THERE are still some supreme optimists who bask in the notion that the UK’s departure from the EU will enrich this country rather than damage it.

INDEPENDENT TD Maureen O’Sullivan has sought to defend a courtroom testimonial she wrote on behalf of a man convicted of IRA membership.

DISPLAYS of greed by bankers are hardly a surprise to anyone as every taxpayer in Ireland knows to their cost.

THE appalling, dishonourable decision by the profitable Independent News and Media (INM) to close its defined benefit pension scheme is another indication of how government after government has dodged its responsibilities. 

ON a secondary level one of the most disconcerting things about the child abuse scandals was the revelation that so many churchmen imagined themselves, and their church, beyond the reach of our Constitution, our criminal justice system, and our social mores. 

THE warning given to the Cabinet yesterday by Transport Minister Shane Ross yesterday afternoon about the precarious financial position of Bus Éireann was sobering but hardly surprising. 

THERE are very few areas where the sobering truth — “the monkey with the biggest stick? He gets all the coconuts” — cuts as deeply as it does in how our natural resources are exploited. 

IN the grand ledger book of European liberal democracies — one that may need to be rebound soon enough — only time will tell if the defeat, and subsequent resignation, of Italy’s prime minister Matteo Renzi might be counter-balanced by the victory of centrist candidate Alexander Van der Bellen in Austria’s presidential election on Sunday.

NEW ZEALAND’S Prime Minister John Key is one of the very few modern political leaders to surrender power on his own terms.