The €5,000 grant and the exemption from motor vehicle registration tax for electronic cars (e-cars) has caught our imagination.

It seems crazy that there should be 100,000 families on local authority waiting lists while the country is blighted with unfinished or “ghost” estates and public money is being used to rescue the banks and property developers whose recklessness has undermined the economy.

Details of the report into the death of 18-year-old Tracey Fay while in care were published last month.

The Adelaide Hospital Society commissioned the Centre of Health Policy and Management at Trinity College Dublin, to report on how a single-tiered health system could be developed with equal access for all.

DESPITE the brain-numbing and never-ending avalanche of bad news around our economic suicide yesterday morning’s news from Holywood, Co Down, will register on a different scale all together.

THE Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) reminded us yesterday of one of life’s most enduring challenges — equality of access to education.

IF the average household was to manage its income the way local authorities do, virtually every family in the country would need MABS, the service that advises people in financial trouble about money and budgeting.

THE outpouring of grief and the palpable mood of sadness that pervades a Polish nation in mourning for those who died in Saturday’s tragic plane crash in western Russia was reflected in Ireland over the weekend as people joined in heartfelt sympathy with the many thousands of Poles who live and work in this country.

JUST as Toyosi Shitta-bey, the 15-year-old Nigerian-born student murdered in Dublin just over a week ago was being buried on Thursday another funeral, half a world away, took place.

YESTERDAY’S predictions from the Central Bank were not enough to cause anyone to break out the champagne but they were not entirely bleak either.