IT is hard to think of another issue that was so very quickly brought before an Oireachtas committee as last Wednesday’s anti-water-charge protests at Leinster House that involved delays for some politicians leaving or entering the Houses of the Oireachtas.

THE banking inquiry hearings of the last two days have reminded us, like old, slightly embarassing wedding photographs, that the past is not always as we might wish it to be.

MICHAEL McKEVITT, one of four men found liable for the 1998 Omagh bomb in a civil action taken by relatives of the dead, is coming towards the end of a 20-year jail term for directing terrorism. He was also convicted of membership of the Real IRA. He had a cancerous kidney removed in May.

NOT so very long ago, Tánaiste Joan Burton ruled out cutting of allowances for single parents until a “gold-standard” childcare system was in place.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny and his cabinet have done so many U-turns on Irish Water that they should consider taking dancing lessons.

After years in the doldrums, it looks like Cork Airport is on the cusp of flying high again.

From a balcony collapse in Berkeley, California, to slaughter in Tunisia and now to an horrific accident in West Cork, unspeakable tragedy has visited our shores over the past few weeks.

IT may seem off-target to talk about the privatisation of the free-to-air broadcasting of the Olympic Games — still, despite everything, a magnificent international spectacle — at the very moment the great European project, and especially the unfortunate, vulnerable people of Greece, is facing its greatest challenge.

IF crime statistics are not accurate and up to date, then it seems all but impossible to manage policing resources properly.

THE Government yesterday produced legislation to allow for unpaid utility bills to be taken from welfare payments or wages. Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald produced the Civil Debt bill, allowing for attachment orders for debts over €500 but less than €4,000.