TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern will derive some small comfort from today’s Irish Examiner opinion poll showing Fianna Fáil less damaged than expected, even though the party is continuing to slide as support for Fine Gael and Labour grows.

FEARS of an upsurge in abortions following the internet sale of kits used to test the sex of babies are unfounded.

IF ever the launch of a party political manifesto was blitzed by a time bomb lobbed from the sideline, it was yesterday’s unveiling of Fianna Fáil’s bid to make it three in a row in government.

CLOUDS of uncertainty surround the decision by one of the main loyalist paramilitary groups, the Ulster Volunteer Force, to stand down its military role.

PERSISTENT warnings that rape victims would stop reporting sex attacks if they failed to get justice in the courts are borne out by a dramatic fall in cases coming before the gardaí.

THE extraordinary spectacle of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern being heckled by voters in Dublin’s O’Connell Street and on Moore Street is a political development without precedent.

IN their frontline role against crime, gardaí are regularly subjected to vicious assaults by mindless thugs, but there is a far more sinister element at work when members of the force become the target of contract killings involving professional hit-men.

EARLIER summers, shorter springs, wetter autumns and stormier winters are among the main ingredients of global warming.

The Central Statistics Office report, Measuring Ireland’s Progress 2006, is an interesting snapshot of the country’s comparative position among the states of the European Union.

The appointment of Dermot Kinlen as the country’s first statutory Inspector of Prisons is a welcome development.