THE dispute at the passports office is provocative and disruptive.

In as much as the Pope’s pastoral letter is an apology for clerical paedophile abuse, it should be warmly welcomed, but it is distinctly short on specifics about what should actually be done.

POPE BENEDICT’S pastoral letter will be released today. Whether it will mark an ending or a beginning remains to be seen.

AS Aer Lingus management and Impact representatives meet the Labour Relations Commission separately today British Airways management are preparing for a strike scheduled for next week.

IT is very important not to say or even infer anything that might prejudice the investigation into affairs at Anglo Irish Bank but yesterday’s arrest did not come a moment too soon.

YESTERDAY’S refutation of Mgr Maurice Dooley’s outrageous statement — he said Cardinal Seán Brady was not obliged to report claims of child abuse to gardaí when he was made aware of them in 1975 — by Archbishop Dermot Clifford of Cashel is very welcome.

IRELAND and Irishness, whatever that has become, were celebrated around the world yesterday. Often wistfully, sometimes with an indulgence that might make today’s challenges seem more difficult than they are.

THE warning from the European Commission yesterday, that our plans to cut the budget deficit to within EU limits by 2014 need to be more specific is not surprising and will have an impact on all of us.

TODAY, as we celebrate St Patrick the man — or men — who brought Christianity to these islands, his Catholic successors preside over a discredited and imploding church.

IT is to be hoped that Environment Minister John Gormley’s intervention into the controversy surrounding the Lost At Sea scheme will prevent the simmering issue becoming a scandal.