The May miracle that injects €44.6m into creaking economy 

Austerity, Apple and America: what we all learned this week 

APPLE is the sexiest company on planet Earth. Its tax affairs are in the spotlight both because of Apple's sheer size, and also because political posturing against semiconductor companies would fall flat in the media.

Why do we regard an only child as lonely, demanding, spoilt and selfish? 

WHAT do Franklin D Roosevelt, Barack Obama, John Lennon, Mahatma Gandhi, Maria Sharapova and Natalie Portman have in common – apart from being successful, famous and stars in their fields? They are all only children.

It's tough being a woman TD in a Dail chamber run by the boys 

WITH just 25 women TDs in the Dail, it's perhaps unfair to expect the debate on the Protection of Life in Pregnancy Bill to be more feminised than it has been to date. Fortunately, women are well represented in the medical professionals informing the committee hearings. But female TDs with liberal credentials appear reluctant to speak up. Conservative women have no such qualms.

Neutral? I don't care. I'm invading you anyway. 

I decided to tune into the Eurovision the other night and took great pleasure in informing my rather elitist younger brother, who would be appalled by such a thought.

Time for joined-up thinking to help councils 

N ATIONAL politics is all about spin, about message management, about pushing through big-ticket items that often have little to do with the lives of the country's citizens. For example, on the order of business in the Dail today was the Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill. Important, yes, but it won't get your bins collected.

Shatter would be first to stick the boot in if it were on the other foot 

ALAN Shatter has landed himself in a right mess and it's entirely of his own making. Tempting as it might be to cite Albert Reynolds's line about how, in politics, you trip up over the little hurdles, it doesn't even apply here.

Our neutrality in WWII put women 20 years behind on emancipation 

Since Alan Shatter stewarded through the Dail the pardon for (and apologies to) those Irish soldiers who had joined the Allies during World War II, the question of our neutrality in 1939-45 has again been raised in the public realm.

Champs to chumps – let's face music and forsake this painfest 

Cringe. The annual Eurovision Song Contest post-mortem is under way, and it is even more depressing this year given our dismal performance in Malmo on Saturday night. Oh the pain of coming 'Paddy last'.

Focus on youth starting to pay off for resurgent Cavan 

There have not been many great days for Cavan senior football teams in recent times but yesterday was certainly one of them.

Rate 'trap' denies us a functioning housing market 

GOT a tracker? Stay put, don't move, even if you need to relocate.

More than one message in apparition at Knock 

A FEW weeks ago, when some TDs allegedly felt threatened by excommunication over abortion, Rev Eoin De Bhaldraithe, of the Cistercian Abbey at Moone, wrote a lucid letter to the Irish Times, explaining why those who voted for abortion – as distinct from those who directly carried one out – were not liable for excommunication.

Sex victims see price of craven unwillingness to face facts 

I was listening last Thursday morning to the BBC's flagship news programme, Today, when I lost my rag and began shouting at the radio about pusillanimity.

PAC draws blood from top cop 

'What the xxxx," asked the wag on Twitter, "is Sir Alec Guinness doing at the Dail's Public Accounts Committee?"

Shatter conduct blights justice system 

Last week, Alan Shatter, Minister for Justice, couldn't stop himself from behaving peculiarly. If we had a Taoiseach who cared about such matters, the minister would be in deep trouble. As it is, I doubt his behaviour will have any comeback.

A new political party is needed to serve the battered under-45s 

WHEN did the last person in receipt of an American Civil War pension die? Bear in mind that the American Civil War ended in 1865. The answer to the question is 2001. The recipient was the widow of a civil war veteran. He was very old when she married him in the 1920s and she was very young. She inherited his veterans' pension after he died.

Dail watchdog McGuinness must apply high standards to himself 

JOHN McGuinness, the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, has long been happy to be portrayed as the Steve Silvermint of Irish politics: the cool, clean hero tackling waste, excess, mismanagement and inefficiency in the public sector; a straight talker who pulled no punches and avoided no toes that required stepping on.

Jailed for not paying your TV licence? You've got to be joking 

You know what, I'm sick of it. I'm just bloody sick of it. No, I'm not referring to the bankers who drove us to ruin. Or the voracious speculators who gambled against the house and now want us to cover their losses.

There's an elephant in room as Croke Park is raised from dead 

AS Croke Park II gets a reboot, with optimism advancing gingerly that a deal might be struck, here is a question that perplexes me: who is safeguarding the taxpayers' interests?

