AN ATTEMPT by Finance Minister Brian Lenihan to deflect blame for his communications’ failures has backfired badly.

THE question of whether or not Taoiseach Brian Cowen was hungover during his interview with Morning Ireland was not as serious as his failure to grasp the significance and seriousness of such outings.

THE decision to split Anglo Irish Bank into a funding bank and an asset recovery bank received a mixed response from economists who described it as “confusing” and lacking in clarity.

DEPUTY John Cregan’s partisan letter (March 1) attacking RTÉ for its coverage of the Mahon Tribunal is a flagrant abuse of his position as chairperson of the Oireachtas Committee on Communications, and it represents neither Fine Gael members of that committee nor “the Irish taxpayer and the licence-paying public”, as it claims.

PUBLICITY-hungry junior minister Ivor Callely’s office ran up a photography bill three times as big as that of his Cabinet boss while he was at the Health Department.

MARTIN CULLEN’S €1,200-a-day PR adviser, Monica Leech, has been paid more taxpayers’ money than it costs to employ the entire staff of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s press office for a full year.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will visit Washington at the end of the month, Israel Radio reported today.

ISRAELI Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will boycott the BBC when he visits London next week.

Israeli premier Ariel Sharon will boycott the BBC when he visits London next week, it was reported today.

Journalist Mohammed Daraghmeh, who reports on events in the West Bank for The Associated Press, was released late today after being detained by Israeli troops earlier in the day

Israeli forces have stormed Yasser Arafat’s besieged three-story office building, a Palestinian Cabinet minister said today.