What can genuinely be described as historic, in a Northern context, is the meeting today between the Catholic Primate of All Ireland, Sean Brady, and the head of the DUP, Ian Paisley.

There is clearly an urgent need for the Government to take control of the problem of obesity in the country’s children because it is obviously not the concern of just one Government department or agency.

IRELAND’S love affair with booze is creating massive profits for the drinks industry but it is also inflicting deep scars on society through its dysfunctional relationship with alcohol.

THE manner in which the country’s top garda has finally apologised to the family of John Carthy for shooting him dead in the Abbeylara siege six years ago is less than edifying.

POLITICAL expediency, cooler heads and common sense have finally prevailed to save the crisis-ridden Coalition.

IT IS alarming to learn that one-in-five teenagers in Ireland experience mental health problems and that children under the age of 11 have been clinically diagnosed as hooked on alcohol.

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern’s seeming inability to be completely honest, up-front, entirely clear and unambiguous about his financial affairs has finally thrown the political situation into chaos amid growing signs that the Progressive Democrats may be about to walk out of the coalition Government.

LOVE him or hate him, Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary never disappoints in his flair for the unexpected as shown by his breathtaking takeover bid for Aer Lingus which came like a bolt from the blue yesterday.

NOBODY would have predicted a few short years ago that the IRA, among the world’s deadliest terrorist organisations, would go out of business.

HAVING engulfed the nation, the political crisis over Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s financial affairs has fizzled out like a damp squib.