THE announcement of the EU referendum and the subsequent hari-kari within Fianna Fáil may have drawn attention away from Aengus Ó Snodaigh’s remarkable campaign of state-funded printing, but Sinn Féin’s seemingly relentless electoral rise could be checked by any more similar revelations.

THE invoice for my eldest daughter’s summer trip to the Gaeltacht arrived the other day. It is for a sizeable amount, sufficiently large to make me to gulp and wonder if this is a good investment of money, for that and a number of other reasons.

THE cause of Whitney Houston’s death remains undisclosed but the widespread assumption is that it was caused by drugs.

MICHAEL Noonan is reconsidering an idea that he and other ministers rejected last October: people with money built up in a pension fund, but which they can’t access until they reach retirement age, should be allowed to take some of the money prematurely if it can be used to pay down debts that they cannot repay otherwise.

The length of time being taken on the Anglo Irish Bank investigation is deeply worrying. It is to be hoped that everything is being prepared properly to ensure that any prosecutions are warranted and, given the cost involved in the three-year investigation, then successful.

IT must have seemed like a good idea at the time, when a video using material from a dashboard camera in a taxi was uploaded to Facebook and YouTube showing a guy jumping out of his car without paying his fare.

JUNIOR minister Roísín Shortall should be congratulated on trying to stimulate a national debate on alcohol consumption, especially among young people.

YEARS ago one of my best friends told me that “all people are mad, it’s just a question of degree”. It has stuck with me ever since. What is “normal”? What is “mad”? Is one better or worse? Who decides?

POSSIBLY the most impressive book of last year — the best I read anyway — was about one of the most significant people to have died during 2011.

THE new year is likely to be horrible for the Government.