The sight of Seán Quinn of being driven away to jail in a Garda van yesterday sends some stark messages. Although now bankrupt, he was once Ireland’s richest man.

The referendum to provide extensive powers for the Oireachtas to investigate and make findings against individuals was rejected by the electorate last year.

On emerging from examinership in June, Eircom announced a five-year survival plan that envisaged cutting its workforce by 1,000. The company’s share of the fixed-line market and the broadband market has been declining.

It is almost two years since John Butler, driven to the darkest of places by unrelenting depression, killed his two daughters, Ella, who was six, and her two year-old sister, Zoe.

Though the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956 makes gambling in a casino illegal in Ireland nearly every town, certainly every city, has a number of “private gaming clubs”.

The assertive if increasingly desperate position taken by Aer Lingus workers over their €930m pension scheme deficit is entirely understandable.

In a little over a week we will have the privilege of deciding whether or not we want to change how our Constitution protects children.

Just as the dark side of humanity is a reality, its manifestation, its destructive intrusion into innocent lives, seems unavoidable and today well nigh uncontrollable.

Today we report on another politician who has ignored rules put in place to protect our parliament, our political process and, most of all, our democracy.

With less than two weeks to go before voting on the children’s rights referendum to amend the Constitution, Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald was drawing attention to the rights of children over the weekend.