In March of last year, prior to taking on the role of European Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly spoke movingly of the plight of many older people, particularly those who ceased to engage with the world around them.

The decision to double the rates on Croke Park and the Aviva Stadium must count as an own goal by the Valuation Office, an independent body that is revaluing every commercial building in Dublin.

That activist and musician Pete Seeger died yesterday, at the age of 94, days after Oxfam reported that the wealth of the world’s 85 richest people equals that of the poorest 3.5bn people suggests that the ambition expressed in one of his famous anthems — ‘We Shall Overcome’ — remains unrealised.

Louise O’Keeffe deserves our respect, admiration, and congratulations, though she would prefer it had she never been obliged to make her cause, her decades-long fight against stone-walling officialdom, so very public.

Despite an inauspicious, frustrating debut in public life the objectives set for Irish Water more than justify the project.

It is not unsurprising that Justice Minister Alan Shatter has intervened in the turf war between the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee and Garda commissioner Martin Callinan.

Oireachtas committees have shown how very feeble our parliament’s powers of investigation are. They have also shown how very independent some arms of State — and some agencies at an arm’s length from direct State control — perceive themselves to be.

Convention assures us that first impressions mean a lot. If that is true, then the political establishment will not lose too much sleep over Saturday’s Reform Alliance party conference that was not a party conference.

Some of the excess and greed shown by charity chiefs inevitably provoked public outrage.

Two sets of important negotiations are running in parallel. One — hopefully — to end a process, the other — hopefully — to prevent a civil war or something as catastrophic breaking out on the fringes of Europe.