JUSTICE Minister Frances Fitzgerald repeatedly, and with considerable force, asserted last week that Garda resources were not an issue in the fight against crime. Figures we publish today clearly contradict that position.

TENS of thousands of words have been published by this newspaper about the difficulties facing Cork Airport. Thankfully, those words have had a longed-for air of optimism about them in recent months, especially since the announcement that Norwegian Air International (NAI) planned a transatlantic option from the facility.

ALMOST 50 journalists were murdered because of their work last year.

PAUL O’CONNELL never led any of his teammates to heroic acts of defiance by telling them their opponents were magnificent athletes, wonderfully skilful players, do-or-die competitors, and all-round good blokes who phoned their mother most nights.

GERRY ADAMS’ restatement of Sinn Féin policy earlier this week, that his party would close the Special Criminal Court, seemed, at the time, predictably self-serving and ill-judged.

THERE is a poignant scene in Michael Collins, the 1996 Neil Jordan film, that shows Collins and Éamon de Valera standing side by side outside the GPO in Dublin in 1916 as they face defeat by the British army.