THE claim by Greece that the country will run out of money by the end of next week unless more credit is advanced must be a chilling prospect for the millions of Greeks dependent on their government for the very basics of life.

EVEN though this moment, long denied in the hope that it might never arrive, has been anticipated for nearly a decade, figures released yesterday by the Central Bank predicting a short-term tsunami of home repossessions, and all of the heartbreak that infers, are still chilling.

AMERICA’S guitar-and-chorus chronicler of the Great Depression, the Dustbowl, and social injustice, Woody Guthrie, once described California as “a garden of Eden, a paradise to live in or see...” and even if he was warning those forlorn, destitute farmers fleeing the Midwest’s Dustbowl not to go to California, he could hardly have imagined that something approaching a Dustbowl catastrophe might hit the Golden State. 

WHEN Environment Minister Alan Kelly announced the Government’s new social housing strategy last November, it was given a broad welcome, that at last something was being done about our homeless crisis and the endless housing lists.

HOLLYWOOD star Al Pacino knows more than most about the Scent of a Woman but he appears to prefer the smell of money nowadays.

THE Government has approved the recruitment of 250 gardaí over the next six months.

A MAJOR UN donors’ conference that aims to raise billions of dollars for Syria has opened in Kuwait, with experts warning of an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.

MONDAY marked the eighth anniversary of Ireland signing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, yet the Coalition has stubbornly neglected to make it part of our domestic law, despite the fact it was part of the Programme for Government in 2011.

IT is probably no exaggeration to say that the Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015, which passed through the Seanad on Monday night, is the most comprehensive overhaul of the law on children and family relationships since the foundation of the State.

EVENTS of recent days exposed what can unfold when a violent, sadistic person targets a vulnerable woman.