The disagreement between Sinn Féin and the SDLP on the acceptability of MI5 ignores the nature of that organisation and the immunity from accountability it enjoys. By Eamon McCann

Intellectual, hard-nosed and even more right-wing than his party leader, DUP MEP Jim Allister is leading the internal revolution against Ian Paisley and the St Andrew's agreement. By Fionola Meredith

For the first time, Gerry Adams outlines in detail his negotiations with the Irish government on the release of the killers of Jerry McCabe; how this was formally agreed; how Michael McDowell was to fly to Limerick to inform Ann McCabe; and how at the time of the Good Friday Agreement Bertie Ahern gave an explicit assurance on the release of these men

We write as doctors with extensive experience working  in the public sector. We write out of frustration and anguish on behalf of patients and of our health service. We believe that the sustained attack on the public health system, both by constant criticism, and the withholding of essential funds for infrastructural development, is damaging to our entire society. 

Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin of SaveTara has written to Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Dick Roche, and the Taoiseach regarding the works being undertaken on behalf of the National Roads Authority / Meath County Council along the section of the proposed route of the M3 motorway in the Gabhra Valley, near the Hill of Tara in Co Meath.

The US is to send a surge of troops to Iraq while Britain has effectively decided to withdraw. One can hardly imagine a bigger divergence in the two countries' approach to the war. Incredibly, Bush still refuses to contemplate the reality of Iraq: that the whole adventure has been a bloody catastrophe which has set a flame under a powder keg and has significantly undermined the credibility of any future western intervention in the region.

Colin Murphy on Aidan Dooley's one-man show, Tom Crean: Antarctic Explorer

The blatherers: Henry and Ryan

Henry Kelly was a fine journalist. We worked together in Belfast in the early-1970s. Henry was a superb news reporter and a colourful writer. Douglas Gageby (the celebrated editor of the Irish Times) thought highly of him and Henry might have been in contention for the editorship when Gageby first retired in 1974.

Geraldine Finucane, widow of murdered solicitor Pat Finucane, talks to Justine McCarthy about meeting her husband for the first time, why he was shot, and the death threats made against her during her 18 year campaign for an inquiry into what happened

The candidature of Mairead McGuinness in Louth and, more particularly, a secret lavish fund-raising function in Dublin's Four Seasons Hotel are likely to cause further embarrassment to Fine Gael and Enda Kenny. By Frank Connolly and Vincent Browne