THE Cabinet announcement yesterday that a section of the ESB is to be sold to the highest bidder to satisfy our new financial masters will provoke deep shame and anger in anyone who cares for this country’s future.

THE political response to the Greek debt and social crisis has failed to convince markets that a plausible strategy is in place — or that if one was that it might be enacted.

THE idea that anyone should be held in what amounts to slavery in a modern society is appalling.

THE callous but not entirely unexpected decision of Talk Talk to stick to its 30 days’ notice for 575 workers in Waterford brings to the fore an issue which has preoccupied people in the south-east for many years — the question of creating a university there.

TWO hundred years after the abolition of slavery, the shocking revelation that unscrupulous individuals forced 24 down-and-outs to work unpaid, close to starvation and in appalling conditions, is a graphic illustration of the fact that slavery remains a fact of life for many people in the 21st century.

Questions are inevitably asked about ranking systems.

Minister of State for Research and Innovation Seán Sherlock is right to highlight the performance of the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) when it come to providing employment in small towns.

THERE is real irony in the fact that as America marks the greatest terrorist outrage of modern times President Obama needs his Congress’s approval for a €325 billion plan to try to reduce his country’s 9.1% unemployment rate.

FORMER Taoiseach Bertie Ahern celebrated his 60th birthday in Croke Park last night apparently blind to the tragic irony that one of the arrangements reached to undo some of his largesse is named after his party venue.

SOMETIMES events and how they transpire point to chastening realities. The announcement that nearly 600 jobs are to be lost in Waterford when the TalkTalk call centre closes in less than a month is one.