If Roisín Shortall stands her ground it will create a political problem for Labour of far greater significance than the issues relating to health service reform. By Eoin Ó Broin.

The very public row between Minister for Health James Reilly and Minister of State with responsibility for Primary Care Roisín Shortall is about more than personalities. It is also about more than decision-making processes and policy choices within the Department of Health.

We need some discussion of the fact that all the main economic indicators are going south. But what we get instead are wall-to-wall demands that the Government cut €75 million in public sector allowances. By Michael Taft.

Below is a translation of an interview with Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras, conducted by Eduardo Febbro and originally published in the Argentinian newspaper Página/12 on Wednesday 19 September.

Has no one told Enda Kenny of the plans afoot in Europe to end even a pretence of Irish sovereignty? By Vincent Browne.

Aside from his inspirational vision of making Ireland "the best little country in the world in which to do business" (is that aspiration borrowed from the 1916 Proclamation?), Taoiseach Enda Kenny's other grand design for Ireland is to recover its "economic sovereignty".

Over a quarter of the labour force is currently either unemployed or under-employed. Combine that with the EU Commission finding that there are approximately 28 unemployed per job vacancy, and you have a real crisis. By Michael Taft.

 The lo-fi celebratory capitalism of The Gathering - carefully calibrated to win broad appeal by tapping into reservoirs of local pride - comes precisely at a time when its opposite number, disaster capitalism, is busily taking advantage of economic turmoil to ensure that when the dust settles, established power remains unchallenged. By Mark Cullinane and Eoin O'Mahony.

Arguably, it is in its role in the continuing subjugation of women that the media is at its most insidious. By Vincent Browne.

There is more to the publication of the topless photographs of Kate Middleton than the breach of her privacy or the hilarity of a long-time dedicated porn pusher, Richard Desmond, finding a principle here, or Independent News and Media (INM), publisher of the Sunday Independent and the Sunday World, suspending an editor on ethical grounds.

Whatever about pensioners, there is definitely one group which has come through this crash with their incomes intact and then some: management and professionals, particularly in the industrial sector. By Michael Taft.

Minister of State Brian Hayes is on safari, looking for big game to hunt down. Who does he have in his sights?

One of the reasons why we are stuck with the same politics and the same old codgers - in spite of ongoing austerity and deepening inequality - is because the Irish left is a joke. By Vincent Browne.

Four years ago this month, Paul Tansey died suddenly while playing tennis with Shane Ross. Paul had been a brilliant economics commentator first with the Irish Times, then with the Sunday Tribune (where I got to know him in the mid-1980s), and finally again with the Irish Times.

Dutch and German politicians like to blame Greece for refusing to stick to the agreements — but, in truth, the Greeks are doing more than they should. By Ingeborg Beugel.