IT defies credulity that banks are preparing to give bonuses to senior managers at this time of financial crisis. Especially when Ireland’s two main banks are about to receive a massive recapitalisation bailout from the Government.

YET another costly case of duplication by government departments has come to light at a time when the country can ill-afford to be squandering money.

A POWERFUL speech does not a recovery make but when an overdue one is finally delivered it has the capacity to make much of what has gone before seem less important; to make much of what lies ahead far less daunting.

AS we detail today there has been a series of fatal tragedies involving people who should have been offered the shelter of effective and humane psychiatric care services.

IN these troubled times any initiative that might improve our lot is to be welcomed. If it could make a contribution to fighting climate change and stimulate economic growth it is to be doubly welcomed.

LUCKILY we seem to have escaped the worst excesses of soaring knife crime seen in other European countries but there have been more than enough fatal attacks here to cause concern.

IT may seem unreasonable to call for an increase in Government spending during the worst economic crisis of modern times. It may seem doubly so just a day after Taoiseach Brian Cowen — and the rest of us — had to countenance the truly frightening prospect of 400,000 workers losing their jobs before the end of the year.

SO many of our European and American friends find it difficult, if not amusing, to watch as we struggle with a relatively harmless period of cold weather.

WAS that really Taoiseach Brian Cowen’s best shot at confronting the greatest economic and social crisis to threaten this country?

NOW that the world has changed utterly, it is unlikely that tolerable psychiatric hospitals will be built across the country. That does not mean that they are not needed. Nor does it forgive us for tolerating conditions that were described in a 2007 report by the Irish Psychiatric Association as Dickensian, deplorable and appalling.