THERE was little enough unexpected in the evidence given by former financial regulator Patrick Neary to the Banking Inquiry yesterday. 

THE link between the very welcome news that there has been a 25% fall in the number of dogs destroyed in Irish pounds in the last year and a cattle feedlot in Broken Bow, Nebraska, one that can accommodate up to 85,000 cattle at any one time, may seem tenuous but the same issue is at the core of both figures: Animal welfare and the code of ethics we apply when dealing with domestic animals — how we treat the inhabitants of this planet that we fawn over or may eventually eat.

IT is a core belief of modern, vaguely liberal democracies that it is wrong to execute a person because of a crime they have committed, or at least one they been convicted of.

IT would be hard to exaggerate the social, political and cultural importance of sport. And given soccer’s universal appeal, the already questionable image of the game has again been blackened by the astonishing events in Zurich where criminal investigations into suspected corruption have been opened by Swiss police concerning the allocation of the 2018 and 2022 Fifa World Cups to Russia and Qatar, respectively.

WHY is Ireland invariably found guilty of not signing charters which confer social rights on individuals?

FOLLOWING two days of sterile debate, nobody should be surprised when the Dáil votes today to sell off the Government’s 25% stake in Aer Lingus to the British airline investment group IAG. Sterile because this crucial debate began nearly nine years ago when the other 75%was sold by the previous Fianna Fáil administration in October 2006.

THERE have been so many warnings about the housing and homelessness crisis that the sense of urgency needed to confront the problem might waiver. 

FIGURES detailing farm incomes released by Teagasc yesterday confirmed that the gap between successful farmers and those less so is widening just as it is in nearly every sphere of domestic and international societies.

IT is almost inevitable that Fianna Fáil would, sooner or later, reach a do-or-die crossroads after the party’s unprecedented election defeat in 2011.

IT is possible to argue that, with the possible exception of Michael O’Hehir, Bill O’Herlihy was the broadcaster most universally welcome in Irish homes over the last 50 years.