IRELAND enjoyed a day yesterday that hundreds of millions across the world will never see.

YOU would not have to be too cynical to empathise with yesterday’s suggestion that the timing of the publication of the Morris Tribunal’s sixth report was such that it got less attention than was warranted.

IF ALL goes according to script, and there is no reason to imagine it will not, Brian Cowen will be elected taoiseach this afternoon.

BEING a parent is as much a great responsibility as it is a life-enhancing privilege. Today we report on two cases where those principles may not have been observed as completely as everyone would wish, though in one case the family involved has rejected suggestions that the parents were drunk and incapable of minding their three children while on holiday in Portugal.

The carbon calculator, launched by the Change Campaign commissioned by the Department of the Environment, provides a ready means for people to determine their carbon footprint.

Bertie Ahern steps down today after almost 11 years as taoiseach.

REQUESTS for help from people in difficulties have soared during the first quarter of this year.

THE virtual baby project at the Christian Brothers secondary school in Clonmel seems like a novel experiment to teach teenage boys a sense of responsibility. Boys in the transition year are given computerised dolls — which closely resemble five-month-old infants — to mind over a weekend.

Economic experts will inevitably argue about the best way to extricate the country from current economic difficulties. They will probably have contradicting prescriptions.

More than 1,000 people attended the funeral yesterday of the four members of the Flood family who were found dead in their burned out home in Clonroche, Co Wexford, last week.