A constant whinge from senators is that the Seanad has wonderful and insightful debates that are never reported by the media, and thus the public never get to learn how brilliant and necessary the Seanad is for democracy.

YOUR editorial (April 15) on ghost estates continues the “build it and they will come” mentality of the housing boom.

LAST year the Dáil did better than in previous years by sitting for 100 days, while the House of Commons sat for 142 days.

A promising boxer who joined the Irish army after an injury to his hand put an end to his sporting career has been jailed for four years after he was caught in possession of a 9mm calibre revolver.

THE new year is just a fortnight old and many more Irish workers find themselves out of a job.

DURING his budget speech, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan mentioned protecting the most vulnerable six times and then proceeded to screw the elderly, sick, disabled and the young.

CLLR Bronwen Maher of the Green party (Letters, July 17) says that “one of the key findings of the recent European Commission survey among those who voted no to the Lisbon Treaty was a concern to safeguard Irish neutrality”.

SIX men charged with conspiring to steal almost €1 million from a cash-in-transit vehicle last Friday were remanded in custody yesterday.

DOES the proposed children’s rights referendum really protect children, or is the archaic legalese wording designed to confuse us into thinking it does?

IT is the third week of January and while most of us are back at work, our TDs are still on holiday. They claim to work hard, so how do they compare with, say, MPs in Britain?

WHILE some people have tried to justify Bertie Ahern’s actions by saying he was in debt, we shouldn’t begrudge him for having such generous friends in a time of need.

I BELIEVE Verona Ní Bhroinn, PRO for the Houses of the Oireachtas (‘All in the line of duty,’ Irish Examiner letters, February 9), completely missed the point in her response to my letter headlined ‘TDs and MPs: how they rate’ (Letters, February 1).

I WOULD like to welcome our TDs back to work. It must be great to have a job with a six-week Christmas holiday.

Anyone who watches enough Hollywood films knows that the government agent who claims to be defending “national security” is always the baddie.

A PRIVATE nursing bed can cost €50,000, but it costs nearly €100,000 to look after a prisoner.

Dangerous drugs stolen from a doctors surgery in Swords, Co Dublin, on Tuesday have been recovered.

The father of a four-year-old girl killed after the car she was travelling in was struck by a truck has described how he contemplated suicide in a desperate bid to "hold his little girl again".

SO the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has no hard evidence of who is on the IRA army council.

A spot-on house is how auctioneer, Conor Lynch describes No 18 Finisk in the Rivervalley scheme in Mallow, Co Cork. Just over a year old and in excellent condition, the house is an extra large semi and has above standard fittings.