A British water company was fined €230,000 yesterday for discharging raw sewage into the sea between January and June of last year.

Despite the great destruction of wealth, the squandering of lifelong achievement, the collapse of businesses built on courage, sweat, and endless hours, despite near record unemployment figures, there can hardly be a more distressing manifestation of our economic collapse than the prospect of mortgage holders, unable to meet their obligations, losing their hard-won homes.

We all like to believe that we live in societies that try to behave decently, ones that try to observe basic standards of humanity and justice.

Yesterday’s statement from Labour backbenchers, demanding access to budget information before policy decisions are finalised, brings further focus on how power has become concentrated and how marginalised — if not irrelevant — swathes of our politicians are.

It is hard to see what impact, if any, the EU can have on the bloody conflict that continues to ravage Egypt.

Today is the anniversary of the death of Michael Collins and we mark the occasion by publishing a fresh look at how Collins as finance minister of the day might have reacted to the crisis besetting modern Ireland.

The Seanad was a bit like one of Mozart’s great operas yesterday, one where pantomime is used to shield us from the darkest inevitabilities facing humanity.

Earlier this week, the State Examinations Commission blamed human error and spending cuts for errors in some of this year’s second level exam papers.

It is an over-simplification to argue that, if usurped Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi had been able — or inclined — to recognise that a great number of his 82.5m compatriots want to live in a tolerant, pluralist society rather than one based on the harshest strictures of Islam, the spiralling violence of recent weeks might not have begun.

Anything that will protect vulnerable, emotionally brittle young people from the worst excesses of bullying on social media or elsewhere is to be welcomed.