoth

Ireiland’s out-half’s post-rugby career will start in earnest with Ardagh after he joined on a part-time basis in 2021 as ‘the Cooler’ winds...

16.09.2023 10

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Matt Cooper

Smurfit’s latest deal could surpass father’s legacy

By agreeing Smurfitt Kappa’s merger with West Rock, the low-key scion of the famous packaging family is set to leave his own distinctive mark

10.09.2023 10

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: The 12 things this unpopular government urgently needs to fix to get re-elected

Far from getting the credit for multi-billion-euro budget surpluses, the coalition can’t seem to catch a break with the electorate

09.09.2023 9

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Matt Cooper

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