It is the 1940s. The war is having little effect on nine year old Bruno, who lives in a cocoon of privilege in a select suburb of Berlin. Then his father, one of the new elite in the army, is prompted by Hitler, and the family is forced to leave Berlin for a dreary rural area that Bruno mispronounces as 'Out-With'.

The Dáil sub-committee on Dáil reform rarely meets, there are no minutes of its meetings and its last report was in 1997. Frustrated with lack of change and participation, Fine Gael and Labour have unveiled a short programme of reforms to 'make the Dáil more effective'. Muiris MacCarthaigh assesses their proposals

We should have known the guy was not really a bad-boy, tattooed "It's time to throw down" brawler when he had to bring his mom on the Larry King show to protect him.

Despite what some bleating lawyers will tell you, when Majella Holohan took the stand in Ennis last week, she did the state and our legal system a favour. By overstepping what she was supposed to say and asking a series of unanswered questions about the killing of her son, Majella Holohan has at last forced debate on the direction sentencing is taking for serious criminal crime.

Press reports since the Wayne O'Donoghue sentencing have been characterised by contradictory, intrusive and libellous claims about O'Donoghue, and have repeatedly relied on unnamed Garda sources to advance claims that he was a sex abuser. Colin Murphy reports

The over-publicised and much-leaked report from the Independent Monitoring Commission will strengthen the DUP's resolve not to share power with Sinn Féin. Colm Heatley reports

There was a strong opposition from Siptu to the exploitation of migrant workers in Ireland at their special delegate conference on 31 January 2006, held in the Abbey theatre in Dublin. Shop stewards from around the country met to endorse a motion to participate in talks on a new national "social partnership" agreement. Evidence of much back-scene negotiations between union leadership and Government was evident in correspondence circulated to members.

(This is an edited version of a paper read to a SIPTU seminar on the Services Directive on 13 January 2006.)

Technology used in the trial of Wayne O'Donahgue is 'a very dangerous test.' By Colin Murphy

Lance Morrow explores two books' attempts to find a definitive answer to the question over the use of torture