The publication of photographs of the body of Michaela McAreavey in the hotel room where she was murdered is a shocking development and the latest in a series of appalling events surrounding her tragic and untimely death.

As the financial crisis engulfing the HSE deepens, it is appalling to see the scale of staff overpayments that continue to draw on the near-empty coffers of a dysfunctional organisation whose bureaucratic bungling makes a mockery of the concept of giving taxpayers value for money.

Few livelihoods take more from nature and put less back into it than the maritime fishing industry. That’s as true for Ireland as it is for virtually every country on the planet with a fishing fleet.

Many families meet great loss through accident,violence or an unexpected illness. Some can, when this terrible moment arrives, circle the wagons and take refuge in the privacy most families are lucky enough to enjoy.

The case in Luton, where an Irish Traveller couple were jailed for 11 years and four years respectively, for keeping homeless men in conditions of “pure evil” reflects very badly on Ireland.

More than four out of five people in this country think that Irish people drink too much alcohol, according to a survey published yesterday by the Health Research Board.

The latest statistics released by the CSO give an insight into the changing face of Ireland.

In New York’s Lincoln Centre last May over 1,300 Irish Americans and their friends attended a dinner which, in the middle of the most difficult economic circumstances in decades, raised $4.3m (€3.5m) for the American Ireland Fund (AIF).

One of the regular insanities of recent history was the awarding of public contracts at a set price only to discover on completion of the project that costs had escalated, often in multiples of the original tender figure.

In one of the great scenes in one of the great television series Homer Simpson is philosophising from his couch as he uses his TV’s remote control to flick aimlessly from channel to channel.