THE European Commission’s declaration that Ireland does not enjoy an exemption from EU obligations to establish a system of water charges seems to mean that all of the divisive protests and posturing, all of the chicanery and assumed principles around forming a Government, will stand for naught.

IRISH farmers responded more ambitiously to the end of milk quotas just over a year ago than any of their European peers. They kicked off the EU shackles which had curtailed ambition for 31 years by increasing milk production by 18.5%. This is the highest growth figure in the entire community.

PEOPLE of a certain age will recall parents or grandparents demanding that plates be cleaned at every meal and that not a scrap of food be allowed go to waste. 

IT may seem far-fetched to suggest that it is only a matter of time before refugees who have thrown themselves on the tender mercies of people traffickers arrive on our shores but the fact that two British men have been remanded in custody charged with immigration offences after 18 Albanians were rescued from a sinking boat in the English Channel suggests otherwise.

What a wonderful story. What a wonderful, uplifting, happy-ending romance. What an against-the-odds achievement. What a challenging, inspiring act of individual and collective defiance — and how very easy and uplifting it is to celebrate. But it offers so much more.

Unlike the mass deaths caused by natural disasters, the deaths of thousands of refugees trying to reach Europe comes in installments, dripping slowly into our far safer world.

This weekend, as all the kerfuffle around establishing a Government fades, it would not be surprising if some senior Government figures, in the darkening quiet of their sitting room at dusk, and in the company of a large whiskey, asked what they had got themselves into and wondered if even a moderate degree of success is possible.