According to the latest Census, 250,000 new families were formed in the past year.

What a strange sense of priorities some people have.

Only a year ago, Leo Varadkar promised that neither bondholders nor banks would get “one more red cent”.

The report by Judge Michael Reilly, Inspector of Prisons (Jan 18), into the conditions within Limerick Prison came as no surprise to those familiar with the prison justice system in Ireland.

Finally, a member of government has stepped off the fence and told it like it is.

Far too many fishermen and seafarers have been lost to the sea.

In studying quangos and government bureaucracies in Ireland over the past six years I have concluded that 40% of these could be eliminated or joined with others, thereby saving the taxpayer millions of euro every year and making for a more efficient Government.

It is obvious now that the DES and the Minister for Education and Skills have little understanding of the logistics of running a school or of the level of essential support services necessary to help students following the decision to make career guidance teachers part of the normal staffing allocation.

It appears that the debate on fracking has become laden with fear mongering and rumour.

The issue of the Cloyne report has once again raised its ugly head along with the subsequent closure of the Irish Embassy to the Vatican.