If things go as normal, the name of the next Garda commissioner will be announced after a Cabinet conclave.

The situation in the Ukraine today has frightening parallels with the Europe of the late 1930s.

The ongoing controversy concerning charities brings to mind another form of charity — that dispensed by local and national government to the party faithful.

Given the strains within the Irish Catholic Church, some form of breakaway of significant proportions cannot be ruled out.

Gerry Moore (letters Saturday Oct 13th), when making an assertion that “perhaps it’s time to restrict the number of children per family for whom benefit is paid, based on the needs of the society”, might set out exactly how this reconciles with his later assertion that resources must be centred on the children and not their parents.

With child-benefit reform being discussed, perhaps it’s time to restrict the number of children per family for whom benefit is paid, based on the needs of the society.

The recognition by the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation of the lesbian, gay and bisexual teachers group provides a stark contrast with the attitudes which formerly prevailed, as the following anecdote will illustrate.

IT was the first time for as long as the regulars could remember that Willie O’Dea wasn’t sitting in his usual spot in the Windmill Bar on Henry Street, where he holds a clinic every Friday at teatime.

So many have mused this week ... ‘if only the Thomond Park pitch could talk’. Now, with the help of Diarmuid O’Flynn, it can.

ALL trains from Cork, Limerick and Kerry have been sold out for Munster’s eagerly-awaited European Cup quarter-final tie with Perpignan at Lansdowne Road tomorrow.