IT’S almost impossible to describe Shanghai. A city of 20 million people that seems to go on for ever.

I DECIDED last Saturday night, listening to the experts talking, that I finally knew what has been going wrong with the Irish rugby team.

AS they say in the movies, we need to be afraid. Very afraid. There’s a story being told, and it’s a pretty frightening one.

DAVID QUINN is a valuable and important social commentator, perhaps the leading Catholic commentator in Ireland. While I would find myself in disagreement with him, and with his perspective, more often than not, I have always had a lot of respect for the honesty and passion with which he presents his case.

IT appears from all the newspaper reports that the HSE is facing a financial crisis. And it seems as if the organisation, set up to meet the needs of our entire population for healthcare and a great deal more, is going to have to face that crisis alone.

THERE was a palpable air of disappointment among the media commentators I spoke and listened to over the weekend. Labour wasn’t going to beat itself up over a leadership election.

We tend to think that any move in the direction of greater unity on the island of Ireland will involve pain and surrender by unionists.

WHEN the bill that enabled the privatisation of Aer Lingus was introduced to the Dáil, it was debated over four days.

A CIVILISED society should have a good health service, able to make its sick people better and to treat them with respect and dignity.

And you can’t defend something that, when you boil it all down, really makes no contribution at all. As a body, despite costing tens of millions a year, it adds nothing to public discourse or debate, and hasn’t done so for years. It has no role whatever in terms of providing checks and balances.