DRAMATIC changes in the cost, pace and style of life in Ireland are revealed in the latest statistics showing that Ireland’s annual rate of inflation climbed to 5.2% in January, the highest level in six years.

ALTHOUGH Ireland is one of four countries in the Council of Europe that does not recognise a sex change as legally valid on a person’s birth certificate, it appears the Health Service Executive (HSE) is applying a classic Irish solution to this newly emerging Irish problem.

FOLLOWING an Irish Examiner investigation into medical drug sales, delegates at an international conference yesterday heard alarming evidence that organised crime gangs are running a multi-billion-euro business in bogus medicines.

IF Government commitment to balanced regional development has any meaning, it is crucial to counter-balance Dublin’s sprawl, now skewing development across the country.

IT has long been feared that a nuclear accident in Britain would have dire consequences for Ireland.

OVER the last two decades a stark light has been belatedly shone into the unwelcoming, debauched corners of our society.

EVER since Rome indulged its most popular and deadly gladiators with the exotic pleasures available in the capital of an empire, entertainers have enjoyed a privileged existence; ones of comfort and acclaim, often ones of deadly excess and frequent infamy.

THE general election auction has already begun in earnest, with the Progressive Democrats going one better than the Labour Party over the weekend.

IT is an outrage that some foreign workers are still being targeted to come to work in Ireland under exploitative conditions.

In a deliberate attempt to initiate a much-needed debate Archbishop Diarmuid Martin launched his annual Lenten pastoral letter yesterday by emphasising the damage to society being caused by excessive drinking. The launch appropriately took place in O’Connell Street, Dublin, at the statue of Fr Theobald Mathew, the internationally famous 19th century temperance campaigner.