WE HAD another example yesterday of the difference between the rhetoric and the reality of our campaign to help those of our fellow citizens unfortunate enough to find themselves addicted to drugs.

SO MANY of the habits surrounding the food we eat, the sustenance we give to our children, are shaped by fashions advanced by television’s high-kitchen evangelists.

EVEN at the very darkest moments of the recent troubles in this country, even at the darkest moments in South Africa’s long struggle to end apartheid, there were voices urging moderation and compromise.

GETTING Irish recognised as an official working language of the European Union was quiet a cause celebré, one that energised language activists and their supporters.

REACHING a decision, being able to take and argue a position no matter what it is are two of the responsibilities expected of any political party worth its Oireachtas envelopes.

JUST as the warning to the Health Services Executive about defective cancer screening equipment at Portlaoise began to slip from the frontline of public consciousness another tragedy predicted by health professionals has come to pass.

IT would be hard to explain to anyone under, say, 40, the international excitement that surrounded America’s Bobby Fischer’s dethronement of Soviet Grandmaster and chess world champion Boris Spassky in 1972.

THE Mahon Tribunal has become one of the great fault lines of our society: you either support it or regard it as a waste of time and money.

THAT old enemy of economic stability and the possibility of social equity — inflation — has become a real and present danger to our material wellbeing.

A survey released by the Samaritans found bullying “incredibly widespread”, or endemic in the Irish workplace. One in four Irish workers are bullied at work and more than 80% have experienced it at some time during their working lives. Those are outrageous statistics that no self-respecting society should endure.