Apart from the incessant increases in health insurance premiums, it is more than obvious that we face huge challenges in funding and providing an equitable, easily-accessed health service.

The Watergate break-in, the nasty cross-the-line bugging crimes that toppled an American president, took place in May and June 1972.

If the Government, Justice Minister Alan Shatter, Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan had responded to the story about GSOC bugging, then the ripple effect spreading right across our justice and policing systems, and our Government, might have been avoided.

It is an indication of how powerful, how unaccountable and secure Russia president Vladimir Putin and his circle of oligarchs feel that they can orchestrate such terrible, anti-democratic violence in Ukraine while their pet project — the incredibly expensive, €37.5bn Olympics at Sochi — offers the world a prime-time insight into modern Russia.

Pure in Heart, an Irish Catholic youth ministry, has sparked controversy over a classroom role play exercise it uses to promote the value of chastity.

Justice Minister Alan Shatter has a habit of saying far too much when he shouldn’t and not nearly enough when he should.

The Government decision to appoint a former High Court judge to investigate the escalating controversy around the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission was inevitable.

Catholics, and many who are not, must be heartily weary of the never-ending litany of cases involving people abused by clerics.

As the vote on Scottish independence moves closer — it’s set for September — the dizzying manifestos proposed in the wine bars off Edinburgh’s beautiful Princes Street, or along the glens and river banks of stately Perthshire, can expect ever more rigorous scrutiny.

One of the fundamentals of contentment, for most people is the rootedness being a member of a family confers.