EUROPE’S policy — our policy — on asylum seekers is a moral and political failure. It may, in time, become the catalyst for terrible social division. In time it will certainly be ranked among the great inhumanities the rich and secure inflicted on the destitute and powerless.

Trust in the Garda and its accountability has been broken by the revelations this week, writes Mark Kelly

WHAT an extraordinary few days it has been. There is a temptation to reach for the term GUBU-esque in relation to what has unfolded with this blockbuster tale of bugging, surveilling, investigating and leaking.

The Garda Siochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) has said it ordered overnight surveillance clearance sweeps on its Dublin offices because it feared “exceptionally informed” comments aired in public had been leaked from its headquarters.

Simon O’Brien, the head of the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (Gsoc), suspects its headquarters have been placed under surveillance and he is looking internally for the spy.