The suggestion yesterday that the potential €1.65bn call on the Insurance Compensation Fund to cover the losses at Quinn Insurance could rise should give all of those who have championed the bankrupt tycoon pause for thought.

The €10,913 added to Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s €200,000 salary last year and the extra €5,000 added to Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore’s €184,000 may not seem terribly significant sums in the grand scheme of things.

When Nama was established, the potential for corruption was obvious so, quite properly, a raft of controls, many with the power of legislation, surround the agency and its affairs.

Coming so soon after the death of Maeve Binchy, the death this weekend of Con Houlihan is another great loss to Irish letters, journalism, sport, and public life.

The Sunday Business Post report that the HSE is paying up to 12 times more for some generic drugs than Britain’s NHS is more than infuriating.

So many of the issues that diminish this society came to the fore at last month’s Swedish House Mafia concert in Phoenix Park.

Irish roads are very much safer than they were a decade ago but that does not mean we cannot do much more to make them even safer.

Urbanisation is one of the great, surging tides of the age. Sixty years ago 30% of people lived in towns or cities.

The claim by Peter Quinn, brother of bankrupt Seán and father of fugitive Peter Darragh Quinn, that our court system is “corrupt” cannot go unchallenged. It also shows how far the Quinns will go to avoid the consequences of a disastrous share gamble.

In this era of gloom, even the tiniest sliver of positive economic news has to be applauded.