YESTERDAY’S preliminary ruling, usually a first step towards complete vindication, by the European Court of Justice, supporting Government intentions to introduce plain packaging for tobacco products is very welcome — all the more so as it seems rulings against conglomerates, intended to protect ordinary citizens, are becoming as scarce as turkey teeth. The court’s advocate general said the standardisation of labelling and packaging is a “proportionate” measure and that it challenges the “coolness” of current packaging.

THE minor controversy surrounding Oireachtas members use of government facilities to print and deliver documents promoting their achievements is as predictable as it is valid. This year, as an election looms, is no exception.

THE decision by Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) to withdraw its licence application for a 15,000-tonne salmon farm in Galway Bay — it would have been the biggest in Europe — is to be welcomed. That those who opposed the mega project and those who supported it welcomed the decision, though for very different reasons, raises questions even at the very moment the project has been shelved.

We express our best instincts and hopes — the worst too — through many mediums but few represent the human spirit and human frailty as brightly or as loudly as sport. 

Spain’s general election has created circumstances that may have a particular relevance to us over the coming months. Essentially, the country’s political map was redrawn and the monopoly of the old, established parties has been, for the moment at least, sidelined.