We are on the cusp of considerable change in how our schools are managed or even defined.

Even if you accept that the situation in Syria is a lot more complex that is immediately apparent, the fact that the UN estimates that Dr Assad’s forces have killed more than 9,000 people in the past year puts his dictatorship in a very specific, brutal category.

People of a certain age will remember the terrible,divisive venom that animated the debates around divorce or abortion.

There seems no end to the excesses of the public sector, judging by today’s report on local authority salaries.

Unsurprisingly, vexed questions about pay and pensions loom large on the agendas of three teacher unions as annual meetings take place this week in an atmosphere of simmering militancy.

Dissent in the Catholic Church, especially from members of the clergy, invariably elicits a mailed fist reaction from the Vatican. The move to silence Fr Tony Flannery, founder of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) in Ireland, is but the latest example of a ruthless and outdated policy of muzzling those who speak out.

It is not surprising that beleaguered workers at the coal-face of care for troubled teenagers are constantly on sick leave.

In Mar 2011 the Moriarty Report concluded that as a minister, Michael Lowry received a payment of £447,000 from businessman Denis O’Brien and then helped him to win a state mobile phone licence.

Under the new Social Welfare and Pensions Bill, lone parents will eventually only receive the one-parent family payment until their child is up to the maximum age of seven years old.

Repeated calls have been made down the years for greater emphasis on certain Leaving Certificate subjects including chemistry, physics, accounting, and economics, some of the educational ingredients deemed vital for Ireland’s future growth and development.