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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper

The Business Post

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Matt Cooper: Kenny Jacobs has a point when he says semi-state CEOs are underpaid

The bosses of commercial semi-state bodies are paid considerably less than their private sector peers, something that is unlikely to get us the best...

21.07.2024 20

The Business Post

Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Twelve key questions we need to ask about the banks we bailed out

Simon Harris’s tough-guy act with the banks shouldn’t fool you. There are important issues to be considered about our main financial service...

14.07.2024 10

The Business Post

Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Claims that Nama was a success need to be taken with a mountain of salt

State’s bad bank had a most arduous task in cleaning up Ireland’s broken banking system, but it had its many, many critics

06.07.2024 10

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: My advice to new finance minister Jack Chambers – be bold and think big in next budget

As history has shown, the lack of an economic background need not be an impediment to success in Merrion Street

30.06.2024 10

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Sinn Féin’s run to the centre has left it with a major identity crisis

Party leader Mary Lou McDonald has had a woeful year and there is no guarantee the party can recover in time for a general election

16.06.2024 20

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: ‘Populist’ Harris and co again seek to ignore and dismiss fiscal council’s warnings

Budget watchdog has no political ally in government or opposition to take up the cudgels on its behalf

09.06.2024 7

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: ‘Trump is threatening the very stability of the US ... This stuff is very dangerous’

Anthony Scaramucci, speaking to me last week, gave a stark assessment of what a second Trump presidency would mean for the US and the world

02.06.2024 20

The Business Post

Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: If Government wants to end GAAGo saga, then it better be ready to open the chequebook

Very few were left happy with the Cork-Limerick epic last Sunday not being on free-to-air television, but solutions are not obvious

19.05.2024 40

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Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper: Biggest dilemma facing RTÉ is not governance, but what it actually wants to be

Proposals for cost cutting are mere tinkering at the edges when something more ruthless and fundamental is needed

11.05.2024 60

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Matt Cooper

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 40

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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

The Business Post

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 50

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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 20

The Business Post

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 20

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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 10

The Business Post

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

The Business Post

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

The Business Post

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 40

The Business Post

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 10

The Business Post

Matt Cooper

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