YESTERDAY’S High Court decision to declare the practice of allowing courts to activate suspended sentences is illegal will have a serious and possibly a limiting impact on the criminal justice system.

WHEN Baroness Nuala O’Loan was Northern Ireland’s Police Ombudsman between 1999 and 2007 she was a positive, unflinching agent for change.

OVER the years, a squadron of able and committed politicians fled the health ministry without being able to record substantive, game-changing success or reform.

THE decision by the Luas drivers to call off the strike planned for next weekend to facilitate talks must be welcomed.

“LET’S keep the recovery going” was the general election slogan used by Fine Gael to emphasise the Government’s mastery of the economy and its competence in matters financial compared to administrations in other countries that had also suffered severely in the recession.

THE Department of Transport’s new rules for motorists who drive with defective or worn car tyres have now come into force and it is to be hoped that they will help to save lives.

AS another week comes to an end without the formation of a government it is hard not to think that a great opportunity has been lost for the crassest of reasons.