The controversy surrounding Fine Gael following Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s visible proximity to businessman Denis O’Brien at the embarrassing bell ringing event in Wall St is further deepened by today’s front page report of a meeting between Environment Minister Phil Hogan and disgraced former FG minister Michael Lowry.

Like so many of our essential services — health, water, schools and colleges, secondary roads, broadband and whatever you’re having yourself — our prison system is hardly fit for purpose.

Yesterday’s suggestion from the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) that an independent policing authority should run of the force deserves consideration.

It is difficult to understand the soul-deep motivations of a society, or the principles that inform it, when a household charge can provoke a “national rally” while the confirmation that the most powerful political party in our recent history was a shameless cabal of crooks does little more than stir up the usual impotent outrage from the usual sources.

Even articulating the fact that 17m people are out of work in the eurozone is chilling.

Even allowing for the drawn-out choreography of politics, the reluctance of Health Minster James Reilly, while speaking on RTÉ yesterday, to be even-handed about those indicted by the Mahon and Moriarty tribunals was as disheartening as it was tragic.

We have criticised planners for underestimating transport needs in the past, so it might seem unfair to point out that the State will pay €7m to two road toll operators because the Limerick tunnel and Meath’s M3 are not as busy — or lucrative — as was anticipated.

Yesterday’s decision by the High Court to grant Eircom an interim examinership marks another sorry milestone in the long — but illustrative — decline of the company, one that provides services vital to our society and economic recovery.

Fine Gael holds its first ard fheis since returning to power this weekend.

The Census 2011 details published yesterday revealed a changed and changing Ireland. There are more of us — 4.58m, up 8.2% since 2006 — than at any time since just after the Great Famine.