OMBUDSMAN and information commissioner Emily O’Reilly is a highly respected public official. She has been prominent in public affairs for several decades. Her contributions to public discourse have been reasoned and pragmatic.

YESTERDAY’S arrest of seven people in connection with an investigation into a conspiracy to murder a Swedish cartoonist is a stark reminder of the international sweep of terrorism.

AS the brinkmanship around public sector industrial unrest intensifies it is important that people be absolutely clear about the consequences of their actions.

IT seems anachronistic that our licensing laws should be influenced by the calendar of the Catholic church but they still are.

AS he has done so very often, Fr Peter McVerry yesterday put our latest round of hand-wringing about child protection services into a damming perspective.

WE have repeatedly suggested that an investigative authority with real powers and ambition be established to probe matters of public concern.

DESPITE the corrupting secrecy that does so much to block the advance of our social, political, economic, educational and legal development, we have been exposed to a litany of horrors over the last few years.

DEAFNESS is a difficult condition that can often have consequences far beyond its immediate impact.

THE National Pensions Framework (NPF) launched on Wednesday should be seen as just an opening gambit in an ever-evolving set of arrangements to encourage all of us to accept our responsibilities to provide for ourselves and others after our working lives end.

IF Tracey Fay’s tragic life and death prove anything, it is that self-regulation does not work and that the process is utterly undermined by suspicion and conflicts of interest, real or imagined.