IN an Interview over the weekend Minster Simon Coveney when talking about the new government, said: “We don’t think that it’s fair or equitable that Irish taxpayers should be required to take on all of the debts associated with the mistakes made by Irish banks and by banks who lent money to Irish banks.”

No candidate has reached the quota in the Cork South West constituency. Six candidates have been eliminated - candidates Butler, Doonan, Kearney, McCaughey, McInenerty and Michael O'Sullivan.

LABOUR’S finance spokesperson Joan Burton went into a post-budget tirade about how the budget would not enable people to shop more.

I ENJOYED Brian Cowen’s recent economics lesson to the Dáil.

I MUST laud the Government on its brave plan to create 300,000 new jobs.

THE rate of return that investors are seeking on Irish government bonds keeps getting higher and higher, especially when compared to that sought for German bonds.

MATTHEW Elderfield for Taoiseach.

ACTIVITY on a neo-Nazi internet-based forum has dramatically increased since the killing of 15-year-old Nigerian boy Toyosi Shitta-bey on Good Friday.

ON the FIFA website, under there mission statement, they have the following “We believe that, just as the game itself, FIFA must be a model of fair play, tolerance, sportsmanship and transparency”.

THE Commission on Taxation proposed to leave the current rate of corporation tax unchanged at 12.5%.

RECENTLY the Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, said Fianna Fáil’s poor showing in the latest opinion poll was the price the party paid for steering the country through difficult economic times.

SINCE the onset of the recent recession many people have called for a government of national unity to help us steer the country towards calmer waters.

ON his visit to the US this week, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said “a tiny, evil minority sought to destroy what the people of Ireland have built”.

DURING Barack Obama’s presidential election campaign, one of his proposals was an extra 1% tax on those earning more than $250,000 a year which, it transpires, is less than 3% of the American population.

I’M fascinated by the response of Government ministers to the phenomenon of people travelling north to do their shopping.