It would be nice to think that the reckless rioting witnessed in London this week could not happen here, but we know that this is simplistic thinking.

In the last couple of years, the number of prosecutions of registered sex offenders for breaching monitoring rules has increased, especially since gardaí were given powers of arrest in such cases in 2008.

AS we know from a blizzard of alarming reports, bullying can have an appalling impact on a young person’s development.

AT a time when charities find themselves under severe pressure because pockets are empty due the economic downturn, it is disgraceful to learn that charity shops are being targeted by unscrupulous robbers.

AT a moment when so much is uncertain, at a moment when so many tottering citadels begin to look as if they might tumble into history’s dust, anything resembling a certainty is to be cherished.

IT is an indictment of the HSE that the director of the National Office for Suicide Prevention has threatened to resign because he does not have enough staff to do the work of his office properly.

IT is sad that the race to succeed one of Ireland’s two most successful presidents is in danger of becoming a minor but embarrassing farce.

UNCERTAINTY has shaken share values right across the world, confirming that the agreement reached by European leaders just over two weeks ago was not on the scale needed to stop the crisis generated by eurozone debt.

AT the end of 2009 1,478,560 people were entitled to hold a medical card.

CORK City Council has rejected requests by this newspaper to release documentation relating to Diarmuid Gavin’s sky garden, which cost taxpayers €2.3 million.