Cypriot banks reopened after nearly two weeks yesterday and, thankfully, none of the feared street violence or chaos in banks materialised.

Government reaction to the result of the Meath East by-election, which saw Fine Gael’s Helen McEntee take the seat and replace her father who died last December will, naturally enough, be mixed.

“A lot of people are very stressed and we need to ensure that we do not add to that stress,” Transport Minister Leo Varadkar declared in a statement issued to RTE’s Morning Ireland yesterday.

The garda who confronted Taoiseach Enda Kenny while canvassing in Meath East was not in uniform.

The recent decision not to proceed with a badly needed and long-awaited extension of Killarney’s sewerage network seems at best shortsighted and at worst recklessly negligent.

For a country that so enthusiastically enjoys horses, horsemanship, and more or less everything to do with the animals, yesterday’s statement from the ISPCA, that it can no longer care for abandoned horses because its centres are full, strikes a sad note.

As anyone struggling to maintain private health insurance will know, medical inflation outstrips general inflation by spectacular multiples.

Yesterday’s IBEC Business Sentiment Survey for the first three months of the year found that business confidence has improved and was at its highest in four years.

Sport can bring out the best in people but, as anyone who has seen how out-of-control spectators, competitors or drug cheats can corrupt the most beautiful and honest endeavour will realise, it can show us at our very worst too.

Sometimes it is hard not to despair, not to wonder if we, as a society, will ever learn from our mistakes.