Let's replace petty arguments over an extra fiver with an attempt to make the world a better place

We watch on as Aleppo, the third oldest city in the world, is blown into oblivion while our Dail chamber argues over who should get credit for an extra fiver on the pension. It makes you wonder what sort of world we live in, writes Fergus Finlay.

YOU’D really wonder sometimes what kind of a world we’re living in, wouldn’t you? At home we’re playing games about the politics of nothing. In the US they’re involved in a politics that is becoming more and more bizarre by the day. And in the meantime, in Syria, there’s a politics of brutality beyond human imagining that the rest of the world, involved as it is in its games, is powerless to even speak about.

And we spend all our time, and all our emotional energy, worrying about five euro on the old age pension and Donald Trump.