NEWS that gas bills could fall by up to 30% by the end of the year is most welcome, especially in the context of our rising inflation.

WITH less than six months to the General Election, the battle for the hearts and minds of voters has been ignited by the highly ambitious National Development Plan rolled out by the Government yesterday.

REELING from a threat to axe 300 BUPA jobs, the town of Fermoy in north Cork has suffered another body blow. Though workers have long expected the French company FCI Ireland to close its manufacturing plant, yesterday’s decision was a bombshell for the community.

THE bloody saga of police collusion with death squads in the murder of Catholics in Northern Ireland, an atrocity exposed by Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan, is redolent more of a South American dictatorship than the United Kingdom.

PROSTITUTION is reputedly the oldest of all professions and, as today’s investigative series shows, it is now a flourishing business in Ireland.

WHEN will the Irish Government end the hypocrisy of promoting global peace while, at the same time, supporting companies that export over €1 billion worth of weapons-use material every year?

ASKING trainee teachers to bring their own posters, paints and markers to the classroom is like telling trainee gardaí to take their own handcuffs to Templemore or compelling trainee nurses to bring medicine and bandages to hospital.

FURTHER proof, if it were needed, of the lack of joined-up planning in the health service is highlighted in a scathingly critical internal report of the Government’s €400 million cancer blueprint.

THE silence of both Justice Minister Michael McDowell and his junior minister Frank Fahey, amid mounting concerns about the fate of the National Domestic Violence Intervention Agency, is absolutely deafening.

THE uncertainty surrounding Ireland’s health insurance business has deepened following the European Commission decision to take action against the coalition Government over alleged abuse of VHI’s dominant position in the market.