Here are some of the words that don’t appear at all in the treaty: euthanasia, family planning, abortion, contraception or divorce.

DEAR Taoiseach-in-waiting, not long to go now. At 2.30pm tomorrow, the house will be called to order and nominations will be put in place for the office of taoiseach. There may be some wrangling about the procedures, which would be normal enough.

HERE’S an arresting sentence (possibly in more ways than one): “Our fundamental aim, in all that we do, is to make it easy for people who want to do business with us and to make it difficult for those who don’t.”

I GOT one of those emails during the week. You know the kind — the round-robin, forwarded by a friend to everyone on her email list, that’s supposed to make you smile. And it did, until I read the sting in the tail.

IS it just me or is anyone else getting a bit tired of the endless round of celebrations of the only true peacemakers?

A leader whose job and whose performance is about his or her own ego never amounts to much.

BANKS tend to be big employers. For instance, most of the largest private sector employers in Europe are banks — HSBC Holdings, BNP Paribas, Royal Bank of Scotland, Credit Suisse.

ANOTHER year, another military parade. Another reading of the Proclamation of Independence on the steps of the GPO.

I WANT you to imagine the publication of a tribunal report. It’s a report into the way a particular business has been supported and its publication has been long awaited.

We are going to see a period of cutbacks now.