SO, the day of reckoning is at hand. If all goes as promised we will, sometime in the next few hours, find out if we are governed by people with real leadership skills, with the vision and the sense of urgency required to stop the haemorrhaging of public finances; an objective central to restoring our economy and our shattered confidence.

TIME was that we’d dismiss more or less any social study carried out in Britain saying it was from a different culture and therefore irrelevant in Ireland.

ONE of the maddening aspects of Ireland’s legal system is the sight of notorious gangland criminals, thugs who clearly have significant assets, being granted free legal aid by the courts.

IT would be hard to exaggerate the dire repercussions of the closure of Waterford Crystal for a beleaguered region already reeling from job losses.

IT is outrageous that a person convicted of serious crimes against the person should be released on bail while awaiting sentencing.

THE grim prospect of another 120,000 workers losing their jobs led to the recognition, in the framework document for national recovery, that people will need help in meeting their obligations to lending agencies.

IT’S almost five years since then Health Minister Micheál Martin introduced revolutionary bans on smoking in public places and workplaces.

Amid all the recent calls for a constitutional referendum on children’s rights and talk of the need for measures to protect children from paedophile abuse, the overturning yesterday of the life sentence imposed on a 45-year-old paedophile for the rape of two young boys is being met with a degree of stunned incredulity.

Angry scenes seem standard in the Dáil these days, but this is no time for politics as usual. The Taoiseach stressed as much in arguing that these are unprecedented times. All segments of society must play their part, and that includes both government and opposition.

WHAT a prospect on this grey, worrying morning!