The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland has said that teachers do not have the resources to implement proposed changes to the Junior Certificate cycle.

The disclosure that Dr Rhona Mahony, the master of the National Maternity Hospital, was paid a top-up of €53,009 in a CEO allowance, and €45,000 in private patient fees, in addition to her salary of €183,562 has sparked considerable public uneasiness.

GPs are warning that the withdrawal of existing medical cards is causing serious worry among vulnerable people.

It took years of hard and often fractious negotiations before the gun was finally taken out of politics in the North.

Our story today of a possible cover-up involving the case of a violent criminal who committed murder while on bail raises questions not just for the Garda authorities but also the operation of our bail laws.

Leaking confidential information can be highly dangerous. Of course, this may depend on the motive of the individual leaking the information. If it is to expose official wrongdoing, it can serve a very useful purpose.

Today, the world is remembering what was one of the most highly publicised outrages in US history — the assassination of President John F Kennedy 50 years ago. Nobody has ever been convicted of that crime.

With the health, and possibly the lives, of patients at risk, the decision of the EU Commission to refer Ireland to the European Court of Justice over persistent breaching of work-time rules will be applauded loudly in every hospital in the country.

Pressure is inexorably mounting on this Government to ban all alcohol advertising of sport events. Echoing the timely warnings of Geoffrey Shannon, the Coalition’s special rapporteur on child protection, another stark alert has been sounded by a leading suicide expert.

The decision by the ESB unions to vote for industrial action puts the spotlight on Ireland’s pensions time bomb; an economic, political, and social catastrophe waiting to happen.