The head of the department with primary responsibility for the Public Services Card project has agreed that it would have been “preferable” if a full business case had been prepared for it at its inception.

GDPR should not be used as an obstacle to public information, writes Daniel McConnell.

Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty has been urged to explain why money is being spent on public service card "facial matching software" despite repeated assurances the Government has no plans to use the tool.

The Department of Health is warning a no-deal Brexit could have a severe impact on the health service.

President of the Irish Hospital Consultant Association, Dr Donal O'Hanlon, warned that the acute hospital system is "at breaking point" because of a severe shortage of consultants, beds and other facilities.

World leaders attending the G20 summit in Japan are clashing over the values that have served for decades as the foundation of their cooperation.

We need tangible results sooner than 2030 if we are to avert the worst effects of climate change, says Johan Rockström.

We can overcome with historical unification of mankind

The senior civil servant on the board of the National Children's Hospital has told the Dáil's Public Accounts Committee that he did nothing wrong by not telling cabinet ministers about the cost overruns associated with the project.

A cross-party investigation into the €5bn national broadband plan will also look at the best way to roll out a high-speed network to rural Ireland.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said the National Development Plan is now "in shreds" and Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe can no longer say he will find the extra money for spiralling costs of rural broadband, the national children's hospital and the proposed metro in Dublin.

Arts Minister Josepha Madigan has confirmed she and the Cabinet disagreed with concerns raised by senior officials on the €3bn National Broadband Plan.

The OECD has urged governments across the world to bolster social protections as workers face another surge of unprecedented automation in the coming years.

Six people have died in the capital of Khartoum, the seventh in Darfur, during protests in Sudan..

The pervasiveness of state-sponsored killings is no excuse for treating murder as acceptable, ever, writes Jeffrey D Sachs.

Senior civil servants have been accused of blocking transparency on public spending after it emerged that 11 cost reviews of multi-million-euro public-private projects are still to be published months after the investigations finished.

North Korea's foreign minister has arrived in Sweden for talks with his Swedish counterpart.

EU farmers opposed this week’s EU move to raise an offer on beef imports to 99,000 tonnes at low import tax rates, in trade talks with the Mercosur trade bloc.

The strength of protests shaking Iran was unclear on Thursday after a week of unrest that killed at least 21 people.

Burma has subjected Rohingya Muslims to long-term discrimination and persecution that amounts to "dehumanising apartheid", Amnesty International has said in a report.

There is no time to waste in tackling climate change but the world needs to be more ambitious in its targets, write Hilda Heine and Kevin Rudd.

Nato's secretary-general has apologised to Turkey over military exercises in Norway during which Turkey's founding leader, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, were reportedly depicted as "enemies".

This year is expected to be one of the hottest on record, with temperatures more than 1C above pre-industrial levels, the World Meteorological Organisation has said.

This year is expected to be one of the hottest on record, with temperatures more than 1C above pre-industrial levels, the World Meteorological Organisation has said.

IN a saner world it might be possible to say that this was the week that some Brexit chickens came home to roost but we do not know if we are dealing with chickens, cockatoos, parakeets or even a rejuvenated púca resplendent in Halloween battledress. 

The UN Security Council was called into emergency session today after North Korea conducted its longest-ever test flight of a ballistic missile.

About 240,000 children have fled Burma's Rakhine state into neighbouring Bangladesh over the last three weeks, according to a UN agency.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has said that ethnic cleansing is taking place in Burma against the Rohingya Muslim minority.

The news comes in response to an invitation from the Dominican Republic to explore the possibility of resuming talks on resolving the country's political upheaval.

The UN Security Council has unanimously approved new sanctions on North Korea.

A trawler carrying Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in Burma has capsized, drowning at least five people, as the UN said the crisis has pushed more than 125,000 refugees into Bangladesh.

The head of the UN has said he has confidence in the Irish general in charge of peacekeeping in Lebanon.

The Saudi-led coalition was responsible for more than half the children killed and injured in Yemen's civil war last year, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said.

The ruling clique is prolonging the agony by rejecting a democratic transition. The desperate, and repressed Venezuelan people deserve their country back, writes Enrique ter Horst.            

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said the United States may meet the Paris climate agreement's targets despite pulling out of the international deal.

From academic prowess to cutting-edge research, Ireland’s young women are an impressive bunch, writes Niamh Hennessy.

Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has affirmed that the alliance will join the international coalition fighting Islamic State (IS) - but will not wage direct war against the extremists.

Analysis of samples taken from a deadly sarin gas attack in Syria earlier this month "bears the signature" of President Bashar Assad's government and shows it was responsible for the deadly assault, France's foreign minister has said.

Charity founder Adi Roche has appealed to all children and families to remember, on this Wednesday, the Chernobyl disaster which occurred 31 years ago.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai has been made a UN Messenger of Peace.

Warmer, more acidic oceans will be a catastrophe for our planet. The time to act is now, write José Maria Figueres, Pascal Lamy and John D Podesta.

The UN Security Council has strongly condemned North Korea's ballistic missile launches and warned of "further significant measures" if Pyongyang does not stop nuclear testing.

The UN secretary-general has strongly condemned North Korea's latest ballistic missile launch ahead of an urgent Security Council meeting, while President Donald Trump pledged to deal with Pyongyang "very strongly".