We have the resources to deal with all our problems. All we need is the political will to use them. By Vincent Browne.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has started the season on a positive note, which we all might try to emulate in 2013.

He said at the turn of the new year that 2013 would be the "year of recovery" and that the Irish presidency of the EU would bring "new hope" to people in the midst of the economic crisis.

Is there a significant moral difference between killing and letting die? By Vincent Browne.

Enda Kenny was afforded some further ammunition to target Sinn Féin by the recent revelations about Dessie Ellis, the Sinn Féin TD for Dublin North West, who certainly has questions to answer about the number of people killed or maimed via the bombs he assembled or helped to assemble during the decades of the Northern Ireland conflict.

The public’s trust in politicians and politics can be restored, but only if politicians act to earn that trust. By Eoin Ó Broin.

The public outpouring of self-pity by politicians during the Christmas holidays would make you think that it’s a hard life being a TD and even harder being a Minister.

Is higher taxation a bar to high investment levels? Obviously not - otherwise Ireland would be a league leader. By Michael Taft.

The Government seems to have done a U-turn on the issue of tax exiles. Despite the Programme for Government’s commitment on the issue, the Sunday Business Post reports that following an avalanche of submissions from the likes of the American Chamber of Commerce, etc. the Minister for Finance looks to do nothing. Why? Because it would undermine investment.

The Irish newspaper industry has realised there's easy money to be made from declaring war on its own online readership. By David Johnson.

Stop me if you've heard this one, "What's black and white and red all over?"

If you answered, "The Irish newspaper industry, which is only scarleh after yet another humiliating fiasco in which they displayed an appalling ignorance and lack of understanding over the basic concepts of the internet," then well done, gold star for you.

There is little prospect of this wretched government losing office in 2013, but there is quite a prospect of defections, humiliations and betrayals, starting with abortion. By Vincent Browne.

Fine Gael's indifference to the promises it, and its leader, made on abortion is matched by its indifference to integrity.

That the promises made were ignorant and silly is immaterial.

Increasingly, social welfare in Ireland is moving towards the model of the workhouse. By Tom Boland.

Populism can be progressive or reactionary, democratic or authoritarian. But it is always a challenge to the status quo and is most powerful when a political or economic system is in crisis. By Eoin Ó Broin.

In his end of year review Sunday Business Post political editor Pat Leahy described Sinn Féin’s opposition to austerity in 2012 as “aggressive and populist”.

His description is one that has a broad currency among political commentators.

As a new year of political guff and spoofery dawns, we should forget Swedish-style taxes or childcare – what Ireland really needs is Swedish-style politicians. By Philip O'Connor.

Both Fine Gael and Labour are as one in their determination to expel from their ranks any parliamentarian who votes in accordance with the pledges on which those two parties sought and obtained their mandates. By Vincent Browne.

Enda Kenny has reiterated that there will be no free vote on the abortion legislation which is to be introduced in the Dáil early next year.