There were about 50,000 people in broken marriages 25 years ago, and there are 100,000 divorced people a quarter of a century later, writes Fergus Finlay.

THE general election of 1989 was the first to produce a Fianna Fáil coalition government. 

Senior Celtic Tiger cabinet members, including Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowen, and Mary Harney, are still receiving gold-plated ministerial pensions worth up to €80,000 a year, despite seven years of economic crisis.

The bank guarantee and the eighth amendment were born of ignorance and we are still rectifying the damage, argues Fergus Finlay

SUNDAY

Albert Reynolds was triumphant when the Beef Tribunal presented its final report in 1994, its 580 pages containing bizarrely benign conclusions about the key players under its scrutiny.

ALBERT REYNOLDS was a unique taoiseach in that he was also a highly successful businessman. Unlike any of the other taoisigh who held the office since the foundation of the State, he came into politics on the back of a career as an entrepreneur.

Plastic bag usage has been practically wiped out as a direct result of the decade-old levy on the environmental hazard.

Irishman David O’Sullivan will be the EU’s ambassador to Washington for the next five years, in a post previously held by former taoiseach John Bruton.

TOM GILMARTIN could well claim to have been responsible for exposing the dodgy finances of two of the leading politicians of his time.

The businessman whose allegations exposed wide-spread political corruption in Ireland and brought an early end to the political career of former taoiseach Bertie Ahern has died.

Tom Gilmartin, one of the key witnesses at the Mahon Tribunal into planning corruption, has died.

The bishops were quick out of the blocks last week to smite the proposed referendum on same-sex marriage.

THE whistleblower’s lot can be lonely. Remember Sheena McMahon? She was a young mother, who, in the mid-1990s, told of madness in sections of the gardaí in Donegal.

Down 1-16 Derry 0-19

ONE word has been largely missing from the reams of coverage of the Anglo Tapes and that word is... morality.

Tommy Barker says this 1970s large detached house in Ovens, Co Cork has been freshened up to move with the times.

Many of the entrepreneurs in an aptly titled 2008 book of business self-congratulation have gone bust, says Tommy Barker

FOR five decades, Gay Byrne has taken a central role in Ireland’s national conversation.

As pay levels of top-earning bankers come under intense scrutiny, updated figures show taxpayers are also footing an annual €9.65m pensions bill for 111 former ministers.

Former minister Mary O’Rourke writes candidly about her political, family, and personal life in her memoirs which were last night launched by Mary McAleese, the former president.

Róisín Shortall laid the blame bluntly at James Reilly’s door, says Political Editor Paul O’Brien

Iconic RTÉ reporter Charlie Bird has announced his retirement after 38 years on the airwaves — but insists he wants “new challenges” in an apparent push for bids from rival stations.

Ireland may not be corrupt in the way Mugabe’s Zimbabwe or Putin’s Russia is — citizens don’t disappear if they challenge the incumbent autocrat, the majority don’t starve while a kleptomaniac dictator drains the public coffers — but that legislation as obvious and basic as that advanced this week suggests we have some considerable catching up to do if we are to at least confront corruption in Irish life.

Fifty years of broadcasting were bridged across the interviewer’s desk as incumbent Ryan Tubridy sought to prise the secrets of The Late Late Show from its master Gay Byrne.

SOMETIMES, the circus gets out of hand. Last Sunday, a Government minister decried the slow rate of progress in criminal investigations into the banking collapse and the results from tribunal reports.

Pádraig Flynn could lose his €50,000 EU pension depending on the outcome of the Criminal Assets Bureau investigation, the European Commission has said.

Taking into consideration the fact that you have low income families trying to survive on €300 per week and expecting them to pay the €100 household charge, I think it is an absolute disgrace that you have the likes of Bertie Ahern and Padraig Flynn on pensions of €150,000 per year, or €3,000 per week who, along with their corrupt Fianna Fáil cronies, have cost taxpayers €300m in the Mahon Tribunal.

Politics has to be taken out of policing to protect it from Government interference, middle-ranking gardaí have said.

Even allowing for the drawn-out choreography of politics, the reluctance of Health Minster James Reilly, while speaking on RTÉ yesterday, to be even-handed about those indicted by the Mahon and Moriarty tribunals was as disheartening as it was tragic.

A special meeting of the Fianna Fáil Árd Chomhairle held last night has endorsed party leader Micheál Martin's response to the Mahon tribunal final report.

Fianna Fáil will not take any action against Albert Reynolds, despite the Mahon Tribunal making adverse findings against him.

Since the publication of the Mahon Tribunal report, there has been much breast beating about corruption. Politicians have lined up to decry how planning was debased by corrupt councillors.

UBIQUITOUS coverage and analysis of the Mahon Tribunal report suggests we have arrived at a watershed moment in Irish politics.

Joan Burton, the social protection minister, has raised questions about Government members interacting with individuals criticised by tribunals following the appearance of Enda Kenny at a public event with businessman Denis O’Brien.

The Fine Gael Party Chairman, Charlie Flanagan, has called for an independent commission against corruption to be set up and chaired by Judge Mahon, following the publication of the Mahon Tribunal Report.

The Government is promising to announce a plan of action in the wake of the Mahon Tribunal within six weeks.

The Government Publications Office has confirmed that hard copies of the Mahon Tribunal report will not be available until the end of April.

Micheál Martin has said evidence from the Mahon Report was sufficient enough to pursue charges against party officials.

Two more Fianna Fáil members criticised in the damning Mahon Tribunal report resigned from the party yesterday ahead of a motion to expel them later this week.

The Fianna Fáil leader has called for "general proceedings" against Padraig Flynn - for the state to recover a IRL£50,000 payment, described as corrupt by the Mahon Tribunal.

Two more members of Fianna Fáil are resigning from the party before motions to expel them are taken.

How Pádraig Flynn must rue his arrogant dismissal on The Late Late Show of Tom Gilmartin’s corruption allegations as those of a man “not well” and “out of sorts”.