YESTERDAY’S announcement, naming the members of the first Irish Press Council, is a welcome and long-awaited milestone in the evolution of how Irish society and Ireland’s print media interact.

MODERN telecommunications are one of the most universally empowering advances in the history of civilisation.

THOUGH yesterday’s dramatic events in west Cork could not have been unexpected, they were alarming and fortunate in equal measure.

AT this time of the year many people not ordinarily exposed to the bestial discomforts of modern air travel will be in a state of shock — sharing, albeit briefly, the indignities suffered by regular travellers.

TODAY’S prediction that house prices will fall by 50% in the next decade will cause anyone with a mortgage to shudder but the reality is that we should all shudder.

THOUGH the health implications of smoking have been known for more than half a century constraint on public consumption is only now becoming widespread.

The Government established the Advisory Committee on the Education of the Deaf in 2002, but this was another case of the old story of setting up a committee to deal with problems and then ignoring its findings.

There is a palpable sense of public outrage over the Beverley Flynn settlement.

The car bomb discovered near Piccadilly Circus in London yesterday, and a second explosives-rigged car found nearby, would probably have caused a large loss of life and extensive damage if it had gone off as planned.

The new regulations drawn up by the Financial Regulator to protect bank customers by banning what amounts to high-pressure selling tactics are largely a reaction to overcharging by several banks.