THE public education campaign launched a few years ago, in conjuction with an increase in the enforcement of traffic regulations, led to a significant fall in road deaths. All of a sudden our roads were much safer for all road users.

Any grown-up organisation that presided over a litany of calamity like Irish Water would acknowledge its errors and admit it was time to go back to the drawing board and reimagine the entire project.

Even if he serves for another 20 years PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton will not make a more welcome statement than the one he made on Saturday afternoon saying he believes the Provisional IRA is committed to politics and is not engaged in terrorism.

Our navy continued its admirable work in the Mediterranean over the weekend when the LÉ Niamh rescued 225 people 112km north east of Tripoli on Saturday night. The 139 men, 74 women and 12 children rescued are receiving water, food and medical assistance. The LÉ Niamh had rescued 1,772 migrants before this most recent operation.

IF it is established that the Provisional IRA is still a functioning, active entity, happy to murder to achieve its aims or protect its criminal activities, then the people of this island will have to come to terms with one of the greatest betrayals foisted on it by violent nationalism in many, many decades.

SOME things never change, at least in the institution of the Catholic Church. 

SOME of us fret about the ordeal facing immigrants, others worry about the euro’s exchange rate with sterling, maybe climate change, or even the startling prospect of Donald Trump in the White House.

AS indications of social failure, or at best a cause for great social concern, go, the figures released by Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, in its review of 2013 are startling and challenging — challenging in an economic sense and startling in a moral sense.

EVEN in the hardest days, there can often be a ray of light, a sliver of hope or warm humanity that, even if it can’t immediately lift the darkest clouds, points to the grace and love that brings out the very best in all of us.

THE Gaelic Athletic Association is one of the great organisations in this country.