Paul Kiely is a man who got around. He was a very busy bee in the charity and voluntary sector. Chief executive of this company; secretary of another; and board member of a third — all of which were interlinked. A man like that could do with a rest after his strenuous efforts, and what better way to kick back than with an obscene pension.

Why didn’t Michael Noonan just throw €6 million at his native city? He could have got somebody like Patricia Ryan to rebrand the city, going forward, adding value as she went, all the way to a performance-related bonus.

ELECTRICITY pylons are set to stretch out across the landscape in 2014. The issue is embedded in the political culture of this country.

This column was flummoxed last week when a package arrived all the way from 2014.

LADS, for the love of God, is there any chance at all that you might come back to us? We’ve been on our own now for a week, and things have been going steadily downhill.

ON Dec 7, 2007, Jim Nugent told the Mahon Tribunal, under oath, that he had been involved in a whip-around for Bertie Ahern.

EVERY now and again, the past rises up to smite the present, and last week presented once such prime example.

Wherefore the halos, oh how they slip so lightly.

HAVE you heard about the ‘Chinese walls’ in hospitals? These walls separate tranches of money gathered for the functioning and upkeep of the hospitals, it was revealed last week.

The embers of the past sparked into flames over the last few days, as tales of ordinary madness reminded us, once more, of just how demented were the bubble years.