GLARING disparities between the prices Irish householders are paying for gas and electricity compared with their British counterparts demand a major policy change in the public interest.

PREDICTABLY, consultants are objecting to proposals aimed at increasing lay representation on the Medical Council and introducing competency testing for doctors.

Considerably more absorbing than the Central Statistics Office revelation that the number of people working in the economy had passed the two million mark for the first time, was the shocking figure for teenage unemployment.

It would be difficult to disagree with Defence Minister Willie O’Dea when he described as an “incomprehensible act of savagery” the car fire that led to two young children suffering serious burns in a suspected arson attack in Limerick at the weekend.

HUMBLE is not a word one normally associates with Michael McDowell but that was how the Minister for Justice described himself yesterday on assuming leadership of the Progressive Democrats.

THE waves of silence that swept across America yesterday were a deafening reminder of man’s inhumanity to man when planes hijacked by terrorists crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York five years ago.

WHAT happens today in relation to the leadership of the Progressive Democrats could have enormous implications for the next general election.

THE taxi drivers are due to strike from 6am today until 1pm in protest against national charges, set by the taxi regulator, who is also outlawing baggage pickup charges. Previously local authorities set the charges.

It is more than a year since an RTÉ Prime Time Special highlighted appalling scenes of neglect and abuse at the Leas Cross Nursing Home in Swords, County Dublin.

When the general election of 2002 was called, the Progressive Democrats looked like the party in serious trouble, but Michael McDowell came to the rescue with a masterstroke.