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Pope takes steps to real contrition

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Pope Benedict has taken an important first step in what will be a long road of reconciliation between his church and the Irish people. His pastoral letter, which will be read in Roman Catholic churches across Ireland today, is far from being an adequate response to the suffering caused by his church in recent decades, but it is a start. He recognises the grave errors of his bishops and tells the victims of abuse that their "trust has been betrayed and [their] dignity has been violated".

Sport is vital in the face of hardship

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 10:13:58 +0000

THANK God for sport. In the middle of an economic recession that shows no sign of abating, we need a circus even if we have no bread. Ireland's attempt to deliver a fifth Triple Crown in seven years may have fallen at the final hurdle, but it has been an exceptional week of sporting spectacle. From the glories of Cheltenham, to some European football matches of outstanding quality and drama and Padraig Harrington's return to top form in America, sport has provided much needed distraction from the real world.

A display of utter contempt

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

PASSPORT Office workers' treatment of the public, whom they are supposed to serve, has been extremely ignorant and ill-mannered. There were angry scenes and a brief sit-in at the Dublin office yesterday when the counters were closed abruptly as people who had queued for hours waited to collect their passports.

Can mere words restore faith?

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 07:43:08 +0000

CAN mere words, even those of the leader of the Catholic Church, undo the damage that has been done to victims of clerical child abuse and restore any of the Irish church's lost authority? Today we will learn the contents of the Pope's long-awaited letter to the Catholics of Ireland.

Shame shrouded in secrecy

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

IT turns out that secrecy clauses which bind the victims of clerical rape to silence were not confined exclusively to the distant past. It has been argued that in the Ireland of 35 years ago consciences were guided by different values.

Pointless escape from reality

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:37:38 +0000

IT is not at all clear that enough is being done about the proliferation of so-called head shops. The sight of long queues of people seeking to buy drugs, and not for medicinal purposes, is pathetic. It may yet become a symbol of a miserable society bereft of morale, just as pictures of soup queues conveyed the despair of the Great Depression.

Hurt, humility and arrogance

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

CARDINAL Brady's dignified and contrite public appeal for time and space to reflect on reaction to his role in the 1975 handling of two abuse cases by a serial paedophile was in contrast to provocative comments by his most vociferous defender, Mgr Maurice Dooley.

No flinching from tough decisions

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:05:38 +0000

JUST as we think we are plodding nicely along in the economic stakes, the spoilsport European Commission calls a stewards' inquiry and instructs us to use more whip.

Grasp nettle on sex abuse now

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

THE children who were sworn to secrecy in the presence of the then Fr Sean Brady were effectively being threatened with eternal hellfire if they broke the oath and told anyone about the "internal inquiry" into Brendan Smyth's abuse.

A spot check on the basics

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:19:36 +0000

THE question is being posed: why is it that children enter primary school full of love for learning but too often lose it along the way? Something happens following the transition from primary to secondary school and the end result is not good. A report has found that pupils make less effort in first and second year because their Junior Cert seems a lifetime away, so why bother?

No dig-outs for book-man Bertie

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:28:36 +0000

BERTIE Ahern always prided himself on his modest lifestyle and his penury, alleviated by "dig-outs" from his friends. In retirement, he does not have to worry about money.

Living in era of negative equity

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

ONE in three mortgage holders could be in negative equity, the dismal situation in which the mortgage exceeds the value of the property, by the end of this year. The number of households affected could reach 196,000.

When no one is accountable

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 08:13:12 +0000

MARY Harney was of course quite right when she said she could not be held responsible for every unopened letter in Tallaght Hospital. But someone has to be responsible for something, and in the Irish health service nobody seems to be accountable for anything.

A cardinal under pressure

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

UNTIL very recently, public questioning of past actions by the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland would have bordered on the unthinkable. Even farther outside the realms of possibility would have been calls for his resignation.

A health system unfit for purpose

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

The revelations from Tallaght Hospital over the past week have been deeply shocking. It is still not clear whether the management at the hospital was so dysfunctional that it had no idea of the scale of the problems it faced.

Marriages fall into the web

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:34:05 +0000

PEOPLE who blame the internet for the breakdown of their marriage should google 'denial'. The counselling service, Accord, reports that one in seven of its clients have experienced problems because of a spouse's online misbehaviour.

Some signs of hope on talks

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

THE stark choices facing the country were neatly summed up by the general secretary of the ICTU, David Begg, as government officials and public service unions agreed to start talking to each other.

Action, not words, needed on banks

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:05:17 +0000

THE new head of Financial Regulation, Mathew Elderfield, talks a great fight. He says the banks need to believe in the threat of enforcement and he is going to set up a special investigations unit to police the sector.

Two-tier system is real scandal

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

THE Tallaght Hospital scandal is a riddle wrapped in an enigma. The riddle is how such a massive dereliction of duty could have occurred. The enigma is the HSE.

X-ray questions need answering

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:31:03 +0000

CONTRARY to the Taoiseach's insistence that there is no question of an attempt to cover up the Tallaght Hospital X-ray scandal, various attempts to keep the public in the dark have emerged.

Faith in our rail safety eroded

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:29:58 +0000

PURE good fortune saved hundreds of rail passengers from certain death or terrible injury as the viaduct just outside Malahide station on the main Dublin/Belfast line collapsed last August. Had their train plunged into the estuary, the disaster would have been one of the worst in the history of the State.

Losing hope in political system

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:23:26 +0000

REFORM of the Dail. Now there's a novel suggestion. The Ombudsman has declared the Dail impotent because TDs and senators slavishly follow the line dictated by their party whips.

Patients at risk of misdiagnosis

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

THE disclosure of fatal systemic and procedural failures at Tallaght Hospital is all the more surprising and upsetting for the fact that most people had assumed the litany of health scandals had come to an end.

Marking women's day

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:09:51 +0000

A husband was heard approaching his wife on the need for International Women's Day. Her reply was that as men had appropriated the other 364 out of every year, the answer should be obvious.

Blinkers and brinkmanship

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

WHEN immovable objects encounter irresistible forces, progress is an unlikely outcome. The current stand-off between the Government and the unions is a case in point. There is merit on both sides and each have argued their positions coherently.

Beware of Greek follies

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:46:30 +0000

GREAT country, Greece -- an example to us all. Such, at least, would appear to be the view of the public sector trade unions.

Heads must roll over greed

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

SHOCKING, but not exactly surprising, is the first reaction to the news of the extraordinary extravagance of the former board of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA).

All workers must face harsh reality

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

While the public sector unions increase their campaign against last December's pay cuts, a similar showdown is unfolding at Aer Lingus, the formerly State-owned airline.

Crucial times for Aer Lingus

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 10:17:07 +0000

BAD news on the double for Aer Lingus as cabin crew rejected a €97m cost-reduction programme and long-haul passenger figures for February showed yet another slump.

School plan not thought through

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

NOT long ago, as preparations for the reduction of the number of primary schools under the patronage of Catholic bishops began, a wise man warned that change would need to be thought through carefully.

Stepping up to the marks

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:49:05 +0000

THE Education Minister says he is confident that there is no 'grade inflation' at Leaving Cert level and that there is nothing suspicious about Irish universities awarding far more first-class honours than their UK counterparts, other than that it is a "complex issue".

Caring for the most vulnerable

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

IN the course of a tense Dail debate on the issue of non-publication of reports on children who had died while in the care of the State, there were accusations that people were playing politics with these human tragedies. Inevitably, by its nature, the State's treatment of children must be political, especially when deaths are involved.

Greens and the tweeter teaser

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 07:50:32 +0000

The Green Party, or at any rate its chairman, seems to favour the tweeter teaser rather than megaphone diplomacy in communicating with the public and, probably deliberately, it does so at the expense of clarity.

How the system failed Tracey

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

THE concern of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs for the sensitivities of the parents of Tracey Fay would be admirable were it not for the fact that details of a massive failure of child protection agencies might never have come to light had Alan Shatter not launched his "ambush", as the minister described it, and released the report on Tracey's life and death.

A very bad day for the bishop

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:17:47 +0000

AFTER all that has been said and done, it is utterly incomprehensible that a Catholic bishop in charge of an Irish diocese, which has been plagued by sex abuse scandals and cover-ups, should be so blissfully unaware of the resonances his request to parishioners to help fund compensation would have.