When a taxi driver phoned the Irish Times in the middle of the night to report that the Stardust was on fire with lots of people inside, there was just one novice reporter on duty. She dropped everything and rushed to the scene. This is how successive editions of the paper reported the story throughout the night

Fresh from causing havoc on Newsnight with Jeremy Paxman on the BBC, Anjem Choudary – spokesman for al-Ghuraba, the group that mobilsed protesters in London who carried placards threatening suicide bombings and massacres in revenge for the Danish cartoons satirising the prophet Muhammad – appeared on The Eamon Dunphy Breakfast Show on Newstalk 106.

Aisling Reidy, the formidable executive director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties is going to an international posting, leaving the advocacy group all the more vulnerable. By John Byrne.

A new national mental health policy document, 'A Vision for Change', has just been released by the Department of Health and Children. But is this just another agenda of commitments again to be broken? By Siobhan Barry

The new editor of Radio 1, Ana Leddy, is an unknown quantity in RTÉ, but has been raising a storm in Derry for the past few years

'Your next musical choice is, 'How Much is that Doggie in the Window?'" says Myles Dungan in disbelief. "It's not one that I necessarily thought that anybody would choose." Particularly not when that person is allegedly "the most cunning, the most devious of them all", according to former Taoiseach Charles Haughey.

There has been some great radio comedy produced in Ireland over the last 20 years. Scrap Saturday, with Gerry Stembridge and Dermot Morgan, was brilliant. Stuart Carolan's Navan Man and Drunken Politician, formerly broadcast during Eamon Dunphy's stint hosting The Last Word on Today FM, were viciously funny and had an edge that simultaneously shocked and delighted.

One of the most original, funny bits of radio to be heard at the moment is Kids Talk on Moncrieff on Newstalk 106 (Monday – Friday, 2.30pm – 4.30pm). It features the show's reporter, Henry McKean, traveling around schools in Dublin and interviewing children between the ages of eight and 10.

Mary Coughlan has 'charmed and swore and flirted and cursed her way through' her time as Minister for Agriculture. She has been popular among farmers – until the recent WTO talks in Hong Kong. Profile by John Byrne

Much has been made this week of the view of Maureen Lynott, chair of the Catholic Church's working group on child protection, that its new policy goes beyond the requirements of Children First, the State's child protection guidelines. Children First was also the result of a process chaired by Lynott so her view has been seen as particularly relevant. However, it should be noted that Children First, which has yet to be fully implemented, is in itself significantly flawed.