It represents some sort of social and moral failure that some American and English students beginning their third-level education have to take a course to have boundaries around sexual consent explained to them. 

Even if the suggestion that Chancellor Angela Merkel drew a line in the sand more than a good country mile short of the kind of concessions Prime Minister David Cameron imagined might be made to prevent Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union has been reinterpreted to soften that inevitable reality check from Berlin, there is a simple lesson for our Government in its difficulties over Irish Water in that weekend spat.

Ireland has been named in tenth place out of 144 countries in the Legatum Prosperity Index, an annual report on global prosperity, based on both material wealth and personal well-being.

The suggestion by a Catholic bishop’s adviser on religious education that depression and self-harm among teenagers is linked to the absence of religion in young people’s lives seems at least blinkered. It is certainly based on the truths of another time.

For some time now, scientists have warned that man is slowly but surely destroying the planet.

Criticism of the Government for failing to grasp the severity of the nation’s mental health crisis could hardly be more damning. Coming as it does from the Cloyne and former Cork hurler and mental health campaigner Conor Cusack, it could hardly be better informed.

For the first time in almost a decade there are signs that our banking system is getting back to normal, beginning to operate within proper parameters and finally lending to businesses, home buyers, and other credit worthy customers.

Ukraine, Russia, and the EU have signed a deal that will see Moscow resume vital supplies of gas to Ukraine over the winter. That means good news, too, for the rest of Europe, Ireland included. Pipelines across Ukraine have been shut down since June, threatening winter supplies to EU states.

Liz O’Donnell, former deputy leader of the Progressive Democrats, has taken over from Gay Byrne as chairperson of the Road Safety Authority.

The pace of economic recovery is not being spread evenly across the country.