WHETHER you agreed with him or not, it is undeniable that John McCarthy, founder of the mental health lobby group Mad Pride, has put the state to shame by heightening public awareness of the issue of mental illness which, more often than not, has been swept under the carpet, and been the subject of a discredited form of enforced treatment in this country.

THERE was a sharp whiff of irony in the air yesterday as the opening of this year’s BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition by Taoiseach Enda Kenny clashed with the return of TDs to Dáil Éireann after their three-week Christmas holiday.

The death of Mary Raftery is a reminder of the power of truth to bring about change.

Universities should be safe houses for dissent.

News that 200 jobs are to be created by expansion of the pharmaceutical giant Allergan, which already employs 900 people in Ireland, is to be warmly welcomed, especially in the midst of the current economic gloom.

Imitation is frequently regarded as the sincerest form of flattery.

About one in five homeless people did not qualify for a medical card in 2008, because they were in employment.

While in opposition, Michael Noonan called for openness in dealing with the banking collapse, but now as Minister for Finance, he has been sitting on the report conducted by accountants Ernst and Young and solicitors McCann Fitzgerald in the events that led the Government to pump €5.4 billion of taxpayers’ money in Irish Nationwide.

THE prospect that the Revenue Commissioners might pursue 115,000 pensioners for back taxes — and possibly even penalties — because two arms of government have just begun to speak to each other on pensions is alarming and disheartening.

BRITAIN’S former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, as divisive as ever, has made a brief return to the headlines.