In the midst of the uproar over the Murphy Report on clerical paedophile abuse, it is disturbing to learn that warnings about other forms of child abuse will not be acted upon properly until 2012.

ONE of the very few rewards for being in opposition is that you can make proposals on a truly grand scale without having to be too explicit about how they might work. This freedom energises imaginations and facilitates a radical approach.

FRANZ JOSEF JUNG an ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel resigned from the German cabinet yesterday amid allegations of a cover-up of an air strike that killed civilians in Afghanistan when he was defence minister.

IT is not vain to suggest that resilience is a characteristic of the Irish. How else would we have survived the economic, political and social travails that shaped our history and will define our future?

AS WE count the last few days between us and the grim-reaper budget — 14 left; as thousands of families and their homes are devastated by frightening floods; as the divide between public and private sector workers deepens, a good news story has a value well beyond the events it relates.

IT is hard to find words powerful enough to console the thousands of people who have had to watch powerlessly as frightening floods destroyed the homes and businesses they worked so hard to build up.

THERE are about two million people employed in this country. Yesterday morning 1,750,000 — give or take a few thousand — went to work as is normal.

FARMING is cyclical. A bad year or two is usually followed by a few good years but the income crisis facing today’s farmers is almost beyond precedent.

TODAY’S headline stories — public sector protests and floods — have a bit more in common than might be immediately apparent. Both are the consequences, though to varying degrees, of ignoring warnings that we were engaged in unsustainable practices.

BACK when a credit card could achieve more or less anything we celebrated minor events with a gusto and vulgarity that was as mesmerising as it was foolish.