Those who subscribe to the traditional, hard-nosed school of thought around personal responsibility and the consequences of ill-discipline will be at least bemused if not outraged by the European Court of Justice ruling that people who are obese could also be considered disabled.

Health Minister Leo Varadkar has proven himself to be a man of both courage and conviction when it comes to addressing the most controversial topics in Irish society.

Despite our predilection to blame the banks for everything bad, the reality is that, while our financial institutions were mostly responsible for our economic crash, they were by no means the only transgressors.

Irish fishermen deserve credit for helping to conclude a deal with the EU commission on quotas by exercising restraint and commonsense.

Time was when you might be able to come to some sort of a judgement about a man if he knew what a jigger button was, for but now it seems his Google history is the tell-all Rosetta Stone to his life, loves, and interests.

The long-awaited banking inquiry, which opens today, faces huge practical and symbolic challenges. 

It may seem disingenuous or hypocritical, on the island that produced the Enniskillen Poppy Day massacre and savage Omagh bombing, the Shankill Butchers as well as the IRA murder squads so adept at kidnapping and killing, to wonder how any person, how any organisation might imagine that a deadly attack on schoolchildren might further their cause.

Ireland’s commercial fishermen will watch talks at the EU fish quota council, which begin today, with a mixture of alarm and despair.

Like an insecure, old-school politician who feels duty bound to be seen at nearly every funeral in their constituency, alcohol is a pallbearer at almost every tragedy, every premature or accidental loss of life, in this society.

It is not difficult to agree with minister of state Ged Nash, who said yesterday that, when economic conditions allow, the minimum wage should be progressively increased.