It was refreshing to hear Taoiseach Enda Kenny acquaint the public with an eternal truism, in his announcement of the Government’s new jobs strategy and attitude to long-term welfare payments (Jul 18) — ‘there is nothing for nothing’, he said.

The Irish legal system has failed this country. After 15 years and hundreds of millions of euro, tribunals have been a waste. Their findings of corruption are meaningless without convictions.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore closed the Irish embassy to the Vatican for financial reasons, and a friend of mine left Mass at his local parish church to find Labour party members collecting at the church gates. My friend was livid at the audacity of Labour, because, after a long campaign against the Catholic Church, here they were, robbing Peter to pay themselves.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have become the parents of a baby boy. He will never know poverty, will receive the best of care, attention and education, and live a life of inherited wealth and privilege. This wealth and privilege will be handed down to his successors.

The arrival of a headline act like Bruce Springsteen to Cork was a welcome boost, providing hoteliers, taxi drivers and publicans with a boost in these dire economic times and a reminder to music promoters that there is a large market in the south.

I have heard and read the debate about gender balance in the Dáil, and am in favour of more women in politics.

The Taoiseach’s and the Minister for Justice’s lack of integrity, denying justice to the survivors of abuse in Bethany House, makes me despair that Ireland will ever change.

The Seanad faces extinction at the hands of the largest majority government in this State’s history, and it is probably the most vital referendum that ordinary people will ever vote in.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s insulting “nothing is free” comments take waffle and subterfuge to new levels. His comments were made in the context of another ‘jobs plan’, and it is obvious that the Government is admitting defeat and blaming the unemployed for being unemployed, so as to divert attention away from their abject failure.

I have attended many stadium events, both here and abroad, and I have never witnessed something as shambolic as the Bruce Springsteen concert at Pairc Uí Chaoimh on Jul 18.