I repeat that I witnessed assaults regularly. I saw some boys get pretty serious beatings, although not enough to require hospitalisation, thankfully. Sometimes it happened for the most trivial of offences, such as speaking out of turn, being late for class or for being unable to answer a question correctly

In slow motion, it looked like he was treating Cullen’s face like a bowling ball, looking for the holes where he would put his fingers. Even if it wasn’t deliberate – and we will never know what went through Quinlan’s mind in that split-second – it was still a dangerous thing to do.

The Government has told us there will be more tax increases in next December’s budget, that child benefit will be cut, that other social welfare benefits are under threat and that public spending will have to be cut. That is not a media construct

The key complicating factor in the ticket equation is the group to which I belong: the Munster exile living in Dublin. We’re taking many of the tickets allocated to Leinster fans for the simple reason that this is where it’s easier for us to get our hands on them. There are nowhere near as many Leinster-born people living in Munster to take the Munster tickets

In retrospect, Harney should have gone when McCreevy did. Ahern’s decision to move the government to a populist high spending position was one that must have been alien to her instincts. It also sowed the seeds of our economic destruction, as the government’s finances became overly reliant on the transitory construction boom

It would be extraordinary if busy gardaí decided to do something about the alleged “crimes” of incitement to hatred, indecency, and criminal damage, the reasons given for the questioning of Conor Casby, painter of the offending items

Can you imagine Cowen responding to Kenny or Gilmore with the dignity Kidney employed to dispense with Gatland’s barbs? Kidney refused to be riled and didn’t lose focus. Cowen regularly shouts and snarls when under pressure and fails to think clearly as a result

Fingleton’s pay package for 2008 totalled *2.34m. This was higher than his 2007 pay of *2.31m. He took the money although he must have known at that stage that the society’s profits for the year were collapsing and that the risks that much of the loans he had sanctioned will not be repaid.

SYMPATHY for the financial plight of others is something not easily found these days, even when it is deserved. Almost everyone seems to have their own worries.

THE old adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity is being tested in U2’s case.