The campaign for the children's referendum has been pretty dispiriting, marked by a lack of any real debate or engagement between the two sides.
It is hard not to feel some sympathy for Seán Quinn, a grandfather sent to prison for Christmas, while acknowledging that he is largely the author of his own misfortune.
The view of this newspaper on the Croke Park agreement has been stated fairly clearly in the past.
The job announcements by Kerry Group and Paddy Power were a big boost to the country last week - and one that was badly needed, with few enough other positive economic indicators.
The way the government is trying to manage the emergence of news about the forthcoming budget may be good politics, but it is bad economics.
James Reilly has spent almost three weeks trying to defuse a crisis that surfaced when it emerged he added two sites in his own constituency to a list of primary care centres.
Ruairí Quinn chooses to believe what reliable international indicators say about Irish educational standards rather than the conventional wisdom of the educational establishment.
The leadership of the country's massively expensive health service is a mess.
When is a deal not a deal? When, it would appear, it is written at 4am during a meeting of EU leaders.
In last week's paper, we argued that the Croke Park agreement was not delivering and needed to be scrapped. The past week bore out our position.
In the midst of a jobs crisis, the government should not do anything to add further unwarranted burdens to the costs of doing business here.
There is a complete lack of reality surrounding much of the recent debate on the Croke Park agreement.
At long last, there have been a good few weeks for Europe.
The fiasco surrounding the health cuts announced and then partially retracted is deeply worrying.
There is no doubt that, under Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank (ECB) has come a long way.
