It SEEMS ironic that while the Irish pub is enjoying something of a boom in popularity around the world, it is declining in Ireland. Vintners claim that on average, one pub a day closes in this country. This could have enormous social consequences.

Crime figures issued by the Central Statistics Office yesterday show a huge drop of 64% in the number of murders in the second quarter of this year compared with the same period last year.

IT’S hard to imagine that anything happening at 56°44’N by 111°07’W, in a place where the temperature barely rises above freezing for months on end, has much relevance to the lives we live on the watery edge of Europe.

THE state’s ethics watchdog, in its annual report yesterday, reminded us that political parties spent millions on last year’s election but did not say where most of the money came from.

THE weather and the economy seem to be working hand-in-glove in a kind of partnership of despair.

THERE have been harrowing court cases where dreadful cruelty on some puppy farms has been exposed.

NOT so long ago, when Boyzone were boys rather than men facing middle age, the answer to more or less every social difficulty was to throw a quango at it.

IT IS difficult to understand how any health service, and in this instance that description requires a leap of faith, could treat Graham Dempsey as it did this weekend.

IT IS ridiculous that former Garda Assistant Commissioner Martin Donnellan had to go to court to try to hold on to his job because he had reached a mandatory but irrational retirement age of 60. It is even more ridiculous that his case was dismissed.

PROPOSALS published yesterday, if enacted, will allow social housing tenants to buy the houses they are living in and are aimed at increasing home ownership among low income families.