IT takes a special kind of blindness to persist with declarations of innocence when your policies, and your mismanagement of the consequences of those policies, become the catalyst for international intervention in the fundamental affairs of your country.

ON the scale of the humiliation of having to turn to Europe to pay our housekeeping bills, being treated with barely concealed contempt by those we elected to run this small island may seem unimportant but the shameless, transparent and plainly dishonest behaviour of our Taoiseach, and his willing accomplices in cabinet, over the past week is symptomatic of the culture that has landed us in this terrible, subservient position.

IN the debate about legalising recreational drugs one of the arguments used is that after legalisation some standards would apply. It should mean people would know what they are consuming and be aware of the risks.

THE founding fathers of the state are turning in their graves. Not because Britain wants to lend us money but because a major erosion of Ireland’s economic sovereignty looks inevitable.

AT long last, it appears the Croke Park agreement may be about to bear fruit. Under the terms of the deal, aimed at bringing the Public Service into the 21st century, Government departments had to formulate action plans generating savings running to millions of euro.

SOMETIMES words on a page are unequal to the events they are used to describe.

THE minutiae may be left to another day but it seems as close to certain as we can be that Ireland — and possibly Portugal — is on the verge of having to accept some sort of an EU bailout to try to staunch the haemorrhaging caused by our banking crisis.

IT is a sad indication of how low our politicians’ stock has fallen that, despite repeated denials by Taoiseach Brian Cowen and a good number of his senior colleagues, it is difficult to dismiss the possibility that Ireland might have to turn to the EU or the International Monetary Fund – or both – to sustain even the most basic functions of this society.

THERE are few instincts more elemental than the one to reproduce, yet we have adopted social mores that often impede this fundamental process.

A clear majority of 72% of the repossession cases being brought to court involve mortgage owners who borrowed an average of nearly €236,000 during 2006 and 2007, as the property bubble was at its height, according to a survey conducted by the Economic and Social Research Institute.