IT seems Craig Barrett might be the man to give us a state of the nation address.

The car is going to be the next battleground, and with good reason. The car is an enclosed space, even with the windows open, and the dangers (as well as unpleasantness) posed by second-hand smoke are obvious to most... it is still not uncommon to see adults smoking while children (or others) are in their company

Should we follow the American model of requiring the president to sit regular medical tests and of releasing the results? The BBC’s Jeremy Paxman was vilified in 2002 for asking Charles Kennedy on Newsnight what were pertinent questions about his drinking

The predictions are subjective and, it could be said, designed to suit whatever side of the argument people were paid to be on. Some of those making them had been correct before and others wrong, but as the ads say, past performance is no indicator of future performance

This talk that the institution of marriage would be somehow devalued by making it available to gay people is ridiculous. Surely the value of a heterosexual couple’s marriage is defined by the effort and commitment that they put into it rather than by the mere fact of their being married?

This is going to be a big problem for customers, both personal and business, of many of the other foreign-owned banks, especially if they abandoned AIB and Bank of Ireland for seemingly better deals and now have to go back to their original bankers, tails between their legs. Will they be entertained?

U2 TAKE to the stage in Croke Park tonight basking in some good publicity arising from Monday’s announcement of its provision of €5 million towards the musical education of some of the nation’s children.

The ability of the system to cope with a large-scale outbreak of swine flu must be in serious doubt given the problems it has in coping with demand for normal health services. Doctors and nurses will be put under severe stress to cope and will have to protect themselves from contracting the illness as well, not just for their own sake but so they don’t spread it further.

The temptation for the Yes side, if it avoids attacking personalities on the No side, might be to tell its own lies to win public support. I’m sorry for any cynicism, but victory might come down to the side that tells its own lies most convincingly or which scares the voters more

The bad economic news is unrelenting and unforgiving, but the Government is fearful of taking action, even though our recession is the deepest in the developed world, our recovery is many years off and will be weak when it happens, and non-existent until the public finances are sorted