THE debate about abolishing the Seanad reminds me of the Groucho Marx line: “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.”

THE tobacco industry’s unprecedented visit to Taoiseach Enda Kenny and his ministers Michael Noonan and Alan Shatter would appear to have been a failure.

SO now Alan Shatter knows what it is like to be on the receiving end of political attack inspired by Garda tittle-tattle.

FORMER Taoiseach John Bruton keeps grabbing the headlines. Two weeks ago, on this page, I deplored his intervention into the abortion debate, one that could have caused unnecessary difficulty for Enda Kenny, the first Fine Gael leader to follow Bruton as Taoiseach.

WHO remembers the stated reasons for putting the bank guarantee in place and then, subsequently, to give the Irish-owned banks €64bn in additional capital to cover their losses?

JOHN Bruton is retired from active politics.

HOW does a person “prove” themselves to be suicidal? By killing herself or himself?

HERE’S a scenario that I imagine that Joe Schmidt was not asked to address during his interview yesterday for the job as new Irish rugby coach.

IT’S easy enough to understand why Cricket Ireland is so upset with international player John Mooney’s comments about the death of Margaret Thatcher, despite his subsequent apology.

BUST property developer Seán Dunne has been all over the news this week, his behaviour in trying to avoid the financial consequences of his failures giving rise to much harsh and disbelieving comment.