Coveney lands a big one as ban on the dumping of fish now in sight 

EU Fishery policy has been aptly described as the "apportioning of misery". The experts believe that two-thirds of EU waters are over-fished, too many boats chase too few fish, and the industry is in retreat, with huge job losses in fishery intensive economies like Spain.

Ingrained inertia will kill off any attempt at meaningful reform 

ABOUT 10 years ago, I shared a radio studio on the late-lamented Sam Smyth programme with Mary Hanafin when she was a junior minister responsible for children – a brief that encompassed the departments of Education, Justice and Social Protection.

Five more years! Five more years! 

The news that Michael O'Leary will stay at the helm of Ryanair for another five years has provoked a predictable response in some circles – a bizarrely ungrateful mixture of scorn and contempt for both the man and his incredible aviation success story.

The courage and wisdom of a young man who refused to give up on life 

LIFE is short. Tragically for some, life is far too short. Donal Walsh only got 16 years on this earth, but the impact he made in this short space of time was phenomenal.

Well it kinda goes with the package, in fairness 

Abortion is once more back at its rightful place of destroying the national conversation and Irish politicians are worried that they are faced with the ultimate ecclesiastical red card – excommunication from the Catholic Church, if they vote for the proposed Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill.

Scandal of vulnerable children who have fallen through cracks 

AFTER so much controversy about the rights of the unborn, it was timely to see the body politic turn its attention to born children this week. Not for the first time, the plight of children in trouble with the law and in need of detention or protection rose to the top of the agenda. This time it was Ms Justice Ann Ryan who made it her business and ours to point out that she had nowhere to place juveniles in need of detention and rehabilitation following sentence.

Our €20bn social welfare black hole is a mystery beyond comprehension 

THE space elevator is a science-fiction standard. Like teleporters, laser guns and green-skinned ladies with a twinkle in their eyes, space elevators are part of the sci-fi cannon.

Kevin McAleer has made us all think through laughter 

KEVIN McAleer's three-part series Our Friends in the North finished on RTE last Monday. The films followed the personal journey of the famous Tyrone stand-up comic, who comes from a Catholic nationalist background, to find out more about the culture and traditions of his near neighbours, the Ulster-Scots Presbyterians. It was one of the best things I have seen on television for some time.

Where will we be without the bankers? 

IT'S not all bad news. Sometimes, it's like the country is on a downward spiral into permanent stagnation. But, occasionally there's some really good news. For instance, have you heard that Goldman Sachs, the controversial cabal of international bankers, is pulling out of the International Financial Services Centre? Reliable sources say Goldman Sachs doesn't want to do business in this country anymore. Whoopee!

Aaah! There's a whiff of pork that may end austerity rations 

THE smell of pork is in the air – that most delicious of dishes when politicians hand out cash to those they hope will assist them, or those who frighten them most.

Somers' season at Planet Plutocrat 

I RARELY meet bank directors these days. David Duffy, the 10- grand-a-week boss at AIB refuses to return my calls. I spot distant Bank of Ireland directors, like Richie Boucher, high on the platform at their AGMs.

Little risk of queen going Dutch and bowing out 

Royal watchers are in a bit of a frenzy over Queen Elizabeth's future. Might she be planning to abdicate?

We're being seduced by property porn again – will we ever learn? 

David McWilliams

LAST week the "glossy brigade" was out in force. Papers were full of bright, impossibly blue skies, over "imposing" homes many of which "boasted" this feature or that attribute. Yes, the glossy brigade, Ireland's property pornographers, who pedal lifestyle fetishes to the middle classes are back at a newspaper close to you.

Endless winter of our discontent and the crazy ideology of global warming 

I KNOW it's springtime, because my frostbitten foot just fell off. I lost half my nose on the day of the vernal equinox, in this era of Official Global Warming. I am now down to my last thigh, one arm, and a nostril, and am typing this with my forehead. Forgive the spealing. 2013 seems to have lasted forever. Is it 2014 yet? No? Ah: how long to go? Nine months? You and I, we could make a baby in that time. You fancy one? No, me neither.

Right! To the gripe mobile! 

If there's one thing we love, love, love about being Irish, it's having deep and meaningful conversations about the so-called 'national psyche' and how it impacts on all of us.

A long weekend of motions and emotions 

Friends I have in the media sometimes tell me I should be a bit more emotional at times, but they got a rude awakening at The Venue in Derry City at about 1.35 on Saturday afternoon. That was the moment when the large screen giving the result of the vote on what was known for months as the black card flashed up in lights and there in green was the startling figure 71.8.

Graffiti for the masses 

Let's be honest with each other for a minute here – there ain't a whole hell of a lot we can do about what's going on right now.