The Government is coming under increasing pressure to establish a commission of investigation into the sale of Nama’s Northern Ireland loan book.

Former Rehab Group chief executive Angela Kerins is seeking to extend the courts’ control over parliamentary proceedings in a “very significant and wholly unprecedented” way, lawyers for the Dáil public accounts committee have told the High Court.

THE Government will, it seems, do anything it can to avoid speaking about, much less finally defining, the penalties that might be imposed on those who choose not to pay water charges before the election.

The Bethany Home survivors, and people of minority religious groups, are still being ‘abused’. Their ‘crime’ was to be born out of wedlock.

It’s a dangerous endeavour to comment on a budget the morning after it was presented high on pageant but low on detail.

Consultants Deloitte initially demanded over €166,000 for a 37-page report on the Government’s €3.6bn accounting error, Finance Minister Michael Noonan has confirmed.

A retiring city manager has received a bumper pension payoff of more than €310,000 after spending nine years in the job.

Another blessing for the Government is the fact that what you might call the moderate, pro-European but anti-Lisbon camp is largely leaderless. For all his egomania, Declan Ganley was a key factor in swaying undecided voters not to give their assent to a document they either felt they didn’t understand or suspected was deliberately obscure.

TOIRÉASA FERRIS was gracious in defeat after the surprise decision of her campaign team not to contest her elimination when she was just less than 700 votes behind Kathy Sinnott.

THE budget is still nearly three weeks away and speculation is already mounting about the Government’s ability to get it through the Dáil. Against all expectations when this government was formed, the Greens have developed a limpet-like grip on power. Only grim death will separate them from ministerial office, it seems.

Kosovo has never been a state and its parliament isn’t deemed worthy to do anything very much beyond collecting rubbish.

Europe's far-right led by French right-wing politician Jean-Marie Le Pen warned Irish voters that the country risks becoming "a local authority in a new supra-national body" if they vote yes in the referndum on the new EU reform treaty.

The Sinn Féin leadership meet tomorrow to discuss the party response to the St Andrews Agreement.