TWO weeks ago I recounted personal experiences of sexual harassment and assault in this column and have been overwhelmed by the response.

SPEAKING on RTÉ radio recently, a farmer, summing up a dismal year, sadly muttered: “the slugs got the better of us” — a fitting epitaph, if ever there was one, for Anglo Irish Bank.

THE first time I covered a sexual assault case I remember sitting in the court room and being stunned by the evidence — when I realised that I had experienced the same abuse that was being outlined by the victim.

JOHN McGuinness is the latest TD to be undone by that highly contagious, and extremely debilitating, political affliction, entitlement.

THE inclusion of a 14-year jail term, for women who induce their abortions, in the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill, is a punishment for being poor and female.

THE EU weapons embargo against Syrian rebels was controversially withdrawn, following lengthy talks on Monday night, but it’s doubtful the policy change will make a blind bit of difference.

ENDA Kenny started his trip to the US this week with a tongue-lashing from a Boston cardinal and concluded it with the US Senate deriding the country as a tax haven.

DÓNAL Walsh will be buried today having fought two battles in his short life — one with cancer and one with our health service.

THE Catholic Church is unlikely to employ me as a communications advisor, so this pithy pearl of wisdom is on the house — step away from the microphones, Cardinal Sean Brady.

IRELAND’S answer to the Watergate scandal has revealed that some Labour Party TDs would prefer more liberal abortion legislation than that being drafted by the Government — and, in other news, the Pope is Catholic.