Today’s informal EU summit will mark another small step along what may be a far longer road than any of us anticipate even after four years of businesses closing, job losses, pay and service cuts and almost unprecedented wealth destruction.

It is good news, however short-lived, that farm incomes rose by almost a third last year.

This society has always regarded emigration as a consequence of economic or political failure, but this may not be entirely accurate.

The suggestion by businessman Ian Dodson, who runs the Digital Marketing Institute, that marketing colleges are failing the tech sector by turning out “unemployable” graduates inept in the basic IT marketing skills cannot be ignored.

For decades survivors of horrific abuse at our industrial schools have essentially been demeaned as ingrates, because they did not appreciate what the religious authorities running those schools did for them. All that many were asking for was the right to be heard and listened to when they spoke about their abuse.

Katie Taylor’s feat in winning her fourth straight World Championship title in Qinhuangdao, China, over the weekend was a magnificent achievement that helps to lift the spirit of the whole island. Boxing has always been an all-Ireland sport, and our boxers have traditionally punched well above their weight.

This is as good a day as any to throw in the ball and announce, with a suitable fanfare of mixed metaphors of course, that the much-anticipated summer of sport has begun.

These are not good days for those who argue that high standards of accountability and professionalism are the norm in the public sector.

At least three of the day’s great issues come together in the case of the expulsions of four pupils from Oatlands College in Dublin after extremely abusive remarks about teachers were posted on Facebook.

The cavalier attitude of government departments and highly paid advisers towards public projects that involve the money of beleaguered taxpayers is mind boggling.