NEXT month’s setting up of Ireland’s first dedicated free helpline for suicidal teenagers is to be welcomed.

A CYNIC might describe the Government’s ban on the commercial use of sunbeds by those under 16 as a headline-grabbing publicity stunt to deflect criticism from the glaring inadequacies of cancer services in Ireland.

LOVE him or hate him, Roy Keane is one of the greatest players ever to grace the game of soccer — a towering figure on the Irish, British and world stage.

EXTENSIVE progress has been made in the marathon negotiations to continue the social partnership that underpinned the Sustaining Progress agreement.

PLANS for the €350 million redevelopment of the stadium at Lansdowne Road would already seem to be in difficulty before they have been formally drawn up.

THE concerns of GPs over difficulties in prescribing contraceptives to those below the age of consent has again highlighted the urgent need for clarity in our child sex laws.

GOVERNMENTS may fall and stock markets may fluctuate, but those events will be eclipsed by the global epidemic of football fever set to dominate the planet for the next month — following yesterday’s opening of the 18th World Cup in Germany.

PREDICTABLY, health was top of the political agenda yesterday with the parties keenly aware they face a grilling on the doorstep in the general election campaign next spring.

As employers and unions finally accept the social partnership agreement Towards 2016, there are worrying signs it is already going out-of-date because of Ireland’s worrying inflation trend.

TODAY’S hard-hitting report from the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Energy is a loud wake-up call for Government, a landmark document that underlines the need for radical policies to ensure national energy security, based on affordable and dependable supplies, critical to the economy.