It is 22 years since the almost Dickensian conditions of mentally-ill patients were identified as being in radical need of an overhaul.

The assertion by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern yesterday that the finding of the Sullivan report, whereby “an administrative error” failed to alert the Attorney General in the statutory rape debacle, is now a matter for civil service, beggars belief.

HAVING dithered over the privatisation of the national airline, yesterday’s Government decision to sell off Aer Lingus could hardly have been more ill-timed.

IT is not good enough that an anonymous official should have to carry the can for the administrative error which triggered the Supreme Court decision on statutory rape.

THE big rise in complaints against companies providing financial services for the public is a cause of considerable concern, especially as it comes amid rumblings that firms are threatening to challenge the constitutionality of the statutory powers vested in the Ombudsman.

FESTERING wounds will be re-opened by the latest chapter of the Baron Report.

DESPITE the tentative judgment by the Commission on Electronic Voting that it can recommend the machines but not the election management software, the Government’s claim that it was vindicated in spending so much on the system rings hollow.

THERE would be no need for the unseemly rush to push through important legislation at the last minute if the Dáil took a responsible attitude to the time off it allows itself for holidays.

IT is a harrowing but incontrovertible fact that the further a patient lives from a centre of treatment, the greater the chance of becoming another victim of cancer.

IF there is one area in which the Dáil is a shining example to most other parliaments in Europe, it is in the amount of time it gives itself in holidays and time off.