INDICATIONS over the weekend that tomorrow’s 24-hour strike by public servants would go ahead regardless of rain or floods were a classic no-brainer. Up to 250,000 public servants were going to refuse to turn up for work as a warning to the Government in relation to the coming budget.

While floodwaters have receded in many urban areas around the country, there is still an amount of debris to be cleared up, as well as restoration work on flood- damaged homes.

People throughout the country have been hit by rising floodwaters.

SPORT is more important to most of us than is probably healthy or wise.

Last February Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan announced a cap on the salaries of bank chief executives under the bank recapitalisation scheme, which ultimately saw the state take 25% stakes in the banks in return for a capital investment of €3.5 billion. It would seem this proposal was not thought out properly.

On Monday of this week the insurance company AXA predicted that the number of deaths on our roads could drop to a record low this year, dipping under the 250 deaths recorded when records began in 1959. At the beginning of this week there were 205 deaths for the year, which was 45 fewer than the same time last year.

THREE weeks from today Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan will introduce a budget that will have a significant impact on virtually every individual in this country.

FINE GAEL yesterday moved a Bill to change the Constitution to allow for a cut in judges’ pay. If this is to be enacted it will have to be passed by a referendum.

WHEN, in 1972, Richard Milhous Nixon became the first American president to visit the People’s Republic of China it was as if he visited a different world.

IT is a recurring theme of social commentary that society is becoming ever more violent.