THE bombshell news that Tánaiste and Health Minister Mary Harney is stepping down as leader of the Progressive Democrats with immediate effect will inevitably cause disarray in the ranks of the junior Government partner, leaving her party facing an uncertain political future.

THE grave personal tragedy of 76-year-old Pat Joe Walsh’s death in Monaghan General Hospital almost a year ago year goes to the heart of much that is wrong with the Irish health service.

FEW areas of Irish life are in greater need of reform than the State’s Dickensian mental health service.

ECHOES of the “disappeared” reverberate in every line of today’s story that a nameless Black and Tan was reportedly shot and secretly buried on a windswept bog in North Kerry during “the Troubles”.

The report of the independent watchdog, the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG), on the failure of Government initiatives to improve educational prospects for children from poor backgrounds, is a damning indictment of the lack of co-ordination of school schemes.

PROOF, if it were needed, that the country is going through an epidemic of borrowing is highlighted in a report showing that some 206,000 new mortgages are being taken out every year — a staggering 800 a day.

WITH the General Election only nine months away, the battle for the hearts and minds of voters is now under way in earnest and the salvos fired by Fianna Fáil in Mayo yesterday will be echoed by the Fine Gael-Labour alliance in Westmeath today.

A MAJOR investigation into delays in the investigation and prosecution of murder and rape cases in the Republic has come to some damning conclusions.

IT is appalling that victims of sexual abuse are waiting up to two years before receiving full-time counselling support from a State scheme set up to help people recover after their traumatic experience.

PRESIDENT Mary McAleese has touched a raw nerve by referring to Ireland’s dark love affair with alcohol.