I DON’T know what the penalty is for travelling into this country on a false passport, but it must be considerably better than 17 years in a Colombian jail.

IT was probably a huge understatement when Northern Secretary Peter Hain said after his meeting on Wednesday with Ian Paisley that the DUP had put its views of recent developments in the North "extremely strongly and critically".

THERE comes a time in Disney films when you have to suspend disbelief. That moment arrived yesterday for Northern Ireland, and this island as a whole, with the declaration by the IRA that it has ended its armed campaign and all that it implies.

BERTIE AHERN’S promotion of his former partner Celia Larkin to the interim board of the new National Consumer Agency (NCA) is hardly a bad hair day for him.

Pat Brosnan

BERTIE AHERN, is, quite simply, a hypocrite.

WHAT a sorry excuse for acknowledgement of such a gross injustice to the McBrearty family was uttered by our Justice Minister, Michael McDowell.

By Pat Brosnan

ONE could almost have sympathy for Education Minister Mary Hanafin when, with a helpless shrug, she pleaded that it was not possible to have every school bus fitted with seat belts by September.

APART from grand occasions, like a price increase, it’s an awesome sight to witness a gathering of a couple of hundred publicans spontaneously rise to their feet to give a standing ovation.