McDowell talked emotively about his love of country, which he had demonstrated by his involvement in politics at considerable cost to himself.

Distortion ... may have had very little impact on voters on this occasion, but such behaviour does pose a fundamental threat to democracy, because any leader who seeks to lead by misleading is not fit to lead.

Only one of the country’s 37 public hospitals has a proper stroke unit, even though stroke is the third highest killer in this country.

After it was disclosed that Ben Dunne had paid for renovations to Michael Lowry’s house, Bertie said the “first duty of any minister is to the public whom he has been appointed to serve.

VINCENT BROWNE’S questioning of the Taoiseach at the launch of the Fianna Fáil manifesto on Thursday was riveting. Bertie Ahern was refusing to answer questions about the £30,000 he got from his friend Michael Wall in December 1994.

Garda Fallon’s family and the public have been denied access to the files on his murder.

Martin Fallon has a right to feel aggrieved.

ENDA KENNY delivered what many people considered his finest speech ever at the recent Fine Gael ard fheis during which he promised “a contract for a better Ireland.”

THE 1960s was the first time this country enjoyed prosperity since the foundation of the State, but that decade was marred by a series of strikes.

FOLLOWING my column two weeks ago, it was suggested that I was attacking Green Party policies and somehow suggesting there was no basis for conservation, recycling or cleaning up our air and water, and it was even said that I was suggesting that global warming is nonsense.