As every politician worth his salt knows — all politics is local.

Next year’s Rugby World Cup in England will mark 20 years since Nelson Mandela used the 1995 competition in South Africa to bring that beautiful country’s irreconcilable, almost-at-war cultures together.

Today’s report, confirmed by the ambulance service,  that  a man who collapsed at Killarney District Court on Tuesday  had to wait almost 40  minutes for an ambulance to arrive from Macroom to deliver emergency medical aid  just adds to concerns raised by this week’s review of ambulance services  published by the Health Information and Quality Authority

The announcement that the Government has found €2m to bolster funding at national cultural institutions is welcome even if it seems little more than a stop-gap measure.

Today’s report, that Gaelic football referee Patrick Nelis has described how aggressive, personalised online abuse directed at him after last year’s Tyrone county final pushed him to try to commit suicide, is the latest in a long — and lengthening — list of examples of how the principle of manners, of self-control, of respect for others, or even basic restraint, have been swept aside by the remoteness and anonymity afforded by social media.

Last night’s programme from the RTÉ Investigations Unit that showed how thousands of pictures of young girls are being hijacked on innocent social media sites and transferred to porn sites is yet another challenge to the international community and the digital communications industry around how an individual’s privacy and dignity can be protected, especially a child’s.

Domestic farm animals sometimes live in circumstances that seem, if not cruel, then far less than ideal.

There was a time in Ireland when inequality was endemic and women were treated as second-class citizens.

The death of a homeless man within shouting distance of Leinster House illustrates how ill-conceived legislation can affect the powerless.

Bags of smoky coal don’t come with a health warning attached like you find on packets of cigarettes, but, perhaps, they should.