The killing of almost 3,000 people in the attacks of Sept 11, 2001, in the US has had the most profound reverberations around the world ever since. Far more, indeed, than the 5,200 people dying in this country of diseases caused by smoking tobacco.

St Vincent de Paul has warned that there is no room in this year’s budget for further cuts in the winter fuel allowance. In reality it has already been eaten away by inflation.

It is completely unacceptable that it should take two months for the HSE to find a female medical specialist to examine an 11-year-old girl who claimed to have been violently raped on several occasions.

It is outrageous that, as people up and down the country prepare to cast their votes in tomorrow’s referenda on abolishing the Seanad and establishing a court of appeal, the electorate is in the dark on why Taoiseach Enda Kenny wants to get rid of the Upper House.

Is it possible that Seamus McCarthy, the comptroller and auditor general (C&AG) and the country’s public spending watchdog, is a better cop than the cops?

Public hospitals face strikes next Tuesday after a failure to resolve the dispute with junior doctors over their long working hours.

The news yesterday that a further 250 jobs are being created nationally may not be exactly an excuse for unbridled joy. After all, we still have in the region of 400,000 people unemployed. However, small though the number may be, it still offers hope.

A report published by the Comptroller and Auditor General Seamus McCarthy, the State’s public spending watchdog, reveals not just the shocking state of the Government’s finances but huge shortcomings in controlling spending, overseeing payments from both within and beyond the state and in the management of a range of services.

Senators will get generous severance packages if the electorate votes to scrap the Seanad in this week’s referendum. Some of the payments are an insult to the electorate.

Cork’s win in the Ladies’ All-Ireland football final was all the more welcome in the wake of the result of the All-Ireland hurling final replay. Clare must be congratulated on winning their fourth all-Ireland senior hurling title, but there were no losers in either game.