The birds aren't all gone! There are plenty of avian visitors who just love our soft winter weather, says Éanna Ní Lamhna

The power of Prime Time Investigates is that it forces the government to respond to issues such as care of the elderly and, more recently, mental-health facilities for young people

Nicky Kelly skipped the country after he was wrongly charged of involvement in the Sallins mail-train robbery in the 1970s. He tells Justine McCarthy about his time on the run, his abuse at the hands of gardaí, his political ambitions and his severe allergy to Clairol hair dye

The Week in Politics is stuck in a dull formula but this week's One to One, on which Richard Crowley interviewed Ben Dunne, showed some star quality often missing on RTÉ television

There must remain a scepticism that the powersharing deal involving the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin will actually happen next March. And the essential reason is that for too many on the unionist side, accepting Sinn Fein – the political manifestation of the IRA which murdered so many in their community – is for now a step too far

Government has refused to investigate CIA flights through Irish airports and has rejected Irish Human Rights Commission's advice on renditions. By Justine McCarthy

Ian Paisley faces a delicate political balancing act if devolved government is to be restored in the North, without isolating fundamentalist DUP voters. By Alan Murray 

Those self-congratulatory media reports of Mary Robinson's praise for Ireland in combating global violence against women did not convey the whole truth of what the former president said.

A  Cork city council meeting ended in disorder and was adjourned by the chairman on 27 November after a councillor refused to withdraw comments comparing An Garda Síochána's behaviour at the Shell protests in Mayo to that of the B-specials in the North and Thatcher's militarised police force during the 1980s mining protests.

Michael D Higgins despises Margaret Thatcher as much as ever, struggles to see the ‘brilliance' of Michael McDowell and finds the dealings of Pat Rabitte and Enda Kenny ‘fairly daft'. Justine McCarthy meets Labour's Limerick-born literatus as he prepares to publish his ‘revealing' new book