YESTERDAY’S sad news from the Shannon region, where 207 good jobs were lost to lower-cost economies, again underlined one of the unavoidable and terrifying truths of our time.

British plans to cut 490,000 public sector jobs as part a programme of sweeping spending cuts should be a warning to the public sector in this country, where we have often looked to the welfare state pioneered in Britain as a model to be emulated.

In the midst of the anguish of hardworking people losing their jobs and being faced with crippling mortgage repayments, the Wayne Rooney saga playing out in Britain is nothing short of obscene.

Social and economic developments are two vital aspects of society. We are going to destroy society if we concentrate on economic reforms at the expense social wellbeing.

Some 11.1% of pensioners in this country were at risk of poverty in 2008.

In the past it was generally assumed that by-elections should be held within six months of a Dáil seat being vacated.

Parts of the country are lagging behind in the availability of the most up-to-date broadband technology.

AS Finance Minister Brian Lenihan prepares to play Scrooge with a vengeance this Christmas, hitting low earners and social welfare recipients in the harshest budget in decades, the appalling vista is that charities combating poverty will be hit by a tsunami of requests for aid and more people will be driven into the clutches of moneylenders.

A PRICE war between Ryanair and Irish Rail? It hardly seems a realistic contest.

IS it really possible that a bird once so commonplace, so recognisable in shape and sound in every estuary and bog, on virtually every mountainside and shoreline, is facing extinction in Ireland within a decade?