In a summer where we seem to be fishing the bodies of young men out of rivers and canals with alarming frequency, there is surprisingly little debate about our paradoxical relationship with alcohol.

Cards on the table - I gave up drinking a few years ago after a young Wicklow man who was here in Stockholm to celebrate St Patrick’s Day drowned in an accident.

As is normal in Irish communities around the world, there was a lot of drinking done that weekend, and in truth it could have been any of us.

Irish tax rates are average, but we fall down badly on social insurance. We need a revolution in insuring society. By Michael Taft.

If the administration of justice in public is essential to the maintenance of a democratic state, then clearly the stability of the state would be supported by making access to what is happening in courts easier by having cases broadcast on television. By Vincent Browne.

The expectation that the silly season will end abruptly with the trial of Seán FitzPatrick and his co-accused is mistaken.

The Government's Personal Insolvency Bill, while providing some positives, favours the rights of creditors, banks and lending institutions. By Patrick Nulty, TD.

At the end of June this year there were a staggering 83,251 homes with mortgage arrears of more than 90 days. This represents 10.9% of all homes with mortgages. Of these 65,698 homes were in arrears of more than 180 days. This is the equivalent of 8.6% of the total stock.

My school day, over eleven years, was filled with drawing, knitting and sewing. Various therapies, such as speech and language, occupational therapy and physical therapy were also part of that day. Travellers were automatically assumed to have a cognitive and cultural disability. The segregated syllabus didn’t include languages, maths, history or the Irish language – all mandatory subjects in mainstream education. By Rosaleen McDonagh.

The political structure in Ireland is an absurdity. In practice, the Oireachtas takes almost no decisions, aside from the Dáil electing a taoiseach. By Vincent Browne.

Shortly after Michael Noonan became Minister for Finance in March 2011, he gave an interview to the Limerick Leader in which he expressed his belief that the minister for finance could defy the taoiseach of the day because the position of minister for finance was mentioned in the Constitution.

As part of a genuinely free and accessible education system, from pre-primary to fourth level, the student grant system should be open to all students, regardless of means. By Paul Murphy.

In so far as we can imagine what Michael Collins might have wished for, it is likely he would wonder what the struggle for independence was about, since we have given away so much of it, so casually. By Vincent Browne.

On 24 May 2012, 23 former workers of the Vita Cortex manufacturing plant in Cork left their former plant after a six-month sit-in protest. Their protest had already lead to a compromise deal to resolve the dispute earlier in the month, in what was one of the longest sit-in protests in Irish industrial history. The workers had to take extraordinary measures to enforce their rights and they were not the only ones to find themselves fighting for what they considered was fair recompense after being made redundant.

Julian Assange has been granted asylum in Ecuador, two months after he sought refuge at its London embassy. But this doesn’t mean he can escape arrest in the UK for violating his bail conditions. 

Assange risks arrest as soon as he leaves the embassy building – which he will have to do in order to get to the airport and hence to Ecuador.

Nor does remaining in the embassy guarantee the Wikileaks founder immunity from prosecution.