FROM today, An Gárda Siochána will randomly check on the use of data files by gardaí.

AS THE toy manufactures’ months and months of Christmas plotting moves ever closer towards fruition it might not be any harm to give a few moments’ thought to the influence toys are having on our children.

SO, An Bord Pleanála have confirmed what anyone with even a passing interest in Ireland’s disappearing countryside has known for at least a decade.

SPEAKING in New York at the first US-Ireland Forum, dancer and businessman Michael Flatley has warned that we are losing our sense of Irishness.

THOUGH the immediate focus is on the crisis in our health service, there are many other social challenges that require urgent attention.

A report by the Immigrant Council of Ireland consisting of interviews with migrant women from 21 countries makes alarming reading.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s suggestion yesterday that RTE should transmit a dedicated Dáil channel on television is a mind-blowing suggestion.

THE COLLAPSE of trust in institutions we should be able to have absolute faith in is the unfortunate and recurring theme of the last two decades.

THE Progressive Democrats have always been an acquired taste, but that does not devalue their contribution to public life over the last 22 years.

A LOT of people will struggle to feel any genuine sense of sympathy for the banks embroiled in the three divisions of the High Court and the Commercial Court as they try to recover some of the €100 million used by two solicitors in a property scam.