YESTERDAY’S admission by the terrorists who believe they have a mandate to murder people in our name that they killed PSNI Constable Ronan Kerr three weeks ago is not only tragic but pathetically ironic.

NONE of us need to be told that we must consider anything that might allow us regain the kind of independence solvent countries enjoy so the report that great swathes of off-shore Ireland have not been as thoroughly assessed for oil or gas as they might be could be an occasion for some optimism.

TALKING about pension reform in the week international investors — they were called carpetbaggers in America’s southern states after their civil war — were invited to throw their eye over the family farm may seem incongruous but this is the very long-fingering that has our pension arrangements in such terrible and frightening disarray.

THE Dáil yesterday confirmed that troops will again serve as peacekeepers in the Lebanon. Continuing a long and proud tradition 440 soldiers will join the UN force in the Middle East in coming months.

THE slickest way to keep in touch with young people nowadays is social networking. Basically, that means chatting over the internet about shared interests or activities like football, music, space exploration, the class of ‘92 or, believe it or not, the Stations of the Cross.

IMAGINE if you are a public sector worker trying to support a family and maybe give your children a good education on something around €35,000 a year.

WE are all aware of the great harm the misuse of alcohol can cause but we must recognise too that it is one of the great lubricants of our economy.

TAOISEACH Enda Kenny visited Prime Minister David Cameron in Downing Street for the first time yesterday and he took the opportunity of his London visit to speak to a group of investment managers and international finance journalists.

IT seems almost cruel to expect the parents of young children to take on another responsibility their own parents could not even have imagined.