Economic recovery - School plans blocked by ineptitude

EVEN though too many of life’s great charms are overshadowed, for the moment at least, by an unrelentingly dismal economic situation it is cheering that the European Commission believes we will overcome our difficulties and eventually return to being something more like a functioning society and economy.

It may not be entirely consoling but it is the kind of encouragement needed right now.

Speaking to the Oireachtas European Affairs committee yesterday morning Internal Markets Commissioner Michel Barnier — who succeeded one of the great and unrepentant architects of our downfall, Charlie McCreevy — said: “I see light at the end of the tunnel.”