THE big question facing the Labour Party is when to stop telling lies. When to come out and tell the people that we are a small capitalist economy plugged into the international capitalist economy which gives us a high standard of living but sometimes forces us to keep commitments to international agencies, such as the EU, with whom we sometimes disagree.

I HAVE a friend who went to a posh Munster boarding school back in the 1970s. When the lights went out every night in the dorm the competition would always begin with the words: "My father has two Zetors."

CATHOLIC priests are no more likely to abuse minors than men of any other profession. They are no more likely to abuse minors than priests of any other denomination. They are slightly less likely to abuse minors than teachers.

IT’S Tuesday of this week and I’m driving my child home thinking there’s a strange silence about Gerry Adams’s arrest and I want to break it but I don’t know how.

IT STRUCK a sensitive nerve when the poet WJ Mc Cormack, aka Hugh Maxton, this week defended Aosdána’s annual funding of €2.7 million by mentioning that Fair City cost €11 million. This fact was met, according to an RTÉ report, with laughter from the floor of Aosdána’s general assembly meeting at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham.

GETTING the boot into the Catholic Church is always a good start for any Labour minister. Complaining that the Catholic hierarchy had not provided him with examples of how inclusiveness can work in Catholic schools two years after he had asked them to worked well for Ruairi Quinn before the teachers’ conferences got down to what mattered: restoring pay rates.

WE should be cautious of agreeing with UK Prime Minister and Conservative leader David Cameron on anything. When it comes to energy policy, we should steer well clear of him.

I KNOW I should be writing about President Higgins and Queen Elizabeth and the healing of history, but I can’t stop thinking about Peaches Geldof.

IT’S good to know our national broadcaster takes nothing at face value. They don’t just swallow the testimony of the thousands of leading scientists who have contributed to the work of the International Panel on Climate Change.

WILL there be truth now, or will we go on hiding?