I’m delighted that Pope Francis’ encyclical on climate change got a positive response. However, caring for the environment must also involve caring for human beings.

The economics behind this new minimum alcohol pricing venture are misguided.

Doing what I do on a daily basis I was surprised to see the editorial in last Saturday’s edition, worrying if we were putting tourists off coming to Ireland because of the high cost of wine in our restaurants.

The Pope’s new brand of socialism runs like this; if the developed nations with their 1 billion people share their resources with the nations of the third world and their 6-7 billion people, then the whole world’s problems of war, poverty, climate change, crime and immigration will just disappear.

It is regrettable that the Republic of Ireland’s assistant manager, Roy Keane, should have been called before Manchester magistrates court.

So far, the Irish navy has rescued 1,700 men, women and children in the Mediterranean and deposited them in Italy.

The absurdity of the mission assigned to the Irish naval vessel, LE Eithne, is relayed to us almost daily.

“It is time a precedent was set and that the casual, nasty violence undermining our national games was stamped out”.

Looking at people in global positions of untrammelled power reminds me of the late comedian Bob Monkhouse, and a joke he told against himself: 

I would like to share my experience of transporting my dogs on board a Stena Lines ferry from Cherbourg to Rosslare, earlier this month.