It was with bitter irony I listened to Minister Brendan Howlin last week speak of our brave new world legislation on whistleblowers — ’gone are the days of circling the wagons’.

The Maternity Leave Directive, which was adopted by the European parliament in 2010, has been withdrawn entirely by the European Commission in a move made behind closed doors on July 15 in Brussels.

The real question about Gaza is: Would we allow what’s happening there to happen in Northern Ireland?

The downing of Malaysian Airline MH17 with the deaths of all passengers and its crew must call into question the sense of having flight paths over conflict areas.

It used to be so simple. If the local water main leaked, you phoned the local water authority, and they came out and fixed i

It really upsets me when I drive on the M8 motorway and see the sign ancestral home of Barack Obama and all the hype and publicity it gets — even our Taoiseach dropped in on July 4 to visit a new complex which opened up recently, and yet here we are a year later and no mention of Hacketstown, Co Carlow, birth place of William Presley great, great, great grandfather to the King of Rock ‘n Roll.

Has either side in the Israeli/Palestinian dispute even thought of relocating Gaza’s citizens into Jordan or Egypt?

When I visited Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory in January of this year I witnessed first-hand the devastation that prolonged occupation is having on Palestinian communities.

Irish media in general, together with the vociferous anti-Semites such as those involved in the so called anti-war movement, ignore the true realities behind the Middle East conflict.

Open Letter to Minister for Communication, Energy and Natural Resources