The condemnation of the murder of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe in Louth last Friday evening has been widespread and sincere.

It would be very difficult to exaggerate the depth of public revulsion at the murder of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe.

THE decision by middle-ranking garda management to walk away from crucial talks between the Government and the public service unions represents a serious setback for the ongoing process of negotiation aimed at securing an extension of the Croke Park agreement.

THANKS to a courageous mother and daughter this has been a landmark week in the long-running campaign for justice for Irish women.

Yesterday’s decision, and an admission that he was wrong, by Mr Justice Paul Carney in the case brought against Patrick O’Brien, who was convicted of raping his daughter Fiona Doyle over a decade, is welcome.

We have another, as if it was needed, issue to polarise society.

It would be foolish to imagine that a coalition of 27 nations, with a population of something over 500m people, each with different priorities, national characteristics, cultural, religious and political instincts, contrasting histories of domination or subjugation, could, for decades, seamlessly work together building an ever more unified entity without disagreement or even an occasional refusal to take the next step.

The decision by Taoiseach Enda Kenny, that he would meet rape and incest victim Fiona Doyle, is to be welcomed.

Any society that does not insist that its courts reflect its mores, humanity, its struggle to be human and humane, and its determination to hold those found guilty of the most savage attacks on others to account sows the seeds of its own downfall.

Few public figures in the English-speaking world are as respected as TV naturalist David Attenborough. For more than half a century he has shown us the beauty — and nature red in tooth and claw — all around us.