THERE is a certain justice, a shaming irony, that the stage management around calling an election has been disrupted by an escalating scandal involving an as-yet unreformed public service, albeit an under-resourced one, and yet another appalling betrayal of the most vulnerable citizens entrusted to care services. Events, dear boy, events.

LIKE a good German in the 1930s trying to understand what was happening in their country, most HSE employees, and some gardaí too, must be appalled at the shocking, bewildering relevations of neglect and cruelty around the foster care scandal in the south east.

DESPITE the fact that he left Limerick when he was 15, and Dublin when he was 30, to live permanently in England, very few Irishmen did as much for Ireland as the broadcaster Terry Wogan, who died aged 77, yesterday. There is nothing starstruck or dazzled about this statement but it may need explaining to anyone under the age of, say, 50.

EVEN in a society forced to come to terms with, or at least confront, the active evil represented by aggressive and protected paedophiles Seán Fortune and Brendan Smyth — both Catholic priests, both deceased — the idea that a vulnerable, mute child should have been left in a foster home for more than 13 years after that home became the focus of sexual abuse allegations has the capacity to shame and outrage.