Considering the publicity afforded in recent years to Ireland’s appalling history of neglect and abuse of children, many people will undoubtedly be surprised to learn that various governments have failed to give statutory force to the guidelines drawn up 14 years ago to combat these depraved social evils.

It may be tempting fate to put an Irish context on the Cyprus experience but in the wake of yesterday’s no-nonsense warning from the IMF on the state of this country’s finances, that grim spectre can no longer be ignored.

Despite Ireland’s love affair with alcohol, it is alarming to learn that 10% of senior cycle pupils in secondary schools up and down the country have a drink problem.

Declan Kidney, Ireland’s most successful rugby coach, was fired by the IRFU yesterday.

One man’s truth is another’s delusion.

One of life’s really valuable and sustaining things is being part of a community that shares needs, concerns, ambitions and responsibility for the welfare of its members.

On Good Friday, American-based developer Sean Dunne joined a long list of people connected with property or banking to seek the comfort, the out-of-reach sanctuary, of being declared bankrupt outside of this jurisdiction.

Though our situation is not as bad as the people of Shanghai, whose drinking water is under threat after 16,000 diseased pig carcasses were found in tributaries of the Huangpu river, a new Environmental Protection Agency report shows that we must do much more to protect the integrity of our water sources.

In a pontificate of less than three weeks Pope Francis has radically shifted the symbolism of gesture and how the core beliefs and concerns of Christianity are conveyed.

Eamon Gilmore’s Labour party will be licking its wounds after the Meath East by-election for some time to come.