WE like to imagine that we live in a society where slavery is not tolerated, but figures related to human trafficking – especially for what we sweeten by calling it the sex trade – suggest otherwise.

OVER the last number of years there has been a new determination and urgency to try to improve the circumstances of those who depend on long-term state care because of mental health difficulties.

AS most parents can verify the years when their children reach the age when they start to drink can be very worrying and trying.

IF Ivor Callely is expelled from the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party, why should he be allowed to continue to be a member of the Seanad?

SPEAKING yesterday, the chairman of the National Asset Management Agency, Frank Daly, said the organisation had not, and would not, change its policy of pursuing property developers for the full amount they owe to banks.

WHITEHAVEN, Egremont and Gosforth might just as easily have been Quilty, Spanish Point and Mullagh, or maybe Courtown, Ballygarret and Knockbrandon. Or, if the truth be told, any shy, idyllic backwater on this island.

A WONDERFUL facility that will allow us rediscover our ancestors, or at least paint a fuller picture of them, went online yesterday.

HUGE numbers of people in the developed world have had to face up to changed circumstances.

FIANNA FÁIL Senator Ivor Callely is lucky that none of the 6,600 people who joined doles queues in April are members of the Oireachtas committee he wants to arbitrate on his decision to claim travel expenses from his west Cork holiday home to the Seanad.

JUST as the international community, almost with a single voice, angrily condemned the murder of nine peace protestors – or Hamas sleepers as Israel would like us to believe – Israel shrugged off the condemnation with indignation and considerable arrogance.