HAVING walked out on Sunderland, Roy Keane feels ready to return to football management. Some club, desperate for success and seduced by his status as a man associated with success, is likely to be foolish enough to grant him his wish. Foolish because Keane does not appear to have the maturity to replicate the type of success as a manager that he achieved as an outstanding player.

GIVEN the extraordinary lack of popular support from which the Government now suffers — and Labour’s surpassing of Fianna Fáil in the opinion polls for the first time ever — it is remarkable how little clamour there has been for a general election to be called. Such is the cynicism about politics and politicians there seems to be little appetite to demand change.

The report quoted statistics from the Revenue Commissioners that show half of all income tax — e6.5 billion — is paid by the top 6.5% of taxpayers and that one-third of all income tax is paid by the top 2.5% of taxpayers, numbering just 60,000 out of the total 2.4 million income earners.

AS there’s a shortage of bread (money) in Ireland at present we may as well enjoy whatever circuses are presented to us. Let’s be thankful therefore for having the GAA.

THE “joke” has become a bit tiresome but it is so widespread that it cannot be avoided.

YESTERDAY’S announcement by the Government of its rejection of the Ryanair offer to buy and take control of Aer Lingus has been based largely on the belief that the creation of a monopoly would be anti- competitive and bad for consumers.

THE spectre of the bogeyman has re-entered Irish politics. The bogeyman is the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with which we were threatened last during the 1980s. The IMF is the lender of last resort, the place where a country goes for money when it can’t get it anywhere else.

PRAISE for Tony O’Reilly is in short supply in Waterford these days but the workers at the city’s near-doomed crystal manufacturer should be inclined to offer a word or two of thanks to their former chairman for his efforts to save the company.

IN AN ideal world every new year should start on an optimistic note. The change in the calendar offers a psychological opportunity for change, for betterment, for renewal. Whatever went before is past and all can be started afresh.

NOBODY does more to undermine the authority of the Dáil than the politicians employed there.