DECLAN Ganley’s grand re-entry into the Lisbon Treaty referendum campaign should be a positive for the Yes side.

I SEE President Mary McAleese was in the US leading a trade delegation last week.

MARTIN CULLEN’S fortunate escape from a faulty helicopter over Killarney brings to mind another politician’s remark in similar circumstances.

TRANSPORT Minister Noel Dempsey made a great speech to his party’s árd fheis last weekend. Like those hard-hitting Meath footballers of some years back his tackle is a bit behind the referee’s back, though.

I SEE the offices of Anglo Irish Bank have been “raided” by fraud investigators. Can I assume there is very little left to find with the loot all gone?

REGARDING the recent “transfer” of money between Irish Life and Permanent and Anglo Irish Bank, how come we are always told there is nothing illegal about this kind of carry-on between consenting moneychangers?

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen, along with his predecessor Bertie Ahern and other FF office-holders, attended Tony Gregory’s funeral this week. No doubt, from their point of view, this a very proper thing to do.

THE death of Dr Conor Cruise O’Brien robs us of one of the best and brightest we have had in the past century in Irish politics.

ONE of the most disturbing things to emerge from the recent budget mess is the decision to stop block grants to Protestant schools. This will result in many of those mainly rural second-level schools having to close in isolated areas where they are very few in number.

AM I the only one who was mortified to hear Taoiseach Brian Cowen singing (or the nearest thing to singing) Paddy’s Green Shamrock Shore on Ceilí House and repeated on RTÉ radio on Saturday morning (August 30).

THE recent award of €20,000 to ‘Mr C’ for non-stop discrimination in his workplace should serve as a wake-up call. This was no ordinary workplace banter, but taunts about this man’s British nationality, his soccer team (probably by louts who support British teams themselves) and the singing of rebel songs of an IRA variety.

LAST Monday evening the leader of the Libertas group, Declan Ganley, was the celebrated guest of right-wing British Tories at Westminster.

SO we now have a Taoiseach who has not read the Lisbon Treaty, a Tánaiste who on at least two occasions did not know how many EU commissioners there are, and a dusted-down, tarred-and-feathered entry for the Eurovision Song Contest.

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen, who has signalled his intention to rein in an out-of-control public service and operate a value-for-money new departure, missed a glorious opportunity by filling 20 junior ministerial posts.

FORMER President Patrick Hillery’s funeral was dignified and fitting.

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern had another swipe at the Mahon Tribunal on Thursday, just one day after he announced his resignation effective from May 6.

JACK LANE (Letters, January 21), in his usual Pavlovian response to my contribution on the attacks on Protestants during the War of Independence, falls, perhaps unwittingly, into the well-worn tactic of blaming the victims for their own fate.

IT is difficult to fathom what Dr Martin Mansergh TD really is saying on hidden history and the fate of Protestants in or around the 1920s (Letters, January 7).

MANUS O’RIORDAN and Fr Iggy O’Donovan (Letters, December 24) point out some discrepancies in my letter (December 18) on the Taliban-style destruction of census records prior to 1901. Juxtaposition of the destruction of records during the War of Independence and Civil War, some gremlins and necessary editing of my letter presented the picture as obtained, which was not far removed from actual fact.

THE recent news that the census returns for 1901 and 1911 are to be made available on the internet is very welcome.

IN letters (December 4) on the awful killing of the Pearson brothers of Coolacrease in Co Offaly, Fr Brian Murphy OSB and Paddy Heaney fly in the face of facts.

I SEE that a Shell to Sea delegation recently met Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Eamon Ryan to protest against the terminal and gas pipeline in Erris, Co Mayo.

THE late John Wilson was, I’m sure, a fine public representative and minister over many years. He was also a noted classical scholar and Gaelic footballer.

HERE in Co Mayo we have the jaded protests against the Corrib gas project with the unfounded scares about pollution, quality of drinking water, etc.

RICHARD MURPHY of Westmeath Environmental Group asks why Energy Minister Noel Dempsey would not visit Rossport to see things for himself (Irish Examiner letters, November 10).

IT was great to see workers on site at the Ballinaboy gas terminal.

IN his letter headlined ‘Religion had nothing to do with struggle for independence’ (Irish Examiner, July 31), Pádraig Ó Cuanacháin takes me to task for suggesting that the killing of Mrs Lindsay and the sparing of Fr Shinnick was a sectarian response to their roles in trying to avert the Dripsey ambush in Co Cork and going to their relevant ‘sides’ in order to so do.

IN his letter headlined ‘Sectarian killings in South were nowhere near those in North (Irish Examiner, July 17), Niall Meehan says the “unjustifiable killings broke the terms of the Truce and they were immediately condemned by all sections of republican opinion”.

IN his letter headlined ‘Sectarian killings in South were nowhere near those in North (Irish Examiner, July 17), Niall Meehan says the “unjustifiable killings broke the terms of the Truce and they were immediately condemned by all sections of republican opinion”.

IN his feature article headlined ‘Sectarian wind up’ (Irish Examiner, June 26), Niall Meehan seems either to ignore or conveniently forget the facts surrounding the killing of Protestants in the west Cork area in the 1920s.

NOW that the Rossport Five are free I hope some reflection takes place and leadership is given. The Minister for Natural Resources has ordered a safety review and offered a mediator.

HAVING read Nick Folley’s letter headlined ‘Revisionist line on role of RIC challenged’ (Irish Examiner, January 4) I wish to make a few observations, with help from papers at the time.