US decision to renew executions appalling

Capital punishment is one of the lines dividing countries in today’s world. Countries that execute citizens after convicting them of something or other fall into one category. The countries that no longer assume the right to punish a citizen by taking their life fall into another. We are, thankfully, in the latter, as are all EU states. It is impossible for any country that permits capital punishment to join the EU.

It is 65 years since Ireland last executed someone, a man convicted of rape and murder. It is unimaginable, despite understandable, if ill-conceived knee-jerk reactions after a litany of murders during the North’s Troubles, that this State will allow capital punishment again.