The Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has called on Finance Minister Brian Lenihan to provide extra money so that the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) is adequately resourced to monitor the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA).

During the Celtic Tiger period, this country was seen as one of the great success stories on the international stage, but we have allowed our influence to wane.

Nobody should take any satisfaction at this time of year from Dr James Moriarty’s decision to resign as Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin. It is a personal setback, but it had unfortunately become necessary. He had unwittingly become implicated in child abuse, even though he was accurate in saying that he did nothing wrong.

The Irish Examiner would like to wish everyone the compliments of the season.

EVEN though we have been warned about the terrible impact personal debt will have on individuals or families, yesterday’s news that the number of homeowners struggling to repay mortgages almost doubled between June 2008 and last September is chilling.

DURING her tour of areas hit by flooding this week, President McAleese warned that we must not turn our back on the families still enduring the consequences of the recent floods.

IN far too many ways 2009 has been a year of sterile, exhausting outrage.

The mental health services are clearly not picking up people in need of psychiatric help early enough, according to a study of 615 male prisoners conducted by a team of psychiatrists from the Central Mental Hospital.

The Listowel sexual assault case continued to reverberate over the weekend after the victim gave a press conference and was interviewed on Marian Finucane’s radio programme yesterday.

BEING a contrarian can sometimes seem attractive, it can even be lucrative. It can feed self-righteousness and encourage an affectation of difference. It may confer the questionable cachet of being apart from the herd.