TWO THINGS I pleasurably waste a lot of time on are property supplements and travel websites.

Unlike many other recent political memoirs, this book pulls few punches and is an authentic transcription of the acuity, caustic manners and occasional bias of the man, writes Gerard Howlin

MÁIRIA Cahill’s case is not primarily about sexual abuse. It is about abuse, and abuse is about power. 

THE big hoopla wasn’t the Budget yesterday, it will be the public-sector pay talks next year. Politically and fiscally, that is where the real action is.

Gerard Howlin argues that for the radical left same-sex marriage is simply patriarchy reincarnated in drag.

ARTS Minister Heather Humphreys is reputationally dead-on-arrival. Her demise is less about dastardly deeds than the damning belief she was led by the nose. That impression was confirmed by her near incoherence when questioned by the media and her refusal to answer questions since. There is nothing so debilitating for a minister as a fool’s pardon.

Beneath the palaver about budgetary arithmetic and you find a shark-like instinct for political survival. Deadlines famously focus the mind, and there is no deadline is like a looming election.

Dáil Éireann sits again this afternoon after the summer recess, serene in the knowledge that alone of the five main legislative assemblies on these islands it is impervious to the possibility of effective change. 

LAST Sunday’s YouGov opinion poll showing a lead for the yes side in the Scottish independence referendum, was a bowel- loosening moment for the British establishment. 

WE don’t get out as much as we should. Not that you would know it from the notions we have.