ON A weekend when Islamic State released what appears to be a film of the murders of about 30 Ethiopians for no reason other than the fact that they were Christians, the differences thrown up by next month’s referendum on marriage equality may seem petty, almost academic.

FEW crimes are more cowardly or more serious than the attack in Dublin on a man with special needs which left him needing stitches for a large wound to his head. Making matters even worse, the teenage perpetrators threatened to set their traumatised victim on fire.

SELDOM has there been more telling proof of the need for Irish people to have regular checks for diabetes than yesterday’s VHI report showing a higher rate of both pre-diabetes and undiagnosed type 2 diabetes here than in European countries such as Britain and Holland.

AS an island nation, Ireland has suffered more than its share of drownings at sea, but the disasters occurring on an almost daily basis in the Mediterranean are on a different scale to anything ever witnessed in the EU. 

CHIEF Supt Aidan Reid of the Garda Traffic Corps oversaw a 24-hour anti-speeding campaign nationwide yesterday expressing his wish that not one motorist would be caught driving over the limit at checkpoints, the locations of which were posted on the Garda website.

IT is beyond the imagination of most people what the parents and brothers of Cork student Karen Buckley are suffering.

AT the height of the property boom, we in Ireland were building more private houses annually than in the whole of the UK.

CORK Airport seems to be suffering a death by a thousand cuts. Aer Lingus Regional has confirmed that it will reduce the number of flights on its Newcastle and Glasgow routes this summer. The changes at Cork will facilitate a service from Shannon to Birmingham.

IRISH house prices are climbing faster than any elsewhere in the European Union so it can only be a matter of time before someone who should know a lot better suggests that we should not fret “because this time it’s different”.

TRANSPORT Minister Paschal Donohoe’s promise to protect bus workers’ pension expectations if they are employed by a company that secures 10% of the State-owned bus company’s routes is in stark contrast to Finance Minister Michael Noonan’s raid on private pension funds.