JUSTICE Minister Alan Shatter’s announcement yesterday that measures have been implemented to help complex trials should be warmly welcomed.

THE Irish movie, The Guard, opened last Friday in New York and Los Angeles, and has already taken those cities by storm, with its gross earnings making it the second highest earner per screen over the weekend. Now it is being extended to 50 other cities.

SENATOR David Norris is not by any means the first politician to ask for clemency for a rapist but he is certainly the first to have to put ambitions to become President of Ireland aside because he did so.

PRESIDENT Bashar al-Assad’s brutal suppression of his domestic and largely unarmed opponents continues.

PRESIDENT Barack Obama’s announcement on Sunday night that Congressional leaders had reached an agreement that would raise the US government’s borrowing limit and avoid default is good news for us all.

WE are warned today about the possibility of an increase in banking charges.

IT now seems unavoidable that minority stakes — at the very least — in pivotal semi-state companies will be sold to try to sustain investment in essential capital projects.

MINISTER for Tourism and Sport Leo Varadkar announced a €7 million restoration for the beautiful but dilapidated Killarney House and its grounds on Saturday.

HEALTH insurer Aviva’s decision to hit 90,000 of its customers with another fee hike — 9.5% — raises all sorts of questions, most of which have been asked many times before but never adequately answered.

THE decision by Fianna Fáil MEP Brian Crowley to write to all of his party’s Dáil deputies, senators and MEPs reaffirming his intention to seek the party’s nomination to contest the presidential election brings a new intensity to the debate over the election.