THERE has been a shadow hanging over this Christmas unlike any seen for many, many years.

AMAZINGLY the debate about whether our bank chiefs should go or not continues.

THE Minister for Children Barry Andrews has, after five months of incomprehensible and damaging silence, found it appropriate to question the position of the Bishop of Cloyne, the Most Rev John Magee, over how allegations of child abuse were handled in his diocese.

IF YOU accept that we need a sound banking system you will have to acknowledge that the banks have an extraordinarily strong hand when negotiating with the Government no matter how dire the circumstances.

THERE are remarkable parallels between our banking crisis and the scandal surrounding allegations of child sex abuse in the Diocese of Cloyne.

The Government is going to provide €1.5 billion for Anglo Irish Bank and €2bn each for Bank of Ireland and AIB Bank.

Bishop John Magee has accepted mistakes were made in handling the allegations of clerical sex abuse in the Diocese of Cloyne.

JOHN MAGEE has been bishop of the Diocese of Cloyne since 1987 and in those 21 years he has seen his, and our, world change utterly.

ANY body who expected an FDR or a JFK moment, or even an Obama yes-we-can few seconds, at Dublin Castle yesterday would have been disappointed.

JUNIOR Minister Barry Andrews continued hisdelay-and-divide charade on reports relating to child sexual abuse allegations in Cloyne yesterday.