AGAINST a backdrop of unrelieved economic gloom, the outcome of this week’s emergency EU summit in Brussels was positive from Ireland’s viewpoint and is to be welcomed.

WITH good news as rare as hen’s teeth these days, it’s refreshing to read of a hi-tech breakthrough that brings hope to thousands of women.

TAOISEACH Enda Kenny’s Dáil attack on the Vatican was one of the finest moments in this Republic’s struggle to assert its relatively newfound independence.

ONE of Bart Simpson’s more memorable lines involves him sitting in front of a television flicking from channel to channel wondering what science ever did for him.

YESTERDAY’S declaration by the United Nations that parts of southern Somalia are in the grip of a terrible famine confirms what various aid agencies have been saying for several months.

NO political party has gone to the polls suggesting it might introduce tolls on our roads, so if this is still a democracy of sorts, the reality is that no party has a mandate to introduce them. Yet the air is thick with suggestions that the country’s roads and tunnels will be extensively tolled.

IN recent days we’ve had two examples of the terrible contradictions and hypocrisy we tolerate surrounding child protection.

ONE of the most powerful private citizens in the English-speaking world — media tycoon and News Corporation chief Rupert Murdoch — was held to some sort account by a committee of Commons MPs.

Ireland has always punched above its weight in diplomatic terms.

Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton has been roundly criticised for being arrogantly and gratuitously insulting when she suggested that some people are not making a serious effort to get back into the jobs market.