The majority of yesterday’s budget measures were known long before Finance Minister Michael Noonan began his steady-as-we-go statement to the Dáil yesterday afternoon.

As Education Minster Jan O’Sullivan had to acknowledge recently, the Government decision to change school patronage to better reflect Ireland today has hardly led to rapid change in the management of our education system. 

We occasionally show an almost shameless ability for exploiting our diaspora but that enthusiasm is not always matched by helping them feel they have not been forgotten.

Several events over the last few days showed how, and probably why, so many of us have become disengaged from the political process despite the unattractive consequences of that indulgence. As this disengagement accelerates it leads to a growing disenchantment that, like it or not, can only be resolved by engagement.

Childhood obesity rates, that shocking metric of parental neglect, inappropriate diet and a sedentary lifestyle, may have reached a high and may even be in decline. What good news that would be.

It is difficult to understand how a former paediatric surgeon at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital who, according to evidence given to a fitness to practice inquiry yesterday, did not know how to scrub up properly for theatre and had difficulty putting on gloves, was employed by an Irish hospital.

By any yardstick, the weekend by-election results were an unmitigated disaster for Ireland’s main political parties. Combined with Saturday’s massive protest bymore than 100,000 people on the streets of Dublin, the outcome is an unmistakable warning shot across the bows of a Government showing all the signs of being out of touch with the mood of an increasingly angry public.

Compelling proof that hate crime legislation is badly needed has emerged because, ironically, it seldom reaches the official records. A new report shows that only 47 incidents were recorded in the first six months of the year.

Considering the deadly nature of ebola, the killer disease now sweeping through west Africa, the sheer courage of people currently applying to join Goal in the fight against the epidemic is nothing short of astonishing.

A considerable number of people, possibly even a majority, will be unhappy with next Tuesday’s budget.