When Jean came in to my office in Iveagh House she was taken aback and moved to see my photo of her brothers. On leaving Ireland after her term as ambassador she kindly gave me a gift of one of her own photos of the three brothers at home.

A leader whose job and whose performance is about his or her own ego never amounts to much.

CONGRATULATIONS on your excellent editorial on the health services (March 7).

HAVING sailed around the Mizen on many occasions I am well aware that the small bay between it and Three Castles Head is one of the nastiest and least-overlooked pieces of shoreline in the State.

POLITICIANS received more than €12.7 million from taxpayers last year to pay for everything from vanity polling to drinks parties, new figures reveal.

OUR Teflon Taoiseach’s outer layer is slowly unravelling, revealing an anorak lined with large pockets which appear to have been put to good use.

I REMEMBER an old and wise politician telling me once that you could sum up the difference between the three largest political parties in Ireland this way.

THE remains of CJ Haughey have been well kicked around in the media, during the past few weeks, in a Mussolini/Ceausescu-style outflow of resentment and pent-up anger, particularly among the older generation of citizens who lived through the not-so-rare ould times when he was pre-eminent.

CHARLES HAUGHEY was described as the dominant public figure of late 20th century as he was laid to rest yesterday in St Fintan’s Cemetery in Sutton in Dublin yesterday.

“WHEN you shall these unlucky deeds relate, speak of me as I am.”

ADMIRERS and supporters of former Taoiseach Charles Haughey remembered his years of service for the country yesterday.

THE most important piece of new information to come out of the RTÉ series on Haughey was the disclosure by former Deputy Commissioner Joe Ainsworth, head of the security division of the Garda Síochána, that Taoiseach Charles J Haughey summoned him to a meeting in the spring of 1982.

Political Editor, Laois

IT’S the silly season. Eddie and the lads are in Lanzarote, the AIL is on its festive break and everyone is taking the opportunity to do their reviews of the year.

“I AM drawing a line in the sand,” Ray Burke once said, after he had contemptuously swept aside a whole series of legitimate questions about his so-called political donations.