THERE will be red-faces at the Department of Environment following the discovery of yet another appalling puppy farm where the treatment meted out to hapless animals can only be described as cruel, inhumane, and unacceptable by every civilised standard.

REFRESHING signs of Ireland’s changing political climate will be seen on the streets of both the Republic and the North this summer.

THERE is an alarming note of special pleading about the claim by leading businessman Sean Fitzpatrick, chairman of Anglo Irish Bank, that Ireland’s regulatory regime was close to resembling “corporate McCarthyism”.

CIVIL servants and government ministers have a pathological resistance to the normal concepts of openness, accountability and transparency that govern the lives of most people.

THE Government is to be commended for moving swiftly to honour its pre-election pledge to abolish stamp duty for first-time buyers.

IF society is measured by the way disabled people are treated, Ireland has a long way to go before those on the margins can be regarded as getting anything like a fair deal here.

WHAT’S in a name?

THE tragic suicide of two young men, who signed a pact to take their own lives after meeting on an internet chatroom, shines a light on a crisis besetting Irish society which successive governments have failed to address with any real conviction.

THE most optimistic cargo ever to land at Kerry airport arrived yesterday when 15 white-tailed sea eaglets flew into Farranfore.

THE opening of the €75 million Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) was inevitably going to have teething problems.