Three respected political figures have combined to form Ireland’s first Social Democratic party but Kyran Fitzgerald wonders if they have a future.

I want to argue that Jean Claude Trichet’s ‘secret’ letter to Brian Lenihan and the consistent pressure directed at two governments, and by default every citizen in the Republic, now needs to be brought to the European Court of Human Rights .

THE title of this new book from Cork University Press, Viewpoints: Theoretical Perspectives on Irish Visual Texts, promises to lead the reader into intriguing and less-travelled territories.

I will never forget the sunny evening of June 14, 2006. I sat in a café on Berlin’s Kurfuerstendamm watching Germany play Poland in a World Cup match in Dortmund: an intense, low-quality game. In injury time, Germany broke down the right and Oliver Neuville stabbed in the winning goal at the near post.

PHILIP O’Neill (Letters, Jan 5) makes a number of valid points in his comments on atheism/theism.