THE State is getting into the retail shopkeeping business, selling bras and knickers, shoes and shirts, beds, chairs and tables, pots and pans, televisions and games consoles, luggage and lots else too.

POLITICAL contacts can be bought very cheaply in this country. Always has been the case and always will be, it seems, no matter what happens at tribunals and the like in exposing the carry-on between politicians and wealthy business people.

SUPERMARKET giant Tesco’s announcement this week that it is expanding its Irish operations — and would create nearly 750 new jobs in the process of investing about €113 million — seemed like a shining light amid all the economic gloom.

IF ROY Keane ever gives up football management then a brilliant career as a controversial TV pundit beckons.

TIARNAN O’Mahoney’s decision to remain as chairman of the Irish Pensions Board is truly extraordinary.

GEORGE LEE might be forgiven had he indulged himself in a bit of “whatifery” on Monday evening as news of Richard Bruton’s sacking as deputy leader and finance spokesman of Fine Gael emerged. For example, what if Lee had remained in the Dáil rather than packing in political life last February for a quick return to the relative comforts of RTÉ?

I DON’T how President Mary McAleese did it. Last Friday she and her husband Martin entertained Ian Paisley and his wife Eileen at Áras an Uachtarán.

INADVERTENTLY, Senator Ivor Callely may have done the state a massive favour. By his selfish actions, in what some would describe as giving a false address to maximise the amount of expenses he could claim from the state, he has emphasised the expensive uselessness of Seanad Éireann.

ANDREW WAKEFIELD, now struck off the medical register in Britain because of his dangerous campaign falsely to link the MMR vaccine to autism, is a lucky man that being disbarred from practice is all that has happened to him. Why are there no laws in Britain to prosecute charlatans like him when their lies damage the public health and become common currency worldwide?

THE argument that the country needs 166 Dáil members is diminished somewhat by the tardiness of the Government’s approach to holding the three by-elections to fill vacant seats.