It is easier to be enthusiastic about yesterday’s suggestion from Brendan Howlin, the minister for public expenditure and reform, that floods, and the likelihood of repeated flooding, makes it prudent to consider a relocation programme for the most vulnerable people than it is to be enthusiastic about another insurance levy to make it possible to insure homes and business in areas that will be flooded repeatedly.

COMING just days after very positive exchequer returns — the budget deficit was nearly wiped out and total tax revenues topped expectations by €3bn — yesterday’s CSO figures showing that the number of people signing on the Live Register declined by just 0.5% last month but was down 9.7% compared to the same month a year earlier makes it increasingly difficult for the Government’s opponents to criticise how our economy is managed. 

OUR world seems ever more defined by threat. 

WHILE the Western world keeps its eye on Iran, Afghanistan, and the Middle East, as well as Islamic terror groups, a more insidious danger lurks in eastern Asia that could prove to be far more deadly.