ALMOST five years ago, when the troika stormtroopers confronted our Government with a chilling dose of reality around what we could and could not afford, one of the cost drivers targetted was Ireland’s exceptionally high legal fees. 

“GOD made the world, but we made the field” declares alpha male The Bull McCabe in John B Keane’s The Field. McCabe and his neighbours made land, or enriched land if you prefer, by manhandling tons of seaweed onto otherwise poor soil.

DIFFERENT societies react differently to pretty similar challenges, especially economic ones. The prevailing ethos — left or right — usually leads the decision-making process once it has established itself in parliament.

AS students perform better and better in the Leaving Certificate exams, the points threshold for some courses continues to rise. In a first-past-the-post competition like this, it cannot be otherwise.

ON an individual basis we may dread a revenue inspection but as a society we depend on an effective tax collection system to provide essential services.

TRYING to instigate a discussion that might acknowledge our looming pensions’ crisis brings to mind those myriad sandwich-board men who warned us all with unshakeable certainty that “The End Is Nigh” — we all know he will be right eventually but we’re not that bothered about the grim prospect to do anything about it just yet. Make us good Lord, but not just yet.

AS the housing crisis escalates it is inevitable, though still unacceptable, that sevices providing emergency accommodation find themselves stretched to breaking point.

THE news that al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has pledged the group’s allegiance to the new head of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Akhtar Mansour, underlines how fluid and almost universal the threat represented by radical Islam has become.

AS close on 60,000 students celebrate the results of their Leaving Certificate exams, the focus will inevitably turn to third-level education and the scramble for CAO points.

THE unsettling exchange between Áras an Uachtaráin, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Israeli embassy, over the departure of its envoy, Boaz Modai, is a cause for concern.