VERY few teams in any sport dominate their code as comprehensively as the Cork Ladies’ football team. Very few teams frustrate their opponents so spectacularly with their never-say-die attitude and a steely competitiveness that sometimes seems almost unnatural.

EVEN though the credibility of crime statistics, long massaged by gardaí to give a false impression of their efficiency, must still come with a health warning, yesterday’s figures showing a significant rise in assaults, burglaries, frauds and murder threats — up by 52% — puts the news that just €4,000 was saved by closing each of 139 Garda stations over recent years in a chilling but surreal, almost vaudeville, light.

THIS week the world’s significant leaders will meet at the UN Summit in New York. 

THE never-ending difficulties brought by allegations of corruption against those who run international soccer must be a cause of embarrassment to those millions who love the beautiful game. 

PROPERTY developer Johnny Ronan was right to apologise yesterday for his injudicious use of the phrase Arbeit Macht Frei (work will set you free) in his statement to the Oireachtas Banking Inquiry. 

THE suggestion that the EU might introduce tougher car emissions tests in the wake of the Volkswagen rigging scandal will undoubtedly provoke the usual protests from the usual free-market interest groups. 

THIS has not been a good week for tooth-and-claw capitalism. The excesses of the process and its utter indifference to the common good have been highlighted in startling ways that demand a meaningful international response.

DURING the last general election campaign Fine Gael made much of its five-point plan to rejuvenate a battered society and an imploding economy. The fifth point promised “to stamp out cronyism and low standards” in politics.

CATALANS vote tomorrow in a quasi-referendum on independence from Spain. 

IT would take a brave politician to tell us that we will have to pay more in taxes if we want our health service to continue to provide the level of cover we enjoy today.