THE Government is dizzy from all the U-turns. On Wednesday night Minister for Children Barry Andrews declined to appear on Vincent Browne’s news programme to discuss the report of the Commission on Child Abuse. Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe declined a similar invitation from Morning Ireland.

RYAN Tubridy’s selection as next host of the Late Late Show did not come as a great surprise. He was always on the shortlist.

IN a review of Brian Cowen’s first year as Taoiseach, RTÉ News mentioned he had to face an unprecedented series of crises and that none of his predecessors “ever had to deal with problems of such severity”.

On October 6 the city reported a record 289 deaths in a single day, but it soon got more than twice as bad. The following week one of the victims was my grandmother – who was in Pennsylvania on holidays at the time.

DISHONEST, disloyal, destructive, disgraceful are just some of the words that can be used to describe this Government, which is unquestionably the worst that this country has had to endure since independence.

ON Monday the attention of the nation was focused on two funerals — that of Garda Robert McCallion, who was mown down in Donegal, and Roy Collins, the businessman shot in Limerick.

THE Government did not do as much as it should have in providing proper leadership. It cut pensions to sitting ministers and deputies, but it did nothing about the untouched expenses. Yet they did more than I expected. That was not a compliment; if that is a compliment, it was simply that they are not as obtuse as I feared. They have learned something from their recent mistakes.

THERE was a frightening photograph on the front page of the Irish Examiner on Thursday of a seemingly endless line of people queuing for food at 8.30 in the morning at the Capuchin Day Centre in Bow Street, Dublin.

THE authorities absurdly suggested during the week that Conor Casby, the artist who painted the controversial portraits of Brian Cowen, was guilty of indecency, incitement to violence and criminal damage.

WHEN President Barack Obama met the press on Tuesday morning to discuss his budget proposals, he was sporting a green tie to mark St Patrick’s Day. “Green tie, not bad, huh?” he began.