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Dan O'Brien
@danobrien20
Chief economist, Institute of International and European Affairs, and columnist at The Currency. Speaker/presenter: conferences, boards etc. Views mine.
Dublin, Ireland
Joined July 2011
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  • Pinned
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    Dan O'Brien
    @danobrien20
    Apr 28
    "A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation." Edmund Burke The new figures from @EU_Eurostat on government accounts show Ireland's defence spending was unchanged between 2021 and 2024. Given cumulative inflation of 25% over that time
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    RoyK
    @roy_kinsella
    Apr 27
    ⚠️Ireland continues to “languish” at the bottom of 🇪🇺 table for defence expenditure, despite much-heralded increases in budgets by the last two governments. ⚠️New figures show 🇮🇪 defence budget remains “stuck” at 0.2% of GDP, or 0.3% of GNP irishexaminer.com/news/arid-4183…
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    Dan O'Brien
    @danobrien20
    Aug 8, 2025
    Ireland-US relations are moving towards major crisis. Text of yesterday's letter from 16 federal lawmakers urging the Trump administration to act against Ireland. Anyone in Ireland who thinks this is not serious or newsworthy doesn't know a lot about how the big bad world works.
    405K
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    Dan O'Brien
    @danobrien20
    Apr 2, 2020
    I never personalise, but there are exceptions. An Irish conference organiser is adding to genuine fear and uncertainty. He is doing so because he craves attention and will go to any lengths to get it. Unfollow him. Don’t respond. Starve him of what he seeks most. Unfollow.
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    Dan O'Brien
    @danobrien20
    Oct 22, 2025
    Populists in government make people poorer, with left wing populists doing most damage. That’s the finding of new study covering most of the world from 1900 to 2020.
    306K
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    Dan O'Brien
    @danobrien20
    Oct 23, 2021
    ICU capacity can’t be increased ‘overnight’. 19 months and tens of billions of euro spent on Covid!
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    Dan O'Brien
    @danobrien20
    Aug 19, 2025
    Amazing the volume of vitriol and anti-western bilge that comes from Irish twitter on the subject of Nato. Reminder: Every single one of our neighbours facing onto the north Atlantic are members. Are they all wrong, and Ireland uniquely right, on the benefits and costs of
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    Dan O'Brien
    @danobrien20
    Aug 18, 2025
    In almost every European country, the mantra that the 'twin pillars of our foreign policy are the EU and Nato' is to be heard across almost all of the political spectrum. The suspicion and even hostility to Nato among mainstream politicians in Ireland is really quite bizarre and
    448K
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    Dan O'Brien
    @danobrien20
    Jan 4, 2025
    Four Irish MEPs on rte radio news. first 25 minutes NOT discussing European security, eu legislative agenda and 100 other things impacting Irish interests. Instead they obsess about the Middle-East, and Ireland taking action some of them even admit will damage Ireland.
    136K
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    Dan O'Brien
    @danobrien20
    Nov 2, 2025
    By far the worst genocide happening in the world today. It gets a tiny fraction of the coverage and interest that the Israel-Palestine conflict receives. Why do some people burn with passionate intensity about human suffering in one awful conflict and care little about much
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    Andrew Neil
    @afneil
    Nov 2, 2025
    Update from the Killing Fields of Sudan: Maternity hospital massacre leaves 460 dead as patients and staff are butchered; 2,000 civilians were executed in two days. UN resolutions: zero. Protesters in London: couple of dozen. Coverage of Sudan carnage in media: minimal.
    374K
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    Dan O'Brien
    @danobrien20
    Feb 21, 2020
    Sinn Féin’s constitution does not recognise the Irish state established in 1922, its defences forces or its 1937 constitution. One minimum requirement for SF entering government would be for it to amend its own constitution to fully recognised the state it would control.
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    Dan O'Brien
    @danobrien20
    Jul 16, 2025
    Quite amazing that this is not topping the news bulletins and dominating national discussion. Yesterday, a dozen US politicians, sitting in the most powerful parliament in the world, were massively critical of a bill that almost all Irish politicians are pushing to enact.
    US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee asked: "Did the Irish fall into a vat of Guinness & propose something so stupid that it would be attributed to act of diplomatic intoxication?". Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty
    Taoiseach rejects US politicians’ claims that Occupied Territories Bill is ‘diplomatic intoxication’
    From irishtimes.com
    97K
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    Dan O'Brien
    @danobrien20
    May 30, 2023
    62% of Irish 25-34 year olds have third level qualifications, the highest in Europe. Publication here ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/p…
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    Dan O'Brien
    @danobrien20
    Oct 13, 2025
    Could those who argued that Ireland had influence in the Middle-East, with colonial history and neutrality often cited as factors, explain why Ireland will not be attending the signing ceremony in Egypt? Prime minister of Nato-member Norway, a country of similar size and distance
    177K
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    Dan O'Brien
    @danobrien20
    May 3, 2025
    With Ireland's population growing more than 10 times faster than the rest of Europe and home-building stagnating, inward migration will have to be lowered if there is any chance of matching housing supply with demand. This week's column. thecurrency.news/articles/18820…
    137K
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    Dan O'Brien
    @danobrien20
    Aug 12, 2020
    Ireland was the only EU country in which industry produced more in June 2020 than a year earlier.