Earlier this week the appalling details of the rape and murder of Jill Meagher reminded us of how very inhumane humans can be. We might have taken comfort in the idea that such a horrendous crime would never happen here.

Yesterday morning, just after dealing with the latest details on the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill and the report on the needless death of Savita Halappanavar, the very first word uttered by RTÉ’s Morning Ireland news reader was “Ryanair”.

Fishing communities may be more familiar than the rest of us with fatal tragedies at sea but that does not mean they are any less heartbreaking.

In line with the Irish Examiner policy of showing readers the reality of life behind the headlines, your copy of today’s paper contains one of the most comprehensive scrutinies of crime ever carried out in this country.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny deserves full praise for his courageous and principled political stance on the highly emotive, and divisive issue of abortion legislation.

It seems that blunders in exam papers have become as predictable as the splendid summer weather that arrives each year to distract students from the great, possibly life-defining challenges facing them. This year is no exception.

Every now and then something terrible happens to challenge long-accepted, core beliefs of society.

We would all like our judges to have the wisdom of Solomon and the humanity to match that enviable erudition, but, even if they did, it is unlikely that every decision made by one, especially around sentencing, would be universally supported.

Edward Snowden, the former CIA employee who leaked details of US government secret surveillance programmes, is in a very tight bind.

Coming hard on the heels of the deeply damaging public row between the Garda Ombudsman and gardaí over the handling of undercover informants, today’s front-page revelations again focus on a dysfunctional system urgently in need of reform.