FRONTIER

Former Housing Minister, Eoghan Murphy in the 32nd Dáil, has resigned as a TD. According to RTÉ News, ‘Eoghan Murphy has resigned as a TD for Dublin Bay South and is to pursue a career in international co-operation, human rights and democracy. According to Fine Gael, ‘the former Fine Gael TD, who has served in the Dáil since 2011 as a TD, Minister of State and as a Cabinet Minister, wrote to the Ceann Chomhairle of the Dáil this morning to confirm his resignation… Prior to entering Leinster House, he was elected a Dublin City Councillor in 2009 for the Pembroke-Rathmines constituency’. 

In the last few days, it has emerged that having held the role of interim Secretary General to the Department of Health, Robert Watt will has been appointed the position on a permanent basis, a move which was approved by the Government. According to BreakingNews.ie, he ‘would receive an increased salary of €292,000 – more than any other civil servant and amounting to a pay increase of more than €80,000 for Mr. Watt’.

In recent years, the institutions and principles underpinning the 1998 Good Friday Agreement have come under strain. Varying flashpoints of strife have seen the first generation who has grown up under the agreement engage in unrest in different areas. Brexit has not helped matters as some sections of loyalist communities feel that their union with the United Kingdom comes under threat as a result of the provisions within that action. It is in front of this backdrop that the 2020 general election in the Republic of Ireland was fought.

Unsurprising results emerged from the Seanad by-election results on Tuesday: former Fine Gael Senator, Maria Byrne and former Fianna Fáil Senator, Gerry Horkan were elected in the Seanad by-elections on Tuesday this week. These by-elections were brought about due to the resignations of Sinn Féin Senator, Elisha McCallion, due to an expenses scandal and former Fine Gael Junior Minister and Senator, Michael D’Arcy, as he took on a new position in the banking lobby sector.

The EU has recently published their plans to regulate Artificial Intelligence (or AI), going so far as to propose a ban on some of the most concerning applications of the technology. Under the proposed legislation, firms in the EU will be banned from using AI for facial-recognition surveillance and human-behaviour manipulation. Furthermore, governments will not be able to maintain social-credit systems as seen in China. With the ‘Brussels effect’ (EU laws becoming de facto international laws) being so dominant in the tech industry, many non-EU countries may soon fall into step with similar regulation.

Cryptocurrencies as a medium of investment have greatly risen in popularity over the last year. People around the world used the free time available to them during quarantine to educate themselves on the matter of investing and got into cryptocurrency investments before the lockdowns ended.  According to the BBC, Covid-19 has disrupted the traditional trade systems of stocks and gold, leading to many investors diversifying their assets by turning to Bitcoin (or BTC). PayPal has helped make it mainstream by enabling BTC purchases on their app. Many have also decided to invest in cryptocurrencies in an effort to negate the effects of the rising inflation rate on their assets.