Ministers going abroad for St Patrick’s Day are an easy target and while the usual mantra about the return on the cost of the flights and five-star hotels is trotted out to justify the exodus, it is reasonable to ask where is the evidence for this claimed return on this investment.

I refer to yesterday’s press release from the SEAI, and the assertion by its chief operations officer, Dr Brian Motherway, that “we have a transparent and functioning planning process, which has proven itself capable, time and again, of making objective decisions”.

Lovely weather we seem to be having recently. We’re just out of one the most powerful and destructive storms ever to be seen in Ireland.

The news that the Paris Bakery in Moore Street is to be forcibly closed is the latest twist in the bizarre planning history of the Carlton Site.

The Minister for Education Ruiarí Quinn has been reported as saying that a second consecutive term in office for the coalition might be achievable on the grounds that Fianna Fáil ‘are so weakened and so low in numbers’.

There will be a five-day tour to the historic Somme area of France to visit cemeteries, memorials, museums and attend historical presentations this summer.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore’s heartfelt speech at the Labour Party Conference reflected the harsh and extreme reality endured by many Irish households. But the time for emotive language and patriotism has long since passed.

I was amongst the thousands who emigrated in the late 1940s and early 1950s, destination England where I spent the next 46 years working for one company for 38 years during which time they had me working in 14 different countries over 22 of them.

At least we were not alone in treating orphans and children belonging to unmarried mothers abominably in the past.

There has been a huge outcry against the killing of a giraffe at Copenhagen zoo, and the feeding of its carcass to lions, while people watched.