IT IS rare enough that you find yourself mentioning Simon Coveney, Conor Cruise O’Brien and Jean-Marie Le Pen in the same sentence, but it happened last Monday. The trigger was Minister Coveney’s appearance on last Monday’s Six One News on RTE. He was there is

IT IS possible to categorise ministers into three distinct groups. The first are the high-flyers. These are the top performers who the public recognise and even like: the ones who party members hope may one day lead the party. The second group, the passengers, counterbalance

ONCE upon a time, governments used the Easter, summer and Christmas recesses to focus on implementing policies. Not this Government. Within days of the Dail finishing up for the Easter Break, the parties were sniping and attacking each other. Unsurprisingly, Labour’s Joan Burton was first

THREE years ago, this month, Roy Collins was shot in the back in his family’s pub and amusement arcade in the Roxboro Shopping Centre. As I wrote here at the time, “his killers — and the people who sent them — did more than gun

The conventional political wisdom is that a new government takes the tough actions in its first year or two so that the benefits will have started to appear in time for the next election. For whatever reason — be it confusion, lack of direction or

‘The real Limerick is represented by Shane Geoghegan, not by the people who killed him.” With these well-chosen and heartfelt words Eoghan Prendergast, the president of Shane’s rugby club Garryowen, spoke for the people of Limerick.  Over three years on from the horrific and brutal