A LOT of strong words were spoken at yesterday’s launch of the Government’s public sector reform programme — words like efficiency, flexibility, innovation, reinvigoration, radical restructuring and transformation.

IT is rare in the weeks preceding the budget to find a politician willing to commit to initiatives requiring expenditure, so junior health minister Roisín Shortall’s remarks on the Government’s promise of free GP care for all by 2015 are a welcome surprise.

The thousands of third-level students should be warmly commended for their dignified and responsible protest in Dublin.

When Willie Penrose promised to try to keep Columb Barracks open in Mullingar, he was making an individual promise to his constituents.

LET the party begin! Ten years to the day since Ireland qualified for the World Cup in Japan, the national soccer team has won a coveted place in the finals of Euro 2012.

IRISH politicians seldom resign. So, Willie Penrose TD will be applauded up and down the country for having the courage of his convictions to step down as Minister of State for Housing over the Government decision to close Columb Barracks in Mullingar.

MANY a pub debate on Ireland’s economic woes has begun with the proposition that none of it would have happened if economist David McWilliams had had a seat at cabinet, or that we would recover quicker if Michael O’Leary was plucked from Ryanair and made minister for finance.

THE Government’s announcement last week of a €10 million humanitarian aid package for victims of the recent flooding in Leinster was to be welcomed.

An acrimonious general election recount in the Laois-Offaly constituency cost taxpayers €36,273, but the recount only added four votes to the total of Liam Quinn, the unsuccessful Fine Gael candidate who demanded the recount.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny received overwhelming public support following his blistering condemnation of the misbehaviour covered by the Cloyne report.