UNIVERSITY College Cork yesterday gave us all a glimpse of the future and what can be done.

LAST night’s resignation of Defence Minister Willie O’Dea was as inevitable as it was belated. It would be better if it could be said that Mr O’Dea left office with his dignity intact but that, regrettably, cannot be.

A REPORT prepared by the Department of the Taoiseach has found that some Department of Health staff have “little or nothing to do” while colleagues are overwhelmed with work.

JUST as the shabbiness surrounding George Lee’s polarising resignation deepened the distaste surrounding our political system — or our media if you think Mr Lee was wrong — the row between Tánaiste Mary Coughlan and Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary does not augur well for our capacity to rebuild our economy.

PRESIDENT Mary McAleese yesterday launched Your Country Your Call — a process to find and reward two proposals that will generate jobs and secure prosperity.

AT LEAST Josef Fritzl, the Austrian who locked his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children with her — one of whom he murdered by neglect — felt the need to conceal his depravities.

IT is difficult to understand why almost half of post-primary maths teachers do not have relevant maths qualifications. It is even more difficult to understand why that situation continues.

THE hundreds of thousands of unemployed people — 434,700 last week — watching the bun fight between the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) and Ryanair are entitled to be angry.

THERE has been an ongoing debate about the credibility of our educational system. Claims by Dr James Robinson, chief executive of the Kepler Institute, that “dumbing down” is persuading international companies not to move here should not be easily dismissed.

TODAY’S front-page report, showing that one in four teenagers in some second-level schools are dropping out before the Leaving Certificate, is a wake-up call for the Government